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The 2020 U.S. elections were the most important since the Civil War and Reconstruction era, and the elections in 2022 promise to be even more momentous. They are happening in the midst of a social and constitutional crisis that has sharply escalated since 2020. Digital production of goods and services is changing the nature of work, forcing more and more people to fight just to be able to meet their basic needs. As a result, in less than two years, the ruling class has responded with the attempted coup of January 6, the coordinated state-by-state campaign against voting rights and the right to protest, the attack on the electoral process itself, and the judicial coup carried out by the U.S. Supreme Court culminating in its rulings of June 2022. While extremely dangerous, this crisis is also a great opportunity.
What is happening is the deepening progression of fascism and the destruction of democracy. Fascism is a process of the ruling class substituting one state form of class domination (electoral democracy) for another (violent dictatorship). It is a sign that the rulers are objectively on the defensive. The explosion of artificial intelligence, automation, and financialization is creating a society where workers are literally no longer needed to operate industry. A private property system based on maximizing profits cannot and will not support workers it no longer needs. But people cannot and will not allow government to deny their basic needs, life, and liberty without a battle. And history shows that when people become conscious and politically organized, they win what they are fighting for.
Rulers on the Defensive
In California, for example, billionaire executives and corporate media launched a massive campaign against San Francisco’s courageous reform district attorney, Chesa Boudin. By wildly exaggerating the crime rate and blaming Boudin for every social problem in the city, the media persuaded 55 percent of voters to recall him. In turn, it trumpeted this nationally as a repudiation of reimagining police and of the entire George Floyd rebellion of 2020.
The reality was completely different. In fact, progressive district attorneys won two other Bay Area elections and two corrupt sheriffs were thrown out by first-time candidates. In Oakland, opponents of school closures drove a school board member and the county school superintendent out of office, and Moms4Housing are fighting to determine the outcome of the November mayor’s race. Los Angeles prison abolitionist Eunisses Hernández defeated a longtime incumbent for a seat on the City Council as part of what the Los Angeles Times called a “progressive tidal wave.” Overall, progressives made astounding gains all across the country throughout the long primary season.
All these repressive laws and Supreme Court decisions are not just random attacks. They are part of a systematic effort to maintain ruling class power, privilege, and income by besieging American society. A look at the major pro-corporate, anti-democratic organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heritage Foundation reveals a comprehensive, unified economic and social agenda encompassing attacks on voting rights, abortion rights, religious freedom, environmental regulations, immigrant rights, gun control, “critical race theory,” and virtually every other issue affecting the basic needs of our people.
What this shows is that the rulers are not just attacking regulations and laws that challenge their bottom line. They are rolling out political tactics designed to misdirect, confuse, discourage, and vanquish any opposition of any kind.
Mass Uprising
The Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade in particular is so vile and tyrannical that it has sparked visceral resistance on a scale only beginning to be apparent. The imposition of forced pregnancy and denial of bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom are attempts to nullify constitutional protections much deeper than just the “right to privacy.” The court, state legislatures, and possibly Congress (if Republicans win in November), are seeking to reinstate forced reproduction reminiscent of chattel slavery. Banning abortion imposes the most degrading forms of second-class citizenship on women and pregnant people and forced religious compliance on anyone with a different religious view of when human life begins. Its aim is to suppress any and all independent thinking and paralyze resistance with religious fatalism.
The Roe v. Wade reversal is every bit as significant as the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision that provoked a mass uprising against the expansion of slavery, and ultimately led to the Civil War and its abolition. The role of revolutionaries in particular is to point out its class and racial impact. Half of those who receive abortions today are below the poverty line, including disproportionate numbers of African Americans. Denial of abortions prevents people from accessing education, forces them into teen motherhood and often into marriages that are harmful to them.
Fortunately, the defeatism preached by the media and Democratic Party leadership is not slowing the movement. On July 11, a coalition of reproductive freedom organizations in Michigan submitted 753,759 signatures on an initiative to guarantee the right to abortion services – by far the largest number of signatures ever collected in the state’s history. The August 2 Kansas primary vote was a spectacular landslide victory for reproductive justice. The Poor People’s Campaign released a “Seven Steps Before the Midterms” declaration promising not only massive voter mobilization but a September civil disobedience campaign to demand action to end poverty. The many organizations that led Georgia’s record voter mobilizations in 2018 and 2020 are gearing up for yet another campaign.
Although the forms of struggle are different, the lessons of the Civil War and Civil Rights eras remain true. It is imperative to vote, but not apart or aside from the battles in the streets. President Biden’s call to “vote, vote, vote” is clearly insufficient when corporations are moving to rig and/or overturn elections, and armed mobs are threatening elected officials. The periods leading up to and during the Civil War were characterized by alternating elections and armed clashes, and the revolutionaries advanced their cause when they fought in both, as they did in “Bleeding Kansas.” A century later, the Civil Rights Movement was comprised of boycotts, sit-ins, marches, legislation, direct action, voter registration drives, and rebellions in the streets.
The fight for democracy and for our basic needs calls for both electoral campaigns and any and every form of mass disobedience imaginable to stop the dictatorship. History has shown, and the victories of the worldwide revolutionary movement confirm that fascist dictatorships are unstable and destined to fall. As Dr. King said, “However difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you shall reap what you sow. How long? Not long.”
September/October 2022 vol.32. Ed5
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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