2004 elections: Democrats and the myth of lesser evilism

By JEFF MACKLER

"For the sake of peace, democracy, social justice and racial equality, George W. Bush must be defeated in 2004. We believe that he can be defeated and that the left, facing this unprecedented challenge, has a significant, even crucial role in achieving this objective."

With this introductory paragraph a number of prominent antiwar leaders, left intellectuals, reformist socialists, and trade-union officials initiated a petition last month addressed to "peace & social justice activists." It was entitled, "Bush Can Be Stopped: A Letter to the Left."

Initial signers include Leslie Cagan, co-chair, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice [UFPJ]; Noam Chomsky; Angela Davis; historian Henry Foner; Paul Friedman, first vice president, SEIU-1199; Bill Henning, vice president, Communication Workers of America (New York); Frank Llewellyn, national director, Democratic Socialists of America; Dr. Manning Marable, Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University; author Michael Parenti, and Pete Seeger.

"The forthcoming election is unlike any other in recent memory," their petition begins. "The Bush Administration, arguably the most right-wing in the nation's history, has sought to effect a qualitative change of frightening proportions in the conduct of the nation's foreign and domestic policies."

The letter’s authors seem to feel compelled to repeat the mantra utilized for decades to convince their audience that the Republican Party has a near-monopoly on reactionary politics and that the 2004 election will be a turning point in American history.

To make their case, they point out that the Bush White House “openly seeks world domination through military force and preemptive war—with Iran, North Korea, and Latin America now in its sights after Iraq. Its arrogant and reckless quest for a new U.S. empire is inflamed by a frightening fundamentalist religious zeal. ... The Bush Administration is conducting a cruel war on the poor while outrageously lining the pockets of its corporate supporters.

"Using its fraudulent 'war on terrorism' and playing on the public's fears after 9/11, the Bush Administration has savaged the rights of immigrants and foreign nationals, has fanned racism, conducted arrests without warrants, declared detainees 'enemy combatants' without the right to counsel and access to families, has vastly expanded spying on the public, and is now preparing an even more repressive Patriot Act II while packing the courts with compliant right-wing ideologues."

To counter Bush in 2004, the "Letter to the Left" urges that the progressive movement "actively support the Presidential candidate of their choice—even one who may not fully reflect their convictions, but who differs from the destructive policies of the present administration and is responsive to the demands of a growing grassroots movement for progressive change."

The petition's authors conclude, "Traditional debates on the left about the value of electoral politics and the lesser evil pale in light of the need to defeat Bush and his congressional accomplices."

"Pale" as these "traditional debates" may seem, a number are worth reviewing. Supporters of lesser-evilism, the notion that one should vote for the "lesser evil" capitalist party, the Democrats, when confronted with the greater evil Republicans, usually begin with a cataclysmic portrayal of the horrific deeds that will result from a Republican presidency.

In 1964, the "arch conservative" Barry Goldwater was thus counterposed to Lyndon Johnson, as was Richard Nixon to Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972, Ronald Reagan to Jimmie Carter in 1980, and George Bush Sr. to Bill Clinton in 1996.

Indeed, advocates of lesser-evil politics have been consistent in their approach for some five decades. In every instance they subordinate an analysis of the class or corporate forces behind capitalist political parties to an evaluation of the campaign statements of the contending candidates.

They substitute candidate newsbyte rhetoric for analysis of the deeper forces that determine U.S. policy. Politics are reduced to personalities and promises while social movements are advised to refrain from street demonstrations and “confrontational” struggles in order to apply their efforts to electing candidates for public office—supposedly the place where real decisions are made.

Real social change, however, has always been the product of mass forces in motion—working people, oppressed nationalities, and the youth. Civil rights and labor legislation were won in the course of these struggles, wrenched from the ruling rich and their government at great cost. The same held for the decade-long struggle to end the war in Vietnam.

In every instance, the government was compelled to bend to mass mobilizations that spanned many years, Their sheer power penetrated deeply into the consciousness of a generation. The ruling rich were forced to concede ground or face the consequences of even greater disaffection from the capitalist status quo. Lesser evilists ignore these fundamental principles, and with this, the fundamentals of social reality:

1) Both the Democrats and Republicans are the parties of the billionaire ruling rich. Together they constitute the political superstructure of an economic system, capitalism, that subordinates the interests of the vast majority to the profits of the few. The Democrats and Republicans are equally the parties of war, racism, poverty, environmental destruction, and all other social evils that are inherent in and necessary to the functioning of modern capitalist society.

2) Every major decision affecting the preservation of the capitalism system itself is a product of a bipartisan consensus, modified only under mass pressure from without.

3) Lesser evilism, the political policy wherein the Democratic Party is presented as the liberal or progressive wing of the twin capitalist parties is a carefully cultivated ideology designed to channel social discontent away of massive independent social struggles and into the framework of reforming capitalism.

The Democrats’ sordid record

It is worth recalling that Democrat Bill Clinton, not George Bush, presided over an administration that cut more social services than the combined presidencies of the three previous Republican presidents—Nixon, Reagan. and George Bush Sr. Clinton, not Bush, engineered the largest tax cut for the rich in U.S. history, $1.3 trillion in the last year of his administration.

Clinton supported the 1991 Iraq war and upon assumption to the presidency in 1992 maintained the murderous sanctions that took the lives of 1.5 million Iraqis. Clinton, trained at the highest levels of ruling-class think tanks, was the candidate of the military-industrial complex, "the best president corporate America ever had," according to The New York Times. Democrat Lyndon Johnson presided over the worst years of the Vietnam War, in which 4 million Vietnamese were slaughtered with weapons of mass destruction.

And Democrat Harry Truman presided over the dropping of the atomic bomb on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, incinerating 200,000 people. The McCarthy-era witchhunt was initiated by Democrat Truman, whose anti-communist purges of the trade unions and the infamous "Slave Labor" Taft-Hartley Act went unchallenged by either capitalist party for decades.

Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt presided over World War II. Some 44 million died in that imperialist conflagration, whose central objective was the redivision of the world into neo-colonial spheres of influence to advance the interests of the victors.

No Democrat in Congress voted against funds for the war against the Iraqi people. None challenged the imperialist wars against Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. Both parties negotiated their differences as to which section of corporate capital would benefit most when trillions of dollars in taxpayers’ money were dispensed to buttress their failing system.

In summary, both parties of U.S. capitalism, and their candidates, operate to advance the interests of their corporate masters. They are mere players in the national and global struggle for profits.

The reactionary policies of George Bush are a reflection of the deepening crisis of U.S. and world capitalism today as opposed to the personal malice and/or stupidity or blind arrogance and hate of Bush, the man. Had Al Gore assumed the presidency, there is little doubt that his policies would not have differed qualitatively.

Like Clinton, Gore might have accomplished the same ends with a smile and liberal political facade. But the allocation of billions and trillions of dollars to help save a flagging capitalist system, less and less able to effectively compete on massively saturated world markets, would have been fundamentally the same.

Gearing-up for the lesser evil

The most recent example of a major organization involved in challenging U.S. Iraq policy shifting gears to mobilize its forces to promote a 2004 Democratic Party challenge to George Bush is United For Peace and Justice.

On Feb. 15, 2003, UFPJ organized 500,000 people in New York City in an historic rally to Bring the Troops Home Now! The same group today, headed by Leslie Cagan, is finalizing its "UFPJ 2004 Campaign," which urges social movements to begin with "voter pledges seeking to positively influence the electoral process" as well as "working in the coming weeks and months to build voter registration and mobilization, ... encouraging local peace, justice, and community, religious and social action groups to press candidates at all levels on the critical issues."

A later phase of the UFPJ 2004 Campaign will be protest demonstrations at the Republican and Democratic party conventions.

"For the Democratic Convention," according to UFPJ's Nov. 17 program perspective, "we will activate around the demand for 'an agenda with backbone.' There will be a wide range of activities in Boston, all intended to educate the candidate, educate the delegates, and, most importantly, mobilize the public," presumably to vote for the Democrat with the "agenda with a backbone."

"For the Republican Convention, the year-long program states that "UFPJ is organizing a massive demonstration ... under the theme 'The World Says No to Empire, War and Greed.' This demonstration will be the central rallying point for our grassroots base in 2004 and will have a truly national scope.

UFPJ will work with the diverse constituencies impacted by the Bush Agenda to mobilize the broadest and largest possible turnout," that is, to denounce the Republicans.

What do the candidates stand for?

Just who are these candidates who "differ" from Bush and who are "responsive" to the demands of the grassroots movements? None of the present Democratic Party hopefuls oppose imperialist intervention in Iraq, from the "liberal" end of the Democratic spectrum, longshot Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich, to the current front-running money raiser, Vermont's former governor, Howard Dean.

Kucinich's position paper on the war is entitled "US In; US Out." He suggests that "the President must go to the UN and announce the US intention to hand over all administrative and security responsibilities to the UN. The UN would help Iraqis move quickly toward self-determination."

The UN, of course, would do nothing of the kind. The inter-imperialist divisions that prevented UN support to the Iraq war were a direct product of competing interests. Germany and France, prior to the U.S. invasion, had signed agreements with the Hussein government regarding the exploitation of Iraq oil. U.S. corporate interests had other ideas about who would do the exploitation.

Indeed, the Iraq War revealed that imperialist rivalry lay at the bottom of the UN debate, a debate that had everything to do with who would do the war profiteering and nothing to do with Iraqi self-determination.

Howard Dean affirmed his support to Bush's request for an additional $87 billion to fund the war. He described as "pathetic" those who had called him a leftwinger of the Democratic Party.

Dean caused a bit of a stir when he stated, "White folks in the South who drive pick-up trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us because their kids don't have health care insurance either, and the kids need better schools too.” That this reference to the racist symbol of the Southern slavocracy was no accident can be seen in the remarks of Jesse Jackson, who Dean recruited for damage control.

"Democrats were not competitive in the South in 2000,” said Jackson, “and we have struggled to thrive, and in some instances survive, since Richard Nixon and the Republican Party began using their race-based 'southern strategy' in 1968."

This "Southern strategy" was based on Republican campaigns designed to appeal to base racist sentiments at a time when a mass civil rights movement forced the ruling racist Democratic Party political machines, who controlled virtually the entire South, to implement federal desegregation legislation.

Jackson continued: "The use of race, cultural, and social issues have served to distract voters by keeping the focus off of economic issues has been the basic strategy of Bush and the Republicans in the South." Here Jackson strikes at the heart of the problem, a recognition that Southern Republicans have sewn up the vote by racist appeals to white voters.

"Lest we forget," said Jackson, "the Confederate Flag is the Democratic Party's historic contribution to the South, and current Democratic candidates have not been able to figure out how to come to grips with their own historic symbol."

Dean found a way: Embrace the symbol, and by implication, its racist content, while pretending to address concerns of Southern voters over jobs, poor wages and benefits, and lack of funding for schools.

Dean's strategy in racist America comes of necessity. Every Democrat understands that his party failed to win a single Southern state in 2000. Gore, whose father was Tennessee's U.S. senator during the Jim Crow years, failed to carry his own state. Clinton won the presidency based on winning his home state, Arkansas.

For decades, Democrats won the presidency by a ticket that routinely featured a Northern liberal running with a Southern racist, Kennedy-Johnson being the model in 1960. What a combination! John F. Kennedy was representative of Northern capital. His father, the pro-Hitler U.S. ambassador to England, gained his fortune by way of illegal gambling and whiskey operations. His running mate was the deal-making Texas senator whose land titles prohibited sale to Blacks.

Jimmy Carter was the South's next ex-segregationist to achieve national office. Carter, a former member of a segregated church, today touted as a human rights leader, got his political start as a local segregationist school board member. As Georgia's governor, he pleaded with President Richard Nixon to refuse to step down in the face of Watergate impeachment proceedings.

The sordid history of the racist Democratic Party, the party of the White Citizens’ Councils and the Ku Klux Klan, has been conveniently forgotten—until, that is, Howard Dean stirred the barrel's bottom looking for some racist votes by waiving the Confederate flag.

The liberal rush to the Democratic Party is approaching full swing as proponents of this strategy strain to polish old cliches to deceive social activists. Pro-choice groups like the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and the National Organization for Women (NOW) are planning spring marches on Washington. In the name of women's rights they are planning to "Fight the Right" and "Stop George Bush."

The AFL-CIO's labor fakers are similarly jumping on the front-runner's bandwagon with the multi-million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers Union (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announcing early endorsement of Howard Dean. Dean's website poses his candidacy as the product of grassroots fundraising, but his plans to exceed Bush's expected $200 million reelection war chest and his formal refusal of government matching funds indicates that big-time spenders will, as always, form the base of his financial operation.

Dean’s meetings with multi-billionaire George Soros and his similarly situated corporate magnates indicate that he will not be wanting for money.

Social movements must stay independent

A year from now, a representative of imperialist capital is the odds-on favorite to win the U.S. presidency. Whether it be a Democrat or Republican—Dean, Kucinich, Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, or Bush—the present two-party horse race is designed to mesmerize the public with soundbyte policy statements signifying nothing while behind the scenes unrestrained corporate power is exercised with impunity.

In the meantime, the strength of the social movements that have risen to challenge the status quo of wars for profit, repression, and plunder will be measured by their capacity to grow and sink deeper roots among the workers and oppressed—who do have the power to compel a change in the present order. Our capacity to mobilize independent of and against the policies of doom, Republican and Democrat alike, will be the real test of our future success.

As the bipartisan ruling-class offensive deepens, we can expect a resurgent labor movement—politically independent, democratic, and militant—to register important victories in the workplace and in other social arenas. These will count infinitely more than the electoral "victory" of lesser-evil capitalist politicians.

Youthful activists will learn from experience that effective politics means establishing a counter-power as opposed to joining hands with the evil of a "lesser" type. The fight to end the occupation of Iraq and challenge the incursions against democratic rights at home does not run through the controlled system of capitalist electoral politics, where the twin parties of evil win no matter the result in November 2004.

The great American socialist and trade-union leader Eugene V. Debs understood this well as he stood for the presidency against both capitalist parties while imprisoned for opposing World War I. Nearly one million voted for Debs that year, 1918. They understood his working-class politics well. Said Debs, "I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want and get it."

The capitalist electoral game always includes the illusion of "left" and "right." The "rightist" player allows the "leftist" to move further to the right, having taken for granted that the left constituency has no viable alternative.

Within this dead-end framework, there is indeed no choice. Outside it, an effective power can be organized and mobilized not only at election time, but every day of the year, as capitalism's victims take the field of history and struggle in their own name for their own interests.

The article above first appeared in the December 2003 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.