Image by Jack Prommel.
It’s tradition for Democrats to get loud and radical whenever they lose an election, posing as bold obstacles to any Republican agenda.
But this time things are different. The Democratic Party is either telling the public to “roll over and play dead” while many Democrats are actively collaborating with Trump.
The “resistance” has been left to a symbolic few, such as Bernie and AOC, who are warning about the oligarchy that is using Trump as their vehicle.
The oligarchy’s previous vehicle, Joe Biden, warned about this same oligarchy in his farewell speech, saying “an oligarchy is taking shape in America that threatens our democracy.” Biden failed to mention that he and Obama took turns fattening-up the already-powerful oligarchy.
Once Trump won re-election Bernie Sanders regained his mojo for blasting the oligarchy, on his “Fighting Oligarchy tour,” where he said, “When we take on Trumpism we are taking on the oligarchy.”
Bernie of course delayed the start of his tour by four years, so as not to confront the oligarchy-drenched Biden administration.
Bernie will “fight the oligarchy” until the Democrat Party machine comes back into power, at which time he and AOC will have their muzzles placed back on. The momentary rhetorical flourishes of these two do not represent the larger party, who’ve shown no motivation to fight a Trump agenda they largely agree with.
Why the Democrats Won’t Fight Trump
The Democrats have stood aloof while Trump and Musk seek to revamp and slash the US government at home while maintaining US imperialism abroad.
The Democrats general agreement with Trump’s imperialism was showcased when Trump’s pick for Secretary of State — arch-imperialist Marco Rubio — was approved 99-0 by the Senate, where Bernie too voted for Trump’s chaos agent.
Then Democrats showed their agreement with Trump domestically by helping him pass the Laken Riley Act that focuses on scapegoating immigrants instead of blaming billionaires for the state of the nation.
Ultimately the Democrats since Clinton have been more influenced by Reagan than FDR, and most of Trump’s policies are merely extensions of Reagan (it was Reagan who first promised to abolish the Department of Education). The Democrats may have differences in how fast the public sector is torched but not enough to do much about it.
In the official Democrat response to Trump’s State of the Union Address, Trump was criticized for not acting in the spirit of Reagan, while Democrats pledged support in Trump’s attempt to slash the government.
It’s true that Trump is dangerous and has a sizable and growing wing of supporters influenced by fascist ideas, but currently the most dangerous thing about Trump is that he has seemingly united the US ruling class in a time of growing domestic and international crisis.
What unites the two parties? Beyond their common ancestor Reagan, the two parties are united in recognizing that US corporations are facing an existential crisis due to the faltering power of the US government abroad coupled with the rising power of China, which now outcompetes US corporations on more advanced products like electric cars. Nothing unites Democrats and Republicans more than their shared animosity towards China.
China merely highlights international decline of US power, while Trump’s ultra-nationalist policies are merely the emergency tools that the corporate class reaches for in such a crisis, increasing the chaos of trade wars that accelerated under Biden, whose recklessness abroad — trade wars with China, a proxy war against Russia and a genocide against Palestinians — were itself reflections of a desperate US empire trying to maintain its power internationally.
The chaos that started under Biden is being expanded under Trump, even though a major factor in Trump’s victory was denouncing Biden’s chaos. In his inauguration address Trump said “We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while, at the same time, stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad.”
And while China is a uniting factor abroad, an anti-union attitude unites the parties domestically, even though both use fake populism to appeal to the working class during elections.
The Democrats populism, however, has waned after two Bernie campaigns and a Black Lives Matter mass movement. The only lesson the Democrats took from that period was that they weren’t moving to the right fast enough.
The Democratic Party in Decline and Crisis
Historians may conclude that Trump’s victory was a sturdy nail in the Democrat’s coffin.
Not only did the anemic campaign of Kamala Harris prove to the working class who the Democrats are, but the post-Trump “resistance” has also solidified that the Democrats are who they say they are: a party whose new “base” is the wealthy, so called upper-middle class led by billionaires.
This shrinking constituency has reflected itself in polling, which has shown that the Democrats are historically unpopular. Reviving this moribund party will look a lot like the Democrats attempts to revive Biden’s re-election campaign after his devastating first debate with Trump.
Even though the Democrats have shown repeatedly they care nothing about the working class, there are many on the Left who refuse to read the divorce papers. They are in complete denial of the fact that the Democrats have spent the last 45 years moving to the right, away from the New Deal, following the money that has steadily concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. In the same way that modern Republicans have nothing to do with Lincoln, the Democrats have nothing in common with FDR.
What did the Democrats learn about themselves after losing to Trump? Their conclusion has largely been to blame the Left, in order to continue moving to the right.
Some on the Left have written or spoken about the Democrats’ sad state and what to do about it, and while the diagnosis is usually true — that they are a party totally dominated by the rich — the remedy usually involves some version of “pressuring” the party to reverse its decades of deliberate direction away from the working class. How to actually do this is largely left to the imagination.
Why the Left Won’t Fight the Democrats
In his recent article “Why the Democrats Won’t Throw a Real Punch” [against Trump], Dave Zirin explains, correctly, that the Democrats are a party fueled by banks and other ultra-wealthy people. But while he diagnoses the disease correctly his remedy only feeds the cancer. Zirin writes:
“I get why people are maddened by Democratic Party fecklessness. It’s easier to accept that we could build a fight, but the party is too cowardly. We also do not have the time, nor is there any sign of mass inclination, to build a new third party for the working class. What we need to do is, yes, pressure these Democrats at every turn to fight and fight harder. I’ve made so many calls that my finger has become a misshapen claw, and you should be making calls, too.”
Zirin’s uninspiring solution was echoed by Bernie Sanders at his anti-oligarchy town halls, which concluded ingloriously with Bernie appealing to people to call their elected representatives.
Zirin’s example of bland Leftism is echoed by Jacobin Magazine stalwart Vivik Chibber, who said in a recent interview:
“The party [Democrats] will not come to the left, but it could be brought to the Left.” Chibber imagines the Democrats being “dragged kicking and screaming to a more populist agenda.”
Bernie Sanders certainly tried to drag the Democrats left, but they instead united to crush his populist agenda while destroying his movement, not once but twice.
Did not the Occupy movement also prove Chibber wrong? Instead of being dragged left Obama coordinated with Democrat Party mayors nationally to crush the movement.
These same Democrats also weren’t pulled left by the enormous Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. What fleeting influence these movements made on the Democrats were quickly forgotten as the party continued its decades long move to the Right.
Kamala Harris’ right-wing campaign was an exclamation point that emphasized the Democrats deliberate eschewing of the movements to the party’s left. Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney while bragging about the support she had of billionaires and other Republicans. Bernie wasn’t even allowed to be a symbolic mascot on stage with her. And the lesson Democrats took from Harris’ disastrous campaign? They were just too Left.
Finally, the hype that once surrounded “the squad” of Left-leaning Democrats has been torpedoed, where two leading squad members — Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman — were taken out in recent primary elections, by the Democrats.
The Democrats will eventually re-dabble in fake populism, but it will be no different than the shallow demagoguery of the Republicans.
Ultimately the many Leftists of the Zirin and Chibber variety argue that building an alternative party is impossible, so the working class is destined, forever, to have no political vehicle of its own, even as a deepening cost of living crisis is ruining larger and larger sections of working class people.
Fighting Trumpism is Fighting the Oligarchy is Fighting the Democrats
Trump’s attack on federal workers is a real warning for the entire public sector of unionized workers, where the last bastion of union strength is concentrated. And the Democrats non-reaction to Trump’s attack is a warning too: no help for labor will come from either party. The unions and the Left must mobilize themselves.
Unions have defeated Trump before, most notably the airport workers who defeated Trump’s government shutdown in 2019. The nationwide teacher strike wave of 2018-19 also occurred under Trump, scoring key victories mostly in red states.
The Democrats had very little to do with these and other actions under Trump’s first term, but they collected union support for a disastrous four years under Biden, where the pro-worker covid protections were reversed in combination with a devastating inflation that pushed millions into financial ruin. The Democrats stood by and did nothing.
Biden also oversaw a historic union busting effort, where billionaire CEOs at Amazon and Starbucks and elsewhere broke every law in the book in order to break newly formed unions. Biden’s inaction during this crime spree encouraged the labor law breakers, and prevented thousands of workers from entering the union movement at a key moment, where historic low unemployment gave workers enormous leverage to make demands.
Labor Needs A Political Vision For the Future
When the anti-Trump-Musk mobilizations inevitably bloom, the energy cannot be allowed to dissipate into a Democrat Party electoral campaign. The working class has too much at stake and too little trust in the Democrats.
But without moving towards creating a political organization of its own, the working class is relegated to ping-ponging between the two parties of the oligarchy.
Building a new political party from scratch is difficult, but not nearly as impossible as making a party of billionaires change its spots. Many labor and community groups are moving in this direction, especially as it’s become painfully obvious that the Democrats have exited the gravitational pull of the working class.
Leading the charge for a labor party is the United Electrical Workers (UE), led by General President Carl Rosen, who has issued a call to the labor movement to move towards the building of a labor party in the wake of Trump’s re-election, where the UE noted:
“This election has demonstrated, once again, that the current two-party system is incapable of uniting working people around a vision for progress.”
It’s true that a “vision for progress” is desperately needed, especially when Democrats and Republicans vision for the future is different forms of oligarchic dominance, where workers get replaced by artificial intelligence and where discontent is funneled into blaming immigrants and China — more scapegoating and more war is the oligarchy’s only vision for the country.
A key part in organizing political independence is agitating for it: instead of cynically complaining about barriers the labor movement must discuss overcoming them. Instead of providing political cover to Democrats and Republicans in exchange for crumbs, the labor movement must expose them and organize against both parties.
The last real effort to form a labor party occurred in the 90’s. It’s time to revisit the lessons from the last attempt so as to avoid the pitfalls that undermined it.
Conditions have changed from the 90’s, however. Now Democrats and Republicans are so far to the right of the working class there is a grand canyon between the needs of workers and the politicians of the billionaires.
This vacuum will either be filled by an independent working class party or it will be filled by increasingly dangerous demagoguery of fake populism from both parties. One path offers a real vision forward while the other promises a deepening barbarism that has already begun to permeate society.The growing political gap can be filled with masses of people if a serious effort is made — using the resources of the labor movement — that puts forth solutions to the deepening crisis of everyday life.
The post Should the Left Bury or Revive the Democrats? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Shamus Cooke.
Shamus Cooke | Radio Free (2025-03-12T05:56:00+00:00) Should the Left Bury or Revive the Democrats?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/12/should-the-left-bury-or-revive-the-democrats/
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