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Sunday, August 12, 2012

1964 and 2012: Voting for Democrats at all costs

After chugging through this article, about which I hope to write a piece soon, I decided to review some of the rationalizations for voting for the Democrats in 1964.  I reviewed some online editions of The Militant from 1964. 

I plan to post some of the articles opposing the "Stop Goldwaterism at all costs" line because they resonate so perfectly with what we have before us now, for instance as expressed on Facebook today by UCLA's Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.  She posted the Davidson/Fletcher piece linked above, to which I responded:

Fletcher and Davidson have a long tradition of trying to police the left on behalf of the Democratic Party. My notes on Fletcher from my blog here: http://marxistupdate.blogspot.com/2012/08/bill-fletcher-jr-schools-us-on.html

Her riposte:



I suggest reading the article. Fletcher and Davidson are not the enemy, nor are they policing anything or trying to be "leaders." They are worried, as all of us should be.Right-wing populism exists as the equivalent of the herpes virus wi
thin the capitalist system. It is always there--sometimes latent, at other times active—and it does not go away. In periods of system distress, evidence of right-wing populism erupts with more force. Of particular importance in understanding right-wing populism is the complex intersection of race, anti-immigrant settler-ism, 'producerism,' homophobia and empire.

In the US, right-wing populism stands as the grassroots defender of white racial supremacy. It intertwines with the traditional myths associated with the "American Dream" and suggests that the US was always to be a white republic and that no one, no people, and no organization should stand in the way of such an understanding. It seeks enemies, and normally enemies based on demographics of 'The Other'. After all, right-wing populism sees itself in the legacy of the likes of Andrew Jackson and other proponents of Manifest Destiny, a view that saw no inconsistency between the notion of a white democratic republic, ethnic cleansing, slavery, and a continental (and later global) empire. 'Jacksonian Democracy' was primarily the complete codification and nationalization of white supremacy in our country's political life.

Irrationalism is rising as an endemic virus in our political landscape  ..We stress the need to understand that Obama represents an irrational symbol for the political right, and a potent symbol that goes way beyond what Obama actually stands for and practices. The right, while taking aim at Obama, also seeks, quite methodically and rationally, to use him to turn back the clock. They have created a common front based on white revanchism (a little used but accurate term for an ideology of revenge), on political misogynism, on anti-'freeloader' themes aimed at youth, people of color and immigrants, and a partial defense of the so-called 1%. Rightwing populism asserts a 'producer' vs. 'parasites' outlook aimed at the unemployed and immigrants below them and 'Jewish bankers and Jewish media elites' above them. Let us emphasize that this is a front rather than one coherent organization or platform. It is an amalgam, but an amalgam of ingredients that produces a particularly nasty US-flavored stew of right-wing populism.


I responded:


I did of course read the article. I have read this article every year since 1984, my first year as a voter. In my files I have this article dating from 1936.

The article appears every four years, telling us the right wing is far too dangerous to be allowed into office. In 1984 I was told the re-election of Reagan would spell nuclear winter by Carl Sagan and Helen Caldicott. In 1996 I was told if Clinton wasn't re-elected, social programs would be gutted and democratic rights would be restricted. In 2008 I was told if I voted for Obama the extra-legal wars and imprisonments would end.

People who promote the idea that the Democrats are the lesser evil, and clearly demarcated from the Republicans because they are more susceptible to pressure [like Jim Crow Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, remember] share responsibility to the people of the world and workers here at home, for the last four years: bombing, austerity, uncertainty, foreclosure, eviction.

We are told every four years that since there is no mas third party, we have to vote for the Democrats, otherwise we'll just get those extremists back in, as Phil Ochs wrote in "Here's to the State of Mississippi." What kind of fools do the Fletchers and Davidsons and The Nation and the whole crew of loathsome defenders of imperialism think we are?

Breaking with the Democrats is only the beginning of wisdom, but in this season of Nobody But Obama, of Tea-Party-fascism-under-the-bed, it is wisdom's beginning. Whether a revolutionary socialist party exists today or not, voting for Democrats is one way to block it for another four years; and that is precisely the point.

I have been re-reading a lot of Gore Vidal the last two weeks. A fine novelist, a rather poor political commentator, a 'compleat' lesser-evilist. Like Tariq Ali, Chomsky, Zinn, Fletcher, Davidson and company, he calls out the Wall Street government and its wars three years out of every four. But in the fourth year, the real message comes through: vote Democrat to keep out the right wing irrationalist bigots or we are sunk.

From late 1963 there was a growing movement for a mass national Freedom Now party to run candidates for office. The Democrats and their left-liberal allies clamped down on it and policed it out of existence. How was this justified? Well, because if we split our vote, Goldwater might win. And if Goldwater won, the social progress so far achieved would be lost on new wars, a bigger Pentagon, et cetera. So many voted for the Democrats, and got exactly what they were told they were voting against.

In 2008 people voted for Obama for many reasons; in the last three and a half years, Obama has given us - at home and abroad - exactly what we voted against when we patted ourselves on the back and congratulated each other for not falling into the McCain/Palin trap.

In this context, reviewing the 11/02/1964 issue of The Militant, I found these excerpts particularly familiar.  They are from Harry Ring's article "Radicals and the '64 elections."

About the approach to supporting LBJ by the Gus Hall-led CPUSA of the day:



The Norman Thomas Socialist Party approach:






Another similarity between 1964 and 2012 is the position of Workers World Party.  Unlike 2008, when the party supported Green nominee Cynthia McKinney, they have not endorsed or given critical support to any 2012 candidate.  This raises the question, unavoidably, of whether the lack of any clearly stated working class approach to the 2012 elections is simply a way of not offending allies in the OWS, anti-war, and 'stop and frisk' movements, as well as more generally allowing WWP members and supporters themselves maneuvering room to vote for Barack Obama, as many did in 2008.



Jay
08/12/2012

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