The mid-term US Congressional elections this week have not on the face of it delivered the sharp rebuke to Donald Trump that many expected. Losses in the lower House appear to be balanced by gains for the Republicans in the Senate. Nevertheless, looking at the underlying political processes at work, these elections mark the beginning of fundamental changes in American society. The most glaring contradiction that now exists in US politics is that between the growing anger and desperation for change that there is on the one hand and the almost complete absence of a vehicle for that anger and desire for change, on the other.
Leaving aside the fact that less than half of the electorate voted, we have to bear in mind that US election processes – in allegedly the most ‘democratic’ country in the world – are scandalously gerrymandered to support the conservative right. In fact, Donald Trump has never been able to win the support of the majority of US electors. The upper house of Congress, the Senate, where the Republicans increased their majority, is comprised of two representatives from each state, irrespective of size. This means that states with big populations, like Democratic California and New York, would have the same representation as tiny states like Montana and Hawaii. On average, Democratic senators represent 3.65m voters, whereas their Republic equivalents represent only 2.5million.
The House of Representatives (the ‘House’ in popular jargon) is better balanced, but many states effectively disenfranchise thousands of their populations with spurious ID regulations and felony disbarment. Most states have laws that disenfranchise anyone previously convicted of a felony. Most states don’t even allow anyone on parole or on probation to vote. Recovering the right to vote after disbarment is such a complex legal process that many don’t bother. The result is that up to 6 million Americans have lost their voting rights.
Felony disbarment disproportionately affects Americans of colour. In 2010, according to the website, https://www.sentencingproject.org/ “2.2 million African Americans or 7.7% black adults are disenfranchised, compared to only 1.8% of the non-African-American population. In three states – Florida (23%), Kentucky (22%) and Virginia (20%) – more than one in five African-Americans are disenfranchised”.
Felony disenfranchisement has become a hot political issue in its own right and although steps have been taken here and there to reverse or limit it, it is still a live political issue and still significantly affects election outcomes. Last but not least, it ought not to be forgotten that Trump got around three million votes less than Hillary Clinton in 2016, and it was the ‘electoral college’ system that handed him the presidency.
Women have answered the misogyny of Trump
Despite the rigging of the political system and its domination by two parties of capitalism – the Republican and Democratic Parties are closely aligned in their fundamental outlook – these elections still show the beginnings of fundamental change. In Trump’s America the only demographic group that supports him is old white men. Almost every other group is either split down the middle or is heavily in support of anti-Trump candidates. Among men in general, Republican support is only 2 points ahead. Democratic Party support among women, on the other hand, beat support for Republicans by a margin of 21 points, by 60% to 39%. This is a direct response to the misogyny of Trump himself and his support for Supreme Court nominee, Kavanagh, despite the latter being linked to sexual assault in the past.
For the first time ever, a majority of Democratic candidates were not white men. Women will still make up less than a quarter of the 435 representatives in the House, and that is a scandal, but for the first time at least they will be numbered in three figures. Besides the large numbers of women, what was also noticeable in these elections were the large number of candidates – and successful ones – who were from minority communities.
The success of the more radical candidates from within the Democratic party have stood out in these mid-term elections, and they are an indication of historic changes taking place in the consciousness of women, of youth, of people of colour and of American workers in general. What successes the Democrats did have were largely based on the votes of women, black and Hispanic voters and young people.
First Muslim women elected to Congress
Thus, Massachusetts has elected Ayanna Pressley, its first-ever black member in the House elections. Michigan elected Rashida Tlaib, the first-ever Palestinian-American congresswoman, who ran a campaign based on support for Medicare for all, a national minimum wage of $15 an hour and the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service. With Tlaib, as the first Muslim women ever elected to Congress, is Ilham Omar, the first Somali-American on Congress, who also campaigned for a national wage minimum of $15 and subsidised education costs.
In New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, running on the same kind of radical ticket, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. We also have the first Native-American women elected to Congress, the first openly gay man elected as a state governor, all of whom campaigned on a radical agenda. These significant victories for radical candidates will have sent shudders through the American Establishment and there will no doubt be much hand-wringing among the leadership of the Democratic Party as well.
It will be as a result of the pressure from their members and supporters that the new Democratic majority in the House will continue to harass Trump in relation to his dodging of income tax and his links with Russia. There is speculation that the House will not only demand to see Trump’s well-hidden tax returns for the last decade, but also his accounts with the Deutsche Bank. The House has the power to subpoena executives from the bank and even from Trump’s own hotel chain, all the better to dish the dirt.
Trump has already made his first pre-emptive strike by sacking his attorney general, no doubt as a prelude to trying to block the work of special investigator Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the presidential election. Trump responded to threatened investigations in typical bombastic manner. “If they do that”, he declared, “then it’s a warlike posture…they can play that game, but we can play it better…”
Democratic Socialist Alliance and a party of labour
How far the leadership of the Democratic Party will move to expose Trump’s tax-dodging in the next two years and how much they are prepared to maintain a legislative gridlock remains to be seen. The apparatus of that party is closely tied to the vested interests of American capitalism and they will not want to rock the boat so much that it is in any danger of sinking. But what is important for socialists to understand on this side of the Atlantic is that these elections are an indication that the ‘new’ politics is picking up momentum, and that is not only the Trump variety.
In the Democratic Party in recent years, there has been the most significant development for decades in the phenomenal growth of the Democratic Socialist Alliance, a national grouping with over 50,000 members, overwhelmingly youth. The DSA is a movement of enormous significance in terms of the consciousness of American youth and workers. Even where there have been setbacks in the mid-terms, it will only spur on these activists to greater efforts. After the victory of the pro-Trump and racist Republican in Florida, there was anger among young Democrat activists. The Guardian (Thursday November 8th) described the anger of one student who had survived the killings in the high school in February and who has since then been an active campaigner for gun laws. “I am shaking with anger right now”, she said, “It’s the same feeling I got that night of 14 February, so angry that I don’t know what to do with anger. We’re not going to stop fighting. I can tell you, I’m doing this for the rest of my life”.
Before the voting, it was clear that the Trump camp was aware of the wind of change blowing through the Democratic Party, as he warned in his rallies that a Democratic Party victory would lead to a “socialist take-over”. Far from it, unfortunately. The leadership and apparatus of the Democratic Party is too well-integrated into the capitalist system to allow the wholesale transformation of ‘their’ party. Even the radical candidate Bernie Sanders was manoeuvred off the ballot paper two years ago. Indeed, had it not been for the manipulations of the Party bureaucracy, Sanders might have won the nomination and, according to polls, would have beaten Trump. But for the Democratic Party hierarchy, Hillary Clinton, with her links to banks and big business, was a much safer pair of hands.
Given the opposition of the leadership and its thousands of links to big business, it is highly unlikely that the Democratic Party can ever be transformed, despite the activism and the sincerity of the tens of thousands of Democratic youth. Within the DSA there are many young people who can be won over to the ideas of socialism, if they are not already. But socialist ideas and policies do not sit well with the apparatus and the financial, business and personal links of the tops of the Democratic Party. At some point, that fundamental class incompatibility will become evident. It is inevitable, therefore, that at some stage the question of a genuine party of labour will be raised.
Democratic Party tops are opposed to socialism
One of the greatest barriers to the formation of a party of labour is, paradoxically, the leadership of the American trade union movement. Most union leaders, at state and national level, are tied by a thousand threads to business interests and to the tops of the Democratic Party. They are going to fight tooth and nail against any challenge to their very cosy relationship to the Party tops and to business leaders. By their outlook, as well as their salaries and lifestyles, they are remote from the day to day problems of ordinary workers. It will be despite them and against them – perhaps with a few notable exceptions – that there will be a movement to create a genuine party of labour in the future.
If there had been a genuine labour party, campaigning across the whole of the USA on the policies put forward by the most radical of the Democratic candidates – a $15 minimum wage, Medicare for all, subsidised education, more spending on education, etc – the results this week would have been entirely different. Although these mid-terms had an unusually high turn-out, more than half of the electorate are still so alienated from the established parties that they did not bother to vote.
If the working class in America is to have any salvation at all from the decades-long austerity and stagnation in living standards that they have suffered, it will only be through the rise of a new party to the left of the Democratic Party. That party will be rooted in the working-class communities and will fight and will win on the bread-and-butter issues that affect workers. The mid-term elections are only a step along that road, but they are an indication that the ‘old politics’ is in a state of terminal decline and decay. The basic trajectory of American politics is clear and it is not to the right.
November 9, 2018
