Elections: The Value of Voting within a Revolution

The 2024 elections are unleashing storms of controversy around who to vote for and why, around the role of third parties and even whether people should vote at all. In 1971, Black Panther Party leader George Jackson wrote that participation in ruling-class electoral politics is the opposite of revolution. In the middle of an insurrection, that is clearly true and Jackson believed that an insurrection was in progress as he was writing. However, the more than 50 years of brutal, unbroken reaction since then force us to examine the question more deeply.

Today, the world is experiencing a transition from industrial production based on human labor to laborless production based on Artificial Intelligence and automation. This economic revolution has separated millions of workers from the formal economy and their struggles to secure their basic needs are unleashing a social revolution. This social revolution is increasingly confronting the state, but it is still scattered and in recent years it has never approached the stage of an insurrection.

This is because a revolution cannot proceed to its conclusion without a change in the views of the majority of the working class. And new thinking cannot be introduced by decree or a single burst of propaganda. Consciousness develops in stages, according to the level of experience and organization that the working class has developed.

The starting point in times like these is for revolutionaries to connect with the workers’ demands for the necessities of life. Given America’s long history of electoral struggles, this necessarily includes connecting with them as they fight for their demands in the electoral arena.

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

In a class society, the real issues of class power are not and cannot generally be resolved by elections. But ruling-class elections offer one of the broadest available arenas for worker participation in political struggle. And elections can and often do dramatically impact the lives of workers and the outcomes of their social struggles. The results in the 10 states where abortion rights are directly on the November ballot will literally mean life or death for the women and pregnant people in those states. And ballot measures addressing the minimum wage and paid sick leave in Missouri, Alaska and Nebraska will elevate workers’ standard of living.

On the other hand, passage of California’s draconian Proposition 36 would send tens of thousands of primarily African American and Latino workers to state prison for petty violations that are now misdemeanors. Although it is more complicated, the composition of state and local legislatures and councils also has real consequences for policies that can improve or destroy human lives. The increasingly open intervention of billionaires in local politics is further evidence of what is at stake when we decide whether and how to vote.

On the national level, people dare not disregard the danger of victory for supporters of the Project 2025 dictatorship plan. Project 2025 dramatically multiplies the dangers posed in a Trump presidency by its plan to surround him with highly dedicated and competent fascist officials. The promised “mass deportation” of 15 million people would be the largest forced displacement in human history apart from that of World War II. And the threats to deport and/or intern all protesters are deadly serious.

Because elections can influence policy outcomes, the ruling class is aggressively suppressing the right to vote and influencing young people to believe that voting makes no difference. Disenfranchising voters is about disarming the working class – especially people of color – and opening the door to crushing resistance by reinstituting the extreme violence of the Jim Crow era.

Electoral campaigns are also a decisive battleground in the war of ideas. The ruling class tirelessly invests tens of billions of dollars to use elections to promote its message of racism, division, class hatred and war. Revolutionaries have a responsibility to use them equally militantly to promote class unity, class political organization and the vision of a peaceful and cooperative society.

EMERGENCE OF THIRD PARTIES

Entering the political arena to fight for its basic needs is developing the self-confidence of the working class as a social force. As author Alice Walker said, the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. Election campaigns are a powerful opportunity for workers to accumulate knowledge and experience of their own strength.

The social movement is polarizing the Democratic Party and ultimately creating the conditions for the emergence of a significant third party, one that will be composed of forces currently both inside and outside the Democrats. This will accelerate the breaking apart of old alliances of workers with corporate Democrats, while also serving as a vehicle to pull together the scattered economic struggles into united political struggles. We should not allow current tactical differences over (for example) the Harris campaign to divide the people fighting against fascism and for political independence in the long run.

Even as we rally people to vote, the November election aftermath is likely to test our ability to rapidly shift back to non-electoral tactics. If Trump and Project 2025 win, we may well not even have elections again for a very long time. And if Harris wins, we will probably have to take the battle to the streets to ensure the results are respected and Harris actually gets inaugurated. And if Harris wins, we will have to continue fighting to force Harris to protect migrants and the planet and redirect the military budget from genocide overseas to meeting human needs at home.

Now is the time to organize local, regional, and national collectives of revolutionaries to summarize the lessons and to plan next steps. The revolution develops on the basis of a continuous practical movement against all the structures of oppression, ultimately guided by a vision of creating a new society that is based on the abundance made possible by the new technologies. The current system is designed to crush our humanity, but until we have the political power to abolish it, we have to use every old form available, including elections, to build the power we need to create the better world we believe in.

Published on October 24, 2024
This article originated in Rally!
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“As people struggle to survive war, climate catastrophe, poverty, and pandemic, a new fascist state form is arising to crush us – the naked rule of corporate power.” ..”The battle is a class struggle because the ruling class is the enemy of humanity and the earth itself.” from the Program of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America:

https://lrna.org/lrna-program/

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