International Socialism Project

It is true that O’Brien’s two meetings with Trump and the Teamsters’ contribution to the GOP don’t constitute a formal endorsement. The question is: what kind of message does it send?

Last fall, a Gallup Poll reported that 63 percent of U.S. adults said a third party was needed because the major parties do such a “poor job of representing the American people.” While this was the highest level of support for a third party that Gallup found in the 20 years it has conducted the survey, support for a third party has remained at roughly that level since 2013.

We should vigorously argue for class independence and for a labor party. But it does mean that we should recognize that we are working in a labor movement where most activists disagree with us.  It would be better if it wasn’t that way, but it’s where things stand today.

Even though major business organizations issued statements condemning January 6 and worked with major media and non-governmental organizations to assure a “peaceful transition” from Trump to Biden, it was always a farrago to trust big business to champion democracy. As always with U.S. politics, following the money is the best way to understand what happened.

The crisis in the Teamster leadership threatens to overwhelm recent strike victory strikes at DHL and US Foods, as well as a local organizing campaign in Virginia at Costco. Future projects like organizing Amazon have already stagnated.

Get ready for an ugly and interminable election season. As of right now, polls showed that Biden and Trump are essential tied with support in the low-to-mid 40s nationally. But because of the ridiculous and undemocratic Electoral College, the election will come down to how each fare in a small number of “swing states,” where the electorate is more closely divided between the candidates and their parties.

As the US presidential election begins to gather steam, Joe Allen looks at the far right threat and the dangerous game being played by the Democrats. Allen asks if Genocide Joe has the support to win or whether a new left alternative should take their place instead.

There can be a relative autonomy of base from superstructure. Importantly, the superstructure can in turn reflect back and impact upon the base. There are many factors other than the economy that need to be taken into account when examining a particular conjuncture.

An array of liberal and left-wing pundits is already blaming West in advance for the unpopular Biden’s (potential) loss to the (as yet unnamed) Republican candidate next year. Apparently, the conventional wisdom even among most self-described socialists is that it is our job to ensure Biden’s victory, even though he has done nothing to earn it.

Trump is the odds-on favorite to be the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election. For him, winning the presidency is his existential goal. Lose, and any conviction he receives will subject him to financial ruin and prison time.

The Republican Party is no longer the most important political vehicle for the ruling class. The Republicans have become so involved in Trump’s intrigues, vendettas, and conspiracy theories that a considerable layer have forgotten their responsibilities to bourgeois democracy and to a stable system of capital accumulation.

Our work has been devoted to essentially arguing a negative point—that it’s fundamentally wrong to see any part of the Democratic Party as the road to social change. This viewpoint obviously poses a major question: if socialists shouldn’t be supporting Democrats, then what should we be doing instead? What is our alternative course of action?

Now that the election’s over, evidence is beginning to come in to judge the validity of the different perspectives. The Lavin interview is an important statement by a major ruling class player. It shows that those socialists who stressed the fundamental compatibility of Johnson with the Democratic Party and ruling class politics were on the right track.

2024 will become, as every national election since 2016 has, a referendum on Trump and MAGA. In that circumstance, Joe Biden—despite holding the support of only about 40 percent of the public—will have to be favored by the Democratic Party for reelection, assuming a health crisis doesn’t derail the octogenarian president.

This “new machine” is supposed to press the corporations to pay their fair share. But given the dynamics of electoral politics—where there is always another election to plan for—and where Johnson will be looking to shore up his support, that “new machine” can become the vehicle by which Johnson’s wing of the Democratic Party co-opts another generation of activists.