Socialist Alternative Issue 68 - November 2020

ALTERNATIVE

SOCIALIST

ISSUE #68 l NOVEMBER 2020 SUGGESTED DONATION $2

FIGHT THE RIGHT AND THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS

TRUMP

IS OUT subscription address box

INSIDE

p.3-4 ELECTION ANALYSIS p.5 KSHAMA SOLIDARITY WHY WE NEED A NEW PARTY p.6

WHAT WE STAND FOR: NOVEMBER 2020 Stop the Second COVID-19 Wave: The U.S. has broken records again as over 100,000 cases were recorded on November 4th and 5th. We need immediate and dramatic action to get this outbreak under control. Where the virus is out of control, nonessential businesses should be shut down, something that’s only possible if massive aid is provided for working people and small businesses.

J States and cities where the virus is out of control should return to Phase 1 of lockdown. This should be accompanied by new stimulus measures.

J Free, accessible COVID-19 testing with rapid results and contact tracing in every community. The government should take over production of testing material using the Defense Production Act and expand the capacity of labs that process COVID19 tests.

J Coordination not competition in the search for a vaccine! Vaccine development should come under federal control with all research and development operations consolidated. Pharmaceutical companies should not be hoarding their findings in an attempt to win the race to the finish line. Once a vaccine is ready, it should be made free and available to all.

J We need a rapid transition to a Medicare-for-All system to ensure high-quality, affordable, public health care to all!

This must include a robust investment in and coverage for mental health services.

J Tax big businesses and the super rich at the federal, state, and local levels to fund the emergency response needed to address this crisis including direct aid to hospitals to expand their capacity.

Aid to Workers, Not Wall Street We need immediate, sweeping relief for the unemployed and small businesses. Any emergency response needs to prioritize the health and safety of working Americans, not big business and billionaires.

J Renew elapsed unemployment benefits including the $600-a-week top up.

J Additional $1,200 stimulus checks as needed for the duration of the crisis.

J Expand eligibility and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to relieve growing food insecurity.

J All workers on the front lines should receive hazard pay. For a reduced workweek to share out the work with no reduction in pay.

J Extend federal, state, and city eviction moratoriums and cancel rent for the duration of the pandemic.

J With states and cities facing huge

deficits, they are already beginning to cut spending on public education and health care. The federal government should use a tax on big business to provide disaster relief to states.

Fight the Right If Trump refuses to leave office, we need to be prepared to organize mass protests and launch a wave of strikes to make sure he goes. Beyond that, the threat of the far right may actually get worse under a Biden presidency. The key to pushing back the far right is a decisive and determined response from the labor movement and all whose interests it threatens.

J We need mass demonstrations against Trump and his reactionary base if there is any attempt to attack ballot counting locations or steal the election.

J Mass protests against any attempts from the reactionary Supreme Court to attack healthcare, Roe v. Wade, LGBTQ rights, immigrants rights, civil rights or trade union rights.

J Organize against vigilante terror! Where our movements face attacks from the far right, we need elected self-defense committees. The labor movement has a crucial role to play in organizing to defend social movements from far-right attacks.

A Safe and Just Society: End Racist Policing J Indict killer cops! Indict the officers involved in Walter Wallace Jr. and Breonna Taylor’s murders.

J Immediately fire and prosecute all cops who have committed violent or racist attacks.

J Cities should defund police budgets by at least 50%, and reinvest those funds in needed public services.

J End the militarization of police. Ban police use of “crowd control” weapons.

Disarm cops on patrol.

J Put policing under the control of democratically elected civilian boards with power over hiring and firing policies, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena. All of this should be done openly and publicly.

Labor Movement Needs to Step Up Trade unions are the only organizations workers have to directly defend their rights. However, the leaderships of most major unions have not stepped up to defend their members or organize the unorganized during this pandemic.

J We need fighting unions that defend

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Why I Joined Socialist Alternative

I grew up in a family of Democrats. My grandfather worked with Ted Kennedy and our families attended the same church. I knew I wanted to fight oppression, and I thought being a Democrat was the only way to do so. My first protest was after Darren Wilson’s acquittal in the murder of Michael Brown. I was in Boston for college, and Socialist Alternative members were passing out flyers. I was too busy with school to join, but I held onto the flyer and found it years later.

In 2016, Ben & Jerry’s co-founders endorsed the Senator from Vermont for President, and because I loved their ice cream, I decided I liked Bernie too. This is not a good way to form political ideas, but it worked out this one time! I witnessed the Democratic establishment shut down Bernie and prop up Hillary. It was demoralizing to see the movement’s light snuffed out. Begrudgingly, I voted for Hillary, the corporate candidate with a damning record. Waking up to Trump as president was surreal. I didn’t know what to do other than get an IUD and hope for the best!

Less than a year later, Socialist Alternative ran Ginger Jentzen in the Minneapolis city council election. I lived in her ward and walked by a campaign table where I bought my first copy of Socialist Alternative. An independent paper, written by and

workers on the job and do not shy away from a fight with the bosses.

J Join the movement! Unions have a key role to play in the struggle against racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression.

For a Socialist Green New Deal Historic fires have raged across the West Coast, and tropical storms across the Southeast. We need an urgent plan to enact a socialist Green New Deal to address the growing threat of climate disaster.

J Tax the billionaires and big business to fund extreme weather mitigation including fully funded firefighting and forest management services, and weatherizing homes!

J For a Green New Deal jobs program to tackle climate change and provide jobs for tens of millions of workers. To be successful, this needs to be tied to public ownership of the massive energy companies and banks.

For a New Political Party for Working People

Meaghan Murray Minneapolis, MN for working class people, was revolutionary. We were facing rent increases, low wages, expensive healthcare, and getting nickeled-and-dimed by Internet and utility companies in a city run entirely by Democrats. So we were all about the socialist candidate who called for rent control and rejected corporate cash. Even though Ginger lost in a tight race, we were won over. I joined Socialist Alternative when I finally realized that we can build something better than what capitalism has handed us and don’t have to settle for the empty promises of the Democratic Party. J

progressive policies like Medicare for All and taxing the rich.

J Democrats and Republicans alike are unwilling to do what’s necessary to get working people through this crisis, including taxing the rich and corporations to pay for sweeping aid to ordinary people. Despite their differences, the establishments of both parties are loyal to billionaires, not workers.

J We need a new multiracial workers’ party that organizes and fights for workers’ interests and is committed to socialist policies to point a way out of the horrors of capitalism.

The Whole System is Guilty Capitalism produces pandemics, poverty, inequality, environmental destruction, and war. We need an international struggle against this failed system.

J We need a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the planet. Bring the top 500 companies and banks into democratic public ownership. J

The Democrats are entering the White House in the middle of another COVID-19 surge and the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

While they will be forced by the situation to “spend money,” the party’s establishment is still diametrically opposed to hugely popular

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TRUMP’S OUT! Socialist Analysis and Next Steps for Struggle

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Socialist Alternative Editorial As we go to print, the celebrations have begun. Trump has clearly lost, and he will be out of the White House early next year. A massive sigh of relief is being exhaled by tens of millions of people across the country and hundreds of millions across the world. Yet we should recognize that the pandemic, climate change, economic crisis, and institutional racism won’t go away when Trump leaves office. Biden himself said that he doesn’t want fundamental change, and he will “reach across the aisle” to right-wing Republicans.

We’ll still need determined mass movements to win gains for working people, to fight against the far right, and to challenge the disastrous rule of the billionaire class.

Of course, Trump continues to claim that the results are fraudulent and that the election is being stolen. We can’t exclude that sections of his supporters will mobilize to oppose him leaving office. If Trump tries to stay, there should be mass mobilizations to drive him out.

But it’s also pretty clear that the ruling class does not want further chaos. The media and even sections of the Republican establishment have been at pains to stress that capitalist democracy is “functioning.” Even the courts, which Trump hoped would intervene to stop the counting or refuse to count sections of the mail-in ballots have so far refused to do so. Recounts in several states are also unlikely to change the outcome.

Why Was It So Close?

The pollsters and pundits were wrong again, and there was no Biden blowout or “blue wave” taking a majority in the Senate.

The Democrats have also lost a number of seats in the House and there are also losses at the state level. That being said there were some progressive victories in the House with the election of Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman who will now join “The Squad” alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and others.

In the leadup to the election, voter suppression, a Republican specialty, was amped up in the context of the pandemic. On top of this, the electoral college is one of the most undemocratic institutions (along with the Supreme Court) in a U.S. political system designed to mask the rule of the billionaire class. Voter suppression did have an effect but actually all of Trump’s constant talk about

NOVEMBER 2020

fraud and the undermining of the Postal Service only made ordinary people more determined to come out and vote. This led to the truly remarkable turnout, the highest percentage of registered voters since 1908.

The liberal pundits assumed that this massive turnout would heavily favor the Democrats. But the outcome was far from decisive. In fact, Trump could have easily been defeated in a landslide, especially if Bernie Sanders had been the nominee. Trump has one of the lowest approval ratings of any incumbent Presidential candidate ever, and the Democrats waged a weak campaign against him with a horribly uninspiring corporate candidate.

In a FoxNews exit poll, 72% of voters said they’re in favor of a government-run healthcare program. In Florida, where Trump won, 61% of people voted for a ballot measure for a state-wide $15 an hour minimum wage.

This shows that a clear appeal to workingclass voters, which Bernie could have done effectively, would have likely defeated Trump in a landslide.

Trump has criminally mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic - leading to hundreds of thousands of U.S. deaths - overseen mass unemployment and a further slide into

poverty for millions of Americans, and yet the Democrats did all they could to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”

They put up an embarrassing candidate who was kept out of the public eye, didn’t have a “ground game” for their campaign in key swing states, refused to adopt wildly popular policies like Medicare for All and taxing the rich, and didn’t conduct a mass voter registration campaign to win over millions of new voters who despise Trump. Yet the Democrats’ biggest failings weren’t just “mistakes” but instead due to their fundamental nature as a pro-corporate party controlled by billionaire backers.

Exit polling shows that voters who saw the pandemic as the key issue voted for Biden by an 82% margin while those who saw the economy as the key issue voted for Trump by an equally huge margin. What these numbers reflect is that the Democratic Party in this election had literally nothing to say to working people or even large sections of the middle class who are extremely afraid of the future or are already struggling with debt, loss of jobs, etc. For many, Trump’s message of “open the economy” resonated. It is no exaggeration to say that without the pandemic and Trump’s criminal mishandling of it - or if he had been

a bit more competent - he would have easily defeated Biden.

Democrats’ Hostility to Progressive Politics In the final days of the campaign, Biden made clear he would never ban fracking, would never cut police funding, and would accept yet another right-wing addition to the Supreme Court. He (again!) said that cops should shoot suspects “in the leg” as his solution to racist police murders, and he refused to support Medicare for All as the election took place at the height of the pandemic. It comes as no surprise that an Axios poll showed that over 58% of Democratic voters were motivated to cast their ballots “against Trump” rather than “for Biden.”

All this left space for Trump to portray himself as an “outsider” despite being in the White House! Trump criticized Biden from the “left” for his racist 1994 Crime Bill, as well as his support for ongoing wars and procorporate trade deals. This was combined with a vicious cocktail of Trump’s racism, sexism, authoritarianism, appeals to the

continued on p.4

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PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

TRUMP’S OUT! (continued)... far right, conspiracy theories, and “law and order” rhetoric which definitely resonates with a section of conservative white voters.

In his statement to the media on November 4, Trump went as far as to say that “Democrats are the party of the big donors, the big media, the big tech, it seems. And Republicans have become the party of the American worker, and that’s what’s happened.” Of course for a billionaire who filled his cabinet with other super rich people to say this is absurd. In fact, voters who earn less than $100,000/year voted for Biden over Trump by a significant margin. But the fact that this resonates at all tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic establishment.

The Democratic Party leadership fought harder and more effectively against Bernie in the primary than they did against Trump in the general election. Yet the liberal pundits will seek to play a “blame game,” claiming that this situation is due to people who didn’t vote (especially people of color), independent voters, racist ideas in the white working class (which is a real factor that we get into below), or Democrats being associated with the “radical left.” Instead, the Democratic Party leadership needs to look in the mirror to see who gave Trump the opening to try to steal this election. In addition, Sanders himself shouldn’t have capitulated to Biden, and he shouldn’t have self-censored his previous criticisms of the Democratic Party. This helped give room for Trump to appear as the anti-establishment candidate.

The Blame Game Liberal pundits and some activists on the

left are downplaying the uninspiring, procorporate nature of the Biden campaign and instead adopting a reductionist approach.

They say that Trump’s vote increasing from 2016 is due only to racism in the white working class. Of course, the U.S. is a deeply racist society, and the far right has grown and will continue to be a threat that socialists and the labor movement need to fight against.

However, this alone does not explain the gains Trump made in this election and it’d be a very serious error to write off his voters as simply a block of racist, white voters. In fact the one section of the population where his percentage support decreased was among non college educated white voters. This doesn’t change the fact that two thirds of this demographic supported Trump but it shows that it’s far from monolithic.

Trump’s support grew among Black and Latino voters, long taken-for-granted Democratic voting blocs. In fact he won the highest vote among people of color of any Republican presidential candidate in 60 years! There are a number of factors at work here but an important element in why a section of Black and Latino working class voters chose Trump is again because of the economy and the complete failure of the Democrats to speak to the crisis facing working people right now.

From the point of view of capitalist organs like the New York Times, there’s a benefit to reducing this election to race because it undercuts people’s faith in the potential for a multiracial working class solidarity and distracts from the failings of the Democrats. While they don’t say so openly, they are actively opposed to the emergence of a multiracial mass movement centered on the

working class that would take on the rule of the billionaire class whom they defend.

Corporate identity politics is a cover for the defense of capitalist rule.

Again there’s no denying that Trump benefited in the sections of American society with the most backward ideas about race by using “law and order” rhetoric.

The need for genuine working class unity in the face of racism is crucial. But the question of how we actually achieve this unity in such an extremely polarized society is complex. We believe it is possible on the basis of a fighting program that includes both demands that improve the lives of working people as a whole along with a clear stand for black liberation and immigrant rights.

The massive multiracial uprising this summer - and the wide support for the uprising in society - in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd precisely showed the potential for a united fight against racism and economic inequality. But the lack of leadership, organization and a clear strategy gave the ruling class the opportunity to confuse issues like the call to “defund the police.” It also gave Trump and the far right an opening to push back exploiting people’s fears of spreading chaos. The backlash against the uprising (especially in rural areas) is real but should not be exaggerated.

What Will a Biden Presidency Look Like?

It is clear that a Biden/Harris administration will solve none of the key problems that face working people. It is predictable that they will hide behind the potential Republican

control of the Senate as an excuse for why change can’t be delivered. Even during the campaign when the Democrats were trying to win control of the Senate, Biden said that he’ll “work with Republicans,” the perennial excuse for agreeing to massive attacks on working people’s interests. There’s a better chance that you’ll see rich Republicans in Biden’s cabinet than Bernie Sanders.

From the start this will be a weak administration overseeing the deep crisis of the pandemic and economic devastation. The Federal Reserve and capitalist economists are almost unanimous that there needs to be a lot more fiscal stimulus to prevent an even bigger slump. But while the $600 top-up to unemployment benefits needs to be urgently restored, this is not at all the same as the lasting change we need like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. Unfortunately the Democratic leadership are very clear that they are opposed to both of these programs which are overwhelmingly popular with ordinary people.

A Final Victory We urgently need to build a mass movement to fight for an emergency stimulus plan for working people, a socialist Green New Deal, community control of the police, Medicare for All, and much more. We can’t depend on corporate-controlled Democrats to fundamentally change the situation, and Biden has said over and over that he won’t put forward the policies that we so desperately need.

Biden will be overseeing one of the deepest crises in the history of U.S. capitalism.

He will aim to serve the interests of the billionaire class, just as he has throughout his entire political career. This will lead millions to search for an alternative to the Democratic Party leadership and mainstream politics in general.

In this context, the far right could grow even more under a Biden presidency. In order to effectively fight against right-wing racists, we need a program that can mobilize working people into action. We can’t limit our demands to what is acceptable to the Democratic Party leadership and their billionaire backers. Instead, we need to fight for the needs of billions of people worldwide rather than the billionaires. This type of struggle would inevitably conflict with the capitalist system itself.

This election shows that the Democrats can’t decisively defeat the far right. Socialist Alternative thinks we need a new party based on the working class. We’d advocate that this new party stands for seizing the wealth of the top corporations and putting them under democratic workers’ control and management. Trump is the symptom. Capitalism is the disease. Socialism is the cure. J

Protest organized by Socialist Alternative and other organizations to defend the vote in Philadelphia, 11/4.

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S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

Kshama Solidarity Campaign

S O C I A L I S T A LT E R N AT I V E I N A C T I O N

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST RIGHT WING RECALL Bia Lacombe, Seattle

Big business and the right wing are furious about the impact of socialist politics in Seattle and are going allout to try to remove Councilmember Kshama Sawant from City Hall with a recall campaign.

This recall effort to remove Kshama Sawant from office comes just months after Kshama’s council office and a grassroots movement in Seattle won the Amazon Tax – a tax on the top 500 companies in Seattle that will raise an estimated $210-240 million a year, which will be used to create tens of thousands of green union jobs by building permanently affordable social housing. This momentous victory represents a $2 billion transfer of wealth from the hands of big business to working people over the next decade.

For over seven years Kshama Sawant’s socialist City Council office has demonstrated what it means to stand unambiguously on the side of ordinary people as an elected official. Kshama’s unique movement-building approach has led to historic victories like the $15 minimum wage, landmark renters rights laws like the winter evictions ban, and a first-in-the-nation ban on crowd control weapons during the Justice for George Floyd uprisings this summer.

As just one councilmember, Kshama doesn’t rely on legislating change and backdoor compromises with Democratic co-councilors and big business interests. She turns to working class people, youth, and progressive organizations in the city of Seattle and works with them to get organized in their workplaces, schools and neighborhoods, show up to City Hall, and demand what is needed (not what is acceptable to the political establishment). That’s how, as just one city councilmember, she has driven such historic wins.

This recall campaign is an attempt to reverse every one of these gains and push Seattle politics back to the right. It is just the latest in a series of attacks from the right wing and big business, and we should expect these attacks will only grow in severity and frequency as we fight for and win more victories, and resources for working class people in Seattle.

Less than a year ago, Jeff Bezos, big business, and the right-wing tried to buy the city council seat in this district, spending millions to support business-backed candidates across the city. Our volunteers got organized, built a grassroots campaign, and knocked on over 120,000 doors to defeat the richest NOVEMBER 2020

man in the world. While the ruling class thought they had defeated Kshama and the movement’s first attempt at an Amazon Tax in 2018, she was re-elected in 2019 and went on to help pass a second tax on big business that was four times larger than the first. After failing again and again to beat the three-time elected socialist Councilmember at the ballot, they are now trying to make use of the courts to remove her by introducing an undemocratic recall election.

The victories we have won in Seattle have changed the lives of countless people and set powerful examples that have again and again spread across the country. Kshama’s example has raised the confidence of working people that we can fight for and win an alternative to the misery and brutality of life under capitalism. That example is more threatening to the ruling class than any individual victory we have won, and the ruling class will do whatever it takes to try to crush the confidence Kshama inspires in our movements.

Going forward, we can expect a tsunami of corporate cash in this fight, along with a slew of corporate media propaganda. The recall campaign has already raised over $123,000, with $50,000 of that in anonymous donations in an obvious attempt to hide right-wing and corporate donors. Billionaire Trump donor Martin Selig is supporting the recall campaign, after having spent $25,000 to repeal the first Amazon Tax and maxing out to Kshama’s opponent last year. We have every reason to expect massive corporate PAC money again as in 2019. Of the donations that have gone publicly on record to the

recall campaign, donor’s occupations tell the story of who’s funding this effort: “Investor,” “CEO,” “Venture Capitalist,” “Investment Banker,” and “Financial Advisor.” It’s clear this will be a repeat of ultra-rich, right-wing donors trying to buy the District 3 council seat.

We know the courts, like the police, are no friend of working people. We have seen this already as the King County Superior Court upheld the recall charges against Councilmember Sawant for standing with the Black Lives Matter movement at the same time that the state Supreme Court unanimously threw out the recall charges against corporate Democratic Mayor Jenny Durkan for overseeing a vicious crackdown on the movement. There will not be a single opportunity for Kshama to defend herself against the accuracy of the recall charges; the law in Washington State says that the charges don’t need to be proven, but will nonetheless have the appearance on the ballot as though they are established facts.

Already we’ve seen corporate media go on the offensive, publishing articles spuriously claiming Kshama encouraged violence and lawlessness by standing side by side with peaceful Justice for George Floyd protesters.

The Seattle Times, for one, has attempted to equate Kshama and the Black Lives Matter movement peacefully protesting in Mayor Durkan’s neighborhood (which is one of the recall charges) with the violent right-wing plot to kidnap the Michigan Governor.

What these corporate media articles neglect to mention is that the mass protests

this year have been overwhelmingly peaceful and have had a powerful impact in pushing back against racism in the era of Donald Trump. In Seattle, they have also helped lead to two historic victories: the first-in-nation ban on chemical weapons and the Amazon Tax for affordable housing. We know what actually keeps our communities safe: good paying union jobs, affordable housing and fully funded education and public services, paid for by taxing the rich and not working people – Kshama and our movements have fought for these at every turn against the opposition of the political establishment.

The Kshama Solidarity Campaign has hit the ground running, building up a fighting campaign apparatus and raising $110,000 in the first six weeks of our campaign, with already over 1,200 working-class and middle-class donors. Our campaign is building the demand to cancel rent for those who’ve lost their incomes due to the pandemic and against this coming wave of evictions. We’re campaigning for a socialist Green New Deal in Seattle to end all fossil fuel emissions by 2030 and to create thousands of well paid union jobs. We’re demanding an elected community oversight board with full powers over the police, including setting department policy and hiring and firing of officers. In Seattle, the Office of Police Accountability is completely defanged: of 19,000 complaints submitted to the OPA from the protests this summer, the only results are 1 written reprimand and another officer facing a potential paid suspension of a few days.

Despite the enormous resources of the right-wing and big business, we must remember what we can win when we get organized.

The Kshama Solidarity Campaign is getting organized – join us.

If you don’t live in Seattle, don’t worry, you can still help!

J Donate at kshamasolidarity.org/donate J Follow the Kshama Solidarity Campaign on social media: Facebook @VoteSawant, Twitter @Kshama_SC, Instagram @Kshama_SC J Post to your social media accounts about why you stand with Kshama and Seattle’s working people against this right-wing attack and encourage others to donate.

J Consider joining Socialist Alternative and subscribing to our publications! J

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NEVER ANOTHER TRU POLITICS

WHY WE NEED A NEW WORKING CLASS PARTY Tom Crean, New York

W

orking people in the U.S. are facing a crisis of massive proportions. Decades of neoliberal attacks on unions and the gains of working people have created the greatest level of inequality in a century and massive precarity. The deep cuts to public hospitals over the past years on top of millions being without health insurance has left the country, especially the poor, dangerously unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic.

In the immediate sense, there is no national plan to deal with the pandemic with new cases reaching record numbers and hospitals across many parts of the Midwest heading towards a breaking point. The failure of the Republicans

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and Democrats to agree to an extension of the $600 unemployment top-up means that millions are living on their credit cards and are only able to stay in their homes because of the federal eviction moratorium. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses will fail without further aid.

Meanwhile the epidemic of police brutality has sparked a massive multiracial rebellion against racism. This is to say nothing of the biggest challenge we face: climate disaster, brought home in the most graphic way possible by the devastating wildfire season in the western states.

All of these catastrophes are by-products of decaying capitalism in this period. Donald Trump is also a by-product of decaying capitalism and during his four years in office has worked to make almost every one of the

problems working people face worse. But he certainly didn’t create the problems. And while tens of millions here and around the world will understandably rejoice at the end of the Trump regime, to find a solution to the underlying problems we must look deeper. In particular we need to see how the two party corporate political system, and especially the Democratic Party, have worked to maintain the rule of the billionaire elite.

Democrats, Party of Neoliberal Capitalism

The Democrats, as one of the two main capitalist parties in the U.S. going back to the 19th century, have a long and complex history.

The post-World War II party was based on an alliance between “Dixiecrat” segregationists in the South and a coalition of labor, immigrant whites and Blacks in the North. In the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, conservative whites in the South began to move towards the Republicans.

This was followed by the shift of the ruling class towards what is now called neoliberalism in the late 70s. The Democrats adopted the neoliberal agenda of deregulation, reducing the role of government, promotion of free trade, and pushing the unions back (while still accepting tens of millions in campaign contributions from unions). This represented the abandonment of the pretense to represent the interests of working people going back to the New Deal. Instead, the party pretended to care about racial and gender discrimination in order to draw a distinction between themselves and the Republicans who increasingly used wedge issues like guns, abortion, and affirmative action to mobilize their base.

During Bill Clinton’s eight years in office from 1992 to 2000, the Democrats built on what the reactionary Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush regimes had “accomplished” in the previous twelve. They set out to “end welfare as we know it,” gutting anti-poverty programs that were passed under the pressure of mass struggles in the Protester during Occupy Wall Street.

60s and 70s. They passed the 1994 Crime Bill which accelerated the mass incarceration police state measures directed at the Black population. They passed the single biggest neo-liberal trade deal, NAFTA, which led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs. They even repealed the Glass Steagall Act from the 1930s – which had imposed basic regulation on the banks – at the behest of Wall Street. This helped fuel the financial casino which triggered the 2008-9 economic crisis.

After George W. Bush came to office in 2000 in a stolen election (see p.10) the Democrats capitulated to him on issue after issue.

They voted for the Patriot Act after 9/11, which massively increased the government’s surveillance powers, and most of them enthusiastically supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq two years later. Large numbers of them also went along with Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and reduction of corporate tax, which helped to widen inequality even further.

The Democrats returned to the White House in 2008 with Obama’s victory as the economy was in the midst of its most serious crisis since World War II. There was huge hope created by the election of the first Black president, but Obama’s soaring rhetoric contained no commitment to change course from the neoliberalism of Bill Clinton. Once in office, his administration’s solution to the economic collapse was to bail out the banks to the tune of trillions of dollars while standing by as millions lost their homes.

Between 2008 and 2010 the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress. During this time, they extended the Bush tax cuts and reneged on pledges to make it easier to organize unions. They joined the Republicans in a relentless campaign to privatize and destroy public education. To top it off, Obama’s response to immigration across the Southern border was to deport more people than any previous president.

The leadership of the unions and other progressive organizations refused to stand up to these attacks because of their utter subservience to the Democratic establishment. In this vacuum, the populist wing of the Republican Party saw an opening to exploit economic discontent. This led to the birth of the Tea Party in 2009, which in turn laid the ground for Donald Trump. Likewise under a Biden presidency, the threat of the far right could well grow as the Democrats oversee a massive crisis and point no way forward.

This is the disastrous record of the S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

UMP “Don’t Let Trump Steal This Election” rally organized by Socialist Alternative in Columbus, OH.

Democratic Party over the past forty years.

They stand for policies at the local and national level, like giving the police and the military ever more resources, which are rejected by the entire progressive wing of their base. At the same time they refuse to support policies like Medicare for All and taxing the rich, that are supported by significant majorities of the whole population because their corporate donors reject these.

Over the past ten years, there have been huge struggles that have helped rebuild the left in the U.S., from Occupy to Black Lives Matter to the teachers’ revolt of 2018. In 2016 and again in 2020, the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders showed the potential for a mass left alternative built around a fighting pro-worker program. Sanders stood for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, an end to mass incarceration, a $15 federal minimum wage and free college.

But despite the mass radicalization of recent years, especially among young people, the change that people actually want was not on the ticket this November. Incredibly we got Joe Biden, the worst possible retread of Democrat neoliberalism, except maybe for Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden who was in the Senate or the White House for 44 straight years, was an architect of the 1994 Crime Bill, and a supporter of NAFTA and the Iraq War. This is because the Democratic Party is owned lock, stock and barrel by corporate America. And as long as Sanders, AOC, the unions and progressive forces generally accept the framework of the Democrats, this is the type of outcome we’ll be stuck with. It is tragic to watch Sanders angling for a position in Biden’s cabinet.

Will This Time Be Different?

What will the Democrats being in power this time look like? They have promised that they are going to “spend money.” This may sound NOVEMBER 2020

like a move to the left compared to their past support for cuts to social services. However, it is not at all radical in the context of the current global economic crisis. All of the key capitalist financial institutions around the world, including the IMF, World Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve, are advocating massive fiscal stimulus on top of what has already been spent (far more than 08-09). This is because of their very justified fears that the economy is on the edge of a deep slump if they don’t keep pumping money in.

But there is a big difference between “spending money” on a temporary expansion of unemployment benefits and aid to small businesses – which is completely necessary – and actually committing to longer term programs. Biden and Harris have made amply clear they will actively oppose Medicare for All despite its massive popularity. During the campaign, they doubled down on opposing a ban on fracking and, while saying there would have to be a transition away from fossil fuels, they flatly opposed a Green New Deal, which would create millions of good industrial jobs.

However, they did say that they would support more funding for the police!

On the Democratic caucus call in the days following the election, it was reported that Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger emphatically exclaimed that the reason the party lost seats in the House is because they have become associated with progressive politics. Spanberger’s concluding advice to the party was: “Don’t say socialism ever again.”

The Democrats will seek at the first opportunity to implement savage cuts to make the working class pay for the cost of the crisis.

They will resist any serious proposal to tax the rich and big business and they will seek to maintain as much of the neoliberal agenda as they can. But they will face huge problems because the mass of the population will reject austerity and a continuation of the policies of

the past decades.

Building a New Party So if the Democrats are not the vehicle to win the change we need, how will we win Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and bring the police under real democratic control? The history of this country shows that real gains for working people are only won by mass movements and social struggle. Examples include the mass unionization drive and strike wave of the 1930s and the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

As we face a billionaire class that has amassed nearly another $1 trillion during the course of this pandemic it is clear we urgently need to rebuild a fighting labor movement.

The teachers, hotel workers, and auto workers showed the way in 2018-19.

But to take on the entrenched interests of the billionaire class, we also need a political party that represents our interests. Bernie Sanders’ two presidential campaigns showed not only the potential level of support for a left political alternative to corporate politics in general but also concretely how hundreds of millions could be raised from ordinary people without accepting a cent in corporate money.

For decades we’ve been told that it’s impossible to run serious campaigns without corporate money. If Sanders’ campaigns did nothing other than smash this myth, they did a very valuable thing.

What should a new party of the left based on the interests of working people look like?

First and foremost it should be a party of struggle, not simply an electoral machine. As Socialist Alternative has demonstrated in organizing victorious campaigns in Seattle that elected Kshama Sawant to the City Council three times, the key is to build movements in the streets and bring those movements into the corridors of power. That’s how we won

the first $15 minimum wage in a big city and that’s how we won the Amazon Tax, which will raise hundreds of millions from big business to build affordable housing and for other essential needs.

A national party of working people should represent all the struggles of the increasingly multiracial and multigender working class including fighting to end mass deportation policies and for citizenship rights for immigrant workers; to defend abortion rights and LGBTQ rights from the attacks of the emboldened reactionary right; to end all gerrymandering and voter suppression policies.

We need a party where our elected representatives are accountable to the membership and where they are required to vote for the positions in the party platform. Accountability also means that the party’s public representatives don’t make more than the average workers’ wage like Kshama.

In such a party, Marxists would fight for a clear anti-capitalist platform that advocates bringing key sectors of the economy, including the banks, healthcare, major manufacturing as well as the energy, logistics and transportation sectors, into public ownership. This is the only way we can begin to direct society’s resources to ending massive inequality and structural racism as well as carrying through a rapid transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy.

One question that is often asked is where the forces for this new party will come from.

Our answer is that there is a massive potential pool of support from those who supported Sanders’ campaigns, progressive trade unionists, and young people active in the fight against racism, sexism and climate catastrophes. But it is absolutely true that it will require significant figures and organizations to launch

continued on p.11

7

POLITICS

Partisan Bickering Instead of Relief

WORKING PEOPLE NEED RESOURCES FOR SECOND WAVE Joshua Koritz, New York

In October, the dreaded second wave of COVID-19 infections began - including the worst single week of the pandemic in the U.S. In large parts of the country the virus is now completely out of control - most people don’t even know how they are becoming infected.

Meanwhile in Europe, the second wave has forced a number of countries to impose new restrictions including complete lockdowns.

The “second wave” of the Coronavirus is focused in the Midwest and smaller urban areas. The strain on hospitals and health care resources in these areas is rapidly pushing them to the breaking point. There is a dire need to pour medical resources in to help these areas cope with the looming disaster.

Relief Ran Out For months, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have bickered over the next round of relief. As cases spiked, Congress… went on recess. Yup, the millionaires retreated to their mansions not to return to work until after the election. As cases surge across the country, the need for many cities and towns to shut down non-essential business is now concretely posed. Ordinary

people understandably want to avoid this given the disastrous effects of the first lockdown. But the reason we’re in this situation in the first place is because of the failure of the capitalist health care system and the criminal incompetence of the Trump administration.

Serious measures to flatten the curve need to be matched by massive assistance to working people to get through this.

Today, millions are out of work and hundreds of thousands of small businesses are facing closure. The need for a new round of stimulus is dire. Big business and the corporate politicians agree - more stimulus is needed, yet both parties stubbornly refused to make any sort of deal lest the other be able to claim it as a victory ahead of the elections.

State budgets have already been stretched to the max to cover COVID-19 costs as well as remote schooling and changes in other services. Now all states are facing budget shortfalls as they anticipate losing billions of dollars in tax revenue. State and municipal budget crises represent only one part of the potential worsening of the economic crisis.

As corporate politicians of both parties refuse to tax big business, they will continue to take the budget shortfalls out of badly needed social services like education and health care. Billions have already been cut in New

North Dakota family at COVID-19 testing site.

York, California, and elsewhere.

Working People at the Breaking Point Unemployment numbers have declined as the economy has partially restarted. The government says the unemployment rate in September was 7.9%. However, the numbers

also showed that nearly 20 million people who want to work don’t have jobs and massive layoffs have happened in the airline and hospitality sectors.

Combined with the end of the unemployment top up, the lack of jobs - particularly living wage jobs - presents a massive problem

continued on p.11

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 2020 Smashing Obstacles to Build the Forces of Marxism

Alicia Salvadeo, Pittsburgh On October 10-11, over 650 Socialist Alternative members gathered virtually for the largest assembly in the history of our national organization. This event also marked another milestone as we surpassed over 1000 members this month! Members who have been building SA for decades were enthusiastically joined by those who had signed up within days of the assembly, newly drawing revolutionary conclusions through their own experiences as explosive and compounding crises continue to expose capitalism’s abject failure.

The pandemic, economic depression, ongoing racist police brutality, and climate change threaten to further deprive and demoralize millions. Revolutionary upheavals and counter-revolutionary backlash have and will continue to erupt from these conditions worldwide. Our greatest weapon is the democratic organization of workers and youth.

Decisive and united action of the working class, based on a common analysis, program, and methods, can take on the minority of billionaires and their deranged, undemocratic political system.

The COVID-19 outbreak meant postponing

8

Socialist Alternative’s previously scheduled National Convention in Chicago in May. Since we were unable to hold an in-person delegated meeting we decide to organize the online assembly instead because, despite obstacles, it’s vitally important for socialists to prepare for the tumultuous period ahead.

Exchange and debate amongst a vibrant, active membership rooted in workers’ and youth struggles is essential to determine the best strategies for building an effective working class fightback.

Our National Assembly welcomed International Socialist Alternative members from Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Hong Kong, the U.K, and a number of other countries. They provided updates about ongoing struggles against sexist violence and oppression; polarized elections in Bolivia; the Cold War between U.S. and Chinese imperialism; the British Labour Party’s disastrous rightward retreat; and more. This discussion on international developments demonstrated how crucial a revolutionary party is to defend our movements against not only the far right, but the disastrous mistakes of social democratic parties that have refused to break with capitalism.

Discussions and virtual rallies throughout the weekend were energetic; members prepared seriously for wide-ranging discussions on political and economic developments in the U.S., as well as sixty-five workshops on theoretical, historical, and international topics.

Marxists study material conditions in society, the political forces and events they give rise to, and where these developments are heading. Understanding these dynamics can allow us to impact events in favor of the working class while continuing to build revolutionary socialist forces worldwide. As Lenin said, “Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary action.” Many of these workshops demonstrated how Marxist theory and historical events bear enormous relevance to the conditions and challenges we face today.

Members shared best practices in partybuilding workshops about building our revolutionary socialist organization, political education, labor and youth organizing, writing for our publications, campaigning, fundraising, and more. The most popular session was dedicated to helping our members work on their own political development - showing how committed members are to qualitatively

building Socialist Alternative through ongoing study and practice, and strengthening our engagement and leadership in real onthe-ground struggles. These workshops also offered a venue to share lessons from the historic Tax Amazon victory in Seattle, campaigns against police brutality and gentrification like Stop the Station in Pittsburgh, workplace organizing under pandemic conditions, tenant organizing, and more.

A fighting political program depends on our organization’s independence from corporate influence. In this vein, we have a strong tradition of fundraising to develop our work. Hundreds of members pledged to raise their monthly Socialist Alternative membership dues to help further build our national organization.

The National Assembly left a deep and exhilarating impression upon fresh and veteran members alike about what kind of organization were building: a tenacious force determined to extinguish the horrors of capitalism, undaunted by the challenges ahead.

Fortified by this collective revolutionary optimism, we have a world and a socialist future to win. Join Socialist Alternative today! J

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

NIGERIA: MASSACRE OF ANTIPOLICE-CORRUPTION PROTESTORS

Movement for a Socialist Alternative Protests against police brutality in Nigeria took a violent turn at the end of October as the police open fired on peaceful demonstrators, killing, according to Amnesty International, at least twelve people. We publish here a press statement issued by the Movement for a Socialist Alternative after the Lekki Toll Gate massacre, which marked a pivotal moment in the demonstrations.

October 22, 2020 “We of the Movement for A Socialist Alternative (MSA) condemn in the strongest terms the bloody repression of #EndSARS peaceful protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate.”

The Lekki Toll Gate and Alausa Secretariat

have been the two major centres of mass mobilization in Lagos State against the rogue Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and police brutality in October. For two weeks running, these protests had been organized in a peaceful and orderly manner.

The agitations and protests took a new turn when the regime and supporters began to mobilize and finance hoodlums attacked protesters in Abuja and the Alausa area of Lagos. It was clear that it was a matter of time before the regime launched a full declaration of war on the #EndSARS protesters across the country.

The regime lead by Muhammadu Buhari has demonstrated to all that it is as brutal as other regimes of the capitalist ruling elites in repressing peaceful protesters, despite posturing as a “regime of change.”

POLAND: Paweł Nowak, Alternatywa Socjalistyczna (ISA in Poland) Following the October 22 ruling of the Polish Constitutional Court that made abortion illegal in the case of fetal defects, protests and mass demonstrations have swept the country. The day of the ruling, a spontaneous demonstration marched on the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party headquarters in Warsaw and then on to the private home of Jarosaw Kaczynski, leader of PiS. Demonstrations and protests continued each day since the ruling, growing in scale and sweeping across the country. On the Sunday following the ruling, thousands

NOVEMBER 2020

This is evidenced by deploying the military with armoured tanks and machine guns to be freely used in the cover of the night against peaceful protesters, killing and fatally injuring many at the Lekki Tollgate, shooting and mauling down peaceful protesters, showcasing its hatred for civility, and disrespect for democratic rights.

The present movement emerged in the wake of an extra-judicial murder of a young man by SARS operatives in Ughelli, Delta-State. Protests have since spread like wild-fire from one community to another and from state to state. Importantly it has had young people at the front, who have funded the movement and assured its independence.

The immediate demand for this protest is an end to SARS. But in reality, the anger of young people and Nigerians in general with the capitalist and oppressive state goes beyond SARS; to all that is wrong and oppressive in Nigeria caused by the system of capitalism, including rampant unemployment, including for 13.1 million youth. But upon this grave economic situation facing young people, the capitalist government enforces policies that make it difficult for them to buy basic things while the police lurk around to extort them of the little resources they have.

There can be no better time for the mass of the organized working class to bring their might to bear than now with all of its strength with a 48-hour general strike in full support and condemnation of the killing of innocent citizens. MSA argues for the working class and poor masses to take control of the wealth and resources of Nigeria to be democratically planned for the needs of all and to end the economic tyranny of capitalism. J

Mass Movement in Defense of Abortion Rights

of protesters stormed the churches and faced a standoff with police in many towns.

On Monday, blockades in over 50 towns brought the country’s traffic to a standstill.

Currently, abortion is still legal in Poland in the case of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life or health is in danger. However, in practice the right to an abortion in these cases is usually blocked by the “conscience” of the doctor, and there are regions of the country where no hospitals will perform an abortion.

Anger is now such that the central slogan is “Wypierdalac!” (F**k off!). Another popular but more subtle slogan is “I wish I could abort my government.” Clearly protesters don’t want to simply reverse the ruling of

the Constitutional Court — they want to get rid of the “Law and Justice” government and the corrupt Church hierarchy which dominates the state.

Alternatywa Socjalistyczna and Rosa Polska — the socialist feminist campaign — is calling on the trade unions to come out clearly against the abortion ban. We are not only fighting against the current attack on abortion rights. We demand a woman’s right to choose in all situations — abortion on demand, no questions asked, free of charge and free and easy access to contraception. The influence of religious fundamentalists should be removed from the state, the health service and the schools. J

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

To read more international news check out International Socialist Alternative at internationalsocialist.net.

Bolivia: Election Defeat for Right Wing Coup Plotters Bolivia’s October 18 elections were a clear defeat of the Latin American right and of American imperialism, against all its coup plotting, authoritarianism, racism and contempt for the rights of the people.

Luis Arce, member of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party, decisively won election, one year after the U.S.-backed coup that ousted MAS president Evo Morales.

Those who promoted the coup and the murderous repression in November 2019 were categorically repudiated by the vast majority. We welcome this defeat of the right wing with enthusiasm. J

South Africa: Workers Unite Across Federations in Nationwide Strike Action Workers from all major union federations turned up in the thousands for the October 7 #CosatuNationalStrike. These federations called on their members to support this action, marking an end to the long paralysis in the labor movement and a historic moment of working class solidarity not seen since the fall of Apartheid.

Slogans on placards demanding jobs and against the privatization of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), with chants calling for the end to corruption and the scourge of gender based violence were seen and heard across the country. Union federations are calling on the state to implement the agreed wage increases in the public sector. J

Second Wave of COVID-19 Sweeps Through Europe There is now a definite, and more deadly second wave of COVID-19 in Europe, with a sharp rise of infections in most countries. Ireland, the U.K., France, Denmark and Italy have reimplemented national and regional lockdowns, and many more are re-closing restaurants and businesses Countries that were hit hard in the first wave, and those who saw fewer infections are all seeing numbers that rival or exceed peaks during the spring.

Governments everywhere have failed to prevent this second wave. The health sector and the conditions for health workers have not improved.

Rapid testing and contact tracing has not been sufficiently implemented. Advice on protective equipment has been vague and access limited. Workers are advised to go to work but are blamed if they use public transport. Compensation for lost wages and jobs has been less than what is needed and has already been reduced in many countries. J

9

HISTORY

REMEMBERING THE 2000 ELECTION: DEMOCRATIC PARTY BETRAYAL Tony Wilsdon, Seattle

Until now, the 2000 election was known as one of the most contested in U.S. history. Florida was the battleground where, by the morning after the election, George Bush was ahead of Al Gore by less than 2,000 votes, triggering a recount which narrowed the margin to less than 350 votes. This tight margin caused frenzied legal attempts from the Gore campaign to carry out a series of recounts. A weeks-long legal battle ensued and ultimately the Supreme Court decided in favor of the Bush campaign, causing Gore to concede.

The true story behind the 2000 election is that the Democrats put up a status-quo candidate against Bush, causing very tight margins, and in the face of out-and-out election theft from Republican strategists, the Democrats refused to fight. They spun a story that it was the fault of Ralph Nader’s left independent campaign that Bush won, rather than their own uninspiring candidate and their unwillingness to fight.

Nader’s Independent Presidential Campaign People surged into Nader’s presidential campaign, spending $10 to attend mass rallies of 10,000’s across the country for a fresh start in politics. In the summer of 2000, Nader began polling around 10% in some parts of the country. Nader tapped into a ferment within the labor movement and received some important union endorsements.

The Democratic Party refused to change its neoliberal policies even in the face of this insurgent threat. They put forward vice-president Al Gore as their candidate in

a continuation of Bill Clinton’s neo-liberal policies. Two weeks before Election Day, the Democratic Party spent millions on antiNader messages on all media platforms and involving high-profile tours by liberal spokespersons like Gloria Steinem and Melissa Etheridge to cut across Nader’s support. Its effect was to cut Nader’s vote in half, while also demobilizing millions of young people who supported his radical program.

Contested Election: Democrats Refuse to Fight On election day, the result was too close to call, and would be determined by a recount of votes in Florida. After a recount of machine votes, George W. Bush was only 327 votes ahead. This tight margin caused the Gore campaign to demand a hand recount in four counties. In the days that followed Republican strategists organized right wing “rent-amobs” to disrupt the recount on the grounds that it was “fraudulent.”

One of these Republican rent-a-mobs stormed a vote counting location in the Democratic stronghold Miami-Dade county with Republican staffers throwing chairs and tables. This scene has been historically remembered as the “Brooks’ Brothers Riot.”

The result was a halt to the vote recount.

Since courts in Florida as well as the Supreme Court were under the control of Republicans, it was a foregone conclusion that they would rule in favor of the Republicans. If the Democrats were to win, it would only happen through struggle. However, the Democratic Party refused to organize a fightback. In the end, the Supreme Court stopped the recount as it was trending towards Gore, essentially giving the Republicans the White

Pro-Gore protests outside the U.S. Supreme Court, 2000.

House in a “cold coup.”

Rather than using any of their legal tools to fight this, the Democratic Party went on the offensive against Nader, blaming him for electing Bush. This diverted attention from their own attacks on social movements and weakened the growth of an independent political campaign that could challenge them.

The evidence does not back up the Democrats’ accusations against Nader. Gore had won the popular vote and was only prevented from winning by the undemocratic electoral college, the Supreme Court, and politics of the Democratic Party establishment. In Florida, the 97,488 votes Nader received are dwarfed by the 308,000 registered Democrats who voted for Bush. In other words, it was dissatisfaction with the Democrats that was the dominant issue in the 2000 election.

Build Independent Working Class Political Party Instead of 2000 being the start of a new left independent political movement, the completely short-sighted role of liberal and many left commentators was to repeat the mantra that Nader cost Gore the 2000 election. The thinking of these individuals was dominated by their deeply held view that the Democrats are the only possible force to defeat the right and must be protected at all costs from the growth of an energetic left movement.

Today, we see history repeated in the Democratic Party leadership’s refusal to build mass protests against Trump’s inhumane policies against incarcerated immigrant families, attacks on the environment, or Trump’s threat to steal the 2020 election. For these reasons and more, we will raise even higher our call for building a new working-class party. J

THE LEGACY OF RACIST VOTER SUPPRESSION IN FLORIDA Camilla Shoosmith, Tampa Trump’s ability to pull off a victory in Florida in this year’s presidential election is not at all separate from the state’s history of voter suppression.

In November 2018, over 64% of Floridians voted in favor of an amendment to restore voting rights to an estimated 1.4 million people convicted of felonies who had finished their sentences. It was a historic moment for voting rights, as Florida is only one of four states remaining that continues to suppress the voting rights of people convicted of felonies.

As confusion set in over what “completing” a sentence actually meant, Republican lawmakers passed a bill in 2019 saying that in order to be eligible to vote, those who had finished sentences also had to have paid back all fees, fines, or restitutions. In a state where 3 in 4 people charged with felonies can’t afford a lawyer, and where people are

10

charged fees for seeking a public defender and to cover the costs of their own prosecution, the bill caused hundreds of thousands in the state to continue to remain ineligible to vote.

Approximately 35,000 people convicted of felonies (of which 32,000 are Black) registered to vote after the landmark ruling in 2018, and none of them were notified of the changes following the passage of the bill. Furthermore, since there is no centralized way of tracking court fees and fines, figuring out who owes what can be a monumental task.

If any of these individuals headed to the polls without knowing they’re no longer eligible, they face an additional felony charge and up to 5 years in prison.

The bill was a direct attack on the poor and of people of color, and not a single Florida Democrat attempted to oppose its passage. While the bill was overturned in a lower court, it was eventually upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, of

which five judges are Trump appointees.

What Do We Do?

Racist History of Voter Suppression

Cash bail and punitive court fees should be abolished. All individuals serving time for minor, nonviolent offenses should be released, and money used from the defunding of the police should be used to build affordable housing, to fund a green jobs program, and to expand social services to help reintegrate formerly incarcerated people back into society.

As socialists, we demand the requirement of those charge with felonies to pay off court fees be overturned, and all current and formerly incarcerated people be immediately given the right to vote.

The struggle to build political independence from the two parties of Wall Street, and fight for the needs of working class people needs to energetically take up the struggle for voting rights for Black voters and incarcerated people. J

Voter suppression in America has a long and racist history. Following the abolition of slavery, many Southern states were forced to grant voting rights to newly freed slaves. In response, many states, including Florida, enacted laws that disenfranchised people charged with felony crimes. Then in 1863, Florida expanded felony offenses to include minor crimes such as petty theft and vagrancy. By the late 1800’s, 90 percent of felony arrests in Florida were Black men.

Black incarceration skyrocketed in the 1980’s and 1990’s following the racist and bipartisan “War on Drugs,” with Joe Biden playing a significant role as the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill. Today, 1 in 5 people in Florida charged with a felony are Black.

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

C O N T I N U AT I O N S

NEVER ANOTHER TRUMP continued from p.6-7 this party.

The left in the U.S. has prominent figures like Sanders, AOC and the newly-elected Cori Bush, Congressperson from Missouri. We need them to hear from their supporters who have drawn the conclusion that the Democratic Party can’t be reformed. We applaud figures like Cornel West, Nina Turner – president of Our Revolution, and Roseann De Moro – former president of National Nurses United, who are already moving in this direction. We need the Democratic Socialists of America, which has grown to 70,000 members in recent years and has formally committed itself to supporting the formation of a workers party, to actually make this effort a priority.

One immediate step could be to begin running socialist candidates for local office on an independent basis with a common platform and a movement-building focus.

Never Another Trump We need to be very clear that, unless we begin to take more serious steps towards building a new political force based on the multiracial and multi-gender working class, we face serious dangers in the coming years.

Donald Trump and the populist right have built a massive political base, which includes a growing far right wing.

If we have a repeat of 2008-10 with working people and sections of the middle class suffering as the banks and corporations are looked after by a corporate Democratic

administration, this will provide a huge opening for the far right to grow further.

There have been possibilities in the United States to build a party of working people in the 1930s, in the 1970s, and again in the 1990s. For various reasons these were squandered. Today it is clearer than ever to millions, especially young people, that capitalism is a bankrupt system. The time has come to build a mighty movement, organized in workplaces, neighborhoods, and colleges and reflected at the ballot box, which can decisively challenge the rule of the billionaires. This movement must stop at nothing to bring the destructive and parasitic rule of capital to an end in America and unite with working people across the world to build a peaceful, prosperous, and egalitarian socialist future. J

RESOURCES NEEDED FOR SECOND WAVE continued from p.8 for working people who still have rent and many other bills due. Personal debt is rising.

For example, during the pandemic there’s been a massive increase in the number of people paying rent with credit cards. These payments will come due and the corporations won’t allow a bailout of working people, the same way there was never a bailout for those who lost homes in 2008-9.

The Likely Worst Case If the worst case scenario plays out, meaning no stimulus at all, the economy will crash.

Working people won’t have the money to pay rent and bills, which will lead to empty units and unpaid mortgages which could mean a wrench in the gears of the entire financial system. Even with another stimulus, recovery will be difficult as a result of the second wave.

A new stimulus bill with relief to the states, more money for COVID-19 testing, prevention and relief, as well as an unemployment top up and other stimulus measures are needed to stave off the worst effects of this crisis. There also needs to be a federally coordinated and resourced plan for how to massively and safely produce and distribute an

eventual vaccine, focusing first on the most vulnerable communities. Given the political games played by Trump and others with the vaccine question, there needs to be full transparency and democratic oversight to give people confidence and make this as effective as possible.

Working people will need to fight tooth and nail for relief and against the austerity promised to us by both corporate parties. As struggle returns to the scene, working people need a new party, not beholden to corporate cash to represent these future struggles at the ballot box. J

JUSTICE FOR WALTER WALLACE JR. Greyson Van Arsdale, Philadelphia On Monday, the Philadelphia police shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man with a history of mental illness. After a summer of uprisings against racist police violence, with little change won from City Hall, large demonstrations mobilized in the neighborhood of West Philadelphia within hours.

While the death of Wallace was an outrage in its own right, the context surrounding his killing has only shown more clearly the need for drastic change. Wallace’s family said that they had called 911 to get Wallace an ambulance to get him help for a mental health crisis. According to the Philadelphia police commissioner, the police department does not have a behavioral health response unit, and the 911 call center’s (singular) behavioral health specialist was offduty on Monday.

As we saw over the summer, there is a rage simmering among millions of working people about the repressive role the police play in our society. In addition to routinely brutalizing Black people, the police are also deployed to crush social movements.

The movements over the summer have won limited reforms in some places, including the removal of police from schools in some cities, bans on chemical weapons in others, and the passage of “Breonna’s Law” in Kentucky, Oregon and most recently Virginia banning the kinds of no-knock warrants that killed Breonna Taylor.

But so far, only a few places have been able to win even partial “defunding” of police departments, and these limited cuts NOVEMBER 2020

happened in the context of cuts to the overall city budgets as local governments struggle with the effects of COVID-19. To win even de-militarized police departments and, crucially, the kind of mental health response systems that could have saved Wallace’s life, we need sustained action in the streets as well as consistent organization that allows struggle to continue.

In the absence of such sustained, coordinated action, it’s natural that rightfully enraged protesters turn to tactics like breaking windows and burning cop cars – while the City has acted morally horrified in response to these actions, property can be replaced, and the life of Walter Wallace Jr cannot. But these tactics are unlikely to result in the kind of systemic change we need, and we urgently need to organize our power as workers to shut this exploitive system down.

When Joe Biden was asked to respond to the “events in Philadelphia” yesterday, the first words out of his mouth were to condemn the “looting and violence.” The official campaign statement from Biden and Harris also spotlights looting, without even mentioning that Wallace was killed by a police officer. This is the campaign that claims to be allied with equality and justice, but has on numerous occasions pledged to increase already-bloated police budgets, not reallocate into the public services that working-class people need.

Trump must be driven from office, but in order to win justice for Black lives and an end to police brutality, we must build a political alternative to the Democratic Party, run by working class people of all races and genders, against the rule of profit. J

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE ISSN 2638-3349

EDITOR: Keely Mullen EDITORIAL BOARD: George Brown, Tom Crean, Rebecca Green, Eljeer Hawkins, Joshua Koritz, Calvin Priest, Tony Wilsdon

Editors@SocialistAlternative.org

NATIONAL 639 Union Street, #B Brooklyn, NY 11215 info@SocialistAlternative.org facebook.com/SocialistAlternativeUSA Instagram: @Socialist_Alternative Twitter: @SocialistAlt

INTERNATIONAL Socialist Alternative is part of International Socialist Alternative (ISA), which has sections in over 30 countries. Learn more about the ISA at internationalsocialist.net.

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11

SOCIALIST ISSUE #68 l NOVEMBER 2020 SUGGESTED DONATION $2

ALTERNATIVE

NO RETURN TO NORMAL We Need COVID Relief, Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal

Keely Mullen, New York To the relief of millions of Americans, Trump will be a one-term president. After enduring four years of his regime, and what felt like 10 years of 2020, many are finally unclenching their jaws.

Of course we should remain vigilant as Trump has already indicated a complete unwillingness to concede. He will continue to undermine the results of the election through a tsunami of lawsuits, recounts, and even whipping up the most reactionary elements of his base with baseless claims that the election was stolen from him. We should be prepared to mobilize in defense of the vote if Trump’s threats materialize.

“Too Close to Call” The relief felt by millions as Biden is on track to win the presidency is mixed in with an almost existential concern that this race was far too close. After four years of relentless attacks on immigrants, Black people, the environment, and the broader working class, Trump deserved a clear defeat on election night.

The reason this election was a nail biter and not a blowout was precisely because the candidate on offer to challenge Trump did not inspire confidence for millions of people. He was not able to point any inspiring way out of the COVID-19 pandemic, mass unemployment, deepening inequality, or racist police brutality. Instead, he promised this fantasy of a “return to normal” that millions have accepted isn’t possible or desirable.

A “return to normal” as Joe Biden and the

Democratic establishment would have it is a return to bailouts for big banks and corporations, a continuation of poverty wages for low-wage workers, a further explosion in billionaire wealth, and massive handouts to big insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Given that the U.S. is seeing the biggest surge in COVID-19 cases to date anywhere in the world and the economy is teetering on full collapse, Biden’s “normal” gets us mere inches further from the edge.

While it is a relief to see Trump out of office, what this moment calls for rather than Biden’s “normal” is something far closer to Bernie Sanders’ vision of Medicare for All, taxing the rich, and a Green New Deal jobs program. Unfortunately, it seems that at the exact moment we needed someone mobilizing people in defense of that vision, Bernie left the field. It will now be up to all of his supporters to carry that vision forward under a Biden presidency.

Fight for the Relief We Need The COVID-19 pandemic will outlive the last two months of Trump’s presidency. We will be left with this pandemic and its consequences for years to come. However we do not need to submit to despair. There are measures that can be taken immediately to bring the current outbreak under control. Executing these measures – including shutting down non-essential businesses in places where the virus is raging – will require a massive aid package to working people and small businesses to protect from the personal financial fallout of such a move.

Half measures and virtue signalling will not

be enough to get working people through this crisis. If we are to take the steps needed to get the virus under control, we need to apply pressure on both Trump and Biden once he takes office to carry out an emergency relief program. This means a massive investment in direct aid to working families and small businesses including: J another round of stimulus checks, J bring back the weekly $600 unemployment top-up, J extending eviction moratoriums and canceling rent for the duration of the crisis, J immediate aid to small businesses.

Funding the type of massive spending this moment calls for will require taxing the super rich and corporations to pay for it. This is something Biden and the entire Democratic establishment will resist at every turn. They will insist, as Democratic mayors and governors have done across the country, that working people should pay for this crisis through cuts to social services. We cannot accept this logic. Billionaire wealth has grown by more than 30% since March, while working people are scrambling to make rent and afford food.

It’s time the super rich and their portfolios took a hit.

Beyond direct aid to workers, we need to take drastic measures to contain the virus including: J returning to “Phase 1” lockdown (shutting down non-essential businesses) in places where the virus is raging, J massive aid to hospitals who are about to be overwhelmed to expand their capacity, J making widespread testing available for free to every American, J using the Defense Production Act to direct industry to produce needed supplies like ventilators and vials for vaccine distribution, J a federally directed effort to develop a vaccine that eliminates competition between pharmaceutical companies and brings together their vast resources, J once developed the vaccine should be free and widely accessible to all a rapid transition to a Medicare for All healthcare system that guarantees high-quality, free healthcare to all Americans.

Independent Politics Needed While this election exposed the lukewarm excitement about Joe Biden, enthusiasm for progressive policies shot up.

If, instead of a contest between two bad options, a real political alternative had been on the ballot – things would look very different. There is a hunger for a distinctly working class political party in this country and millions have drawn the correct conclusion that the Democratic Party simply won’t be it.

The task of the left in the final months of Trump’s presidency and continuing the moment Biden takes office needs to be the urgent creation of a mass, working class organization fighting for sweeping COVID-19 relief, Medicare for All, a Green New Deal jobs program, and taxing the rich to pay for it all. An organization like this could be a pole of attraction for millions of people who feel completely left behind by the bi-partisan politics of the billionaires. J