This article by Black Rose / Rosa Negra members Frank Ascaso and Patrick
Berkman takes stock of the present conjuncture around the 2024presidential election. The "choice" before us, is no choice at all:
between a program of unadorned reaction and that of friendly faced
genocide. But despair and retreat aren't adequate in the case of either
outcome. As the authors argue, we must get organized to confront
whatever political forces take control of the state.
[This article contains perspectives of individual members of Black
Rose/Rosa Negra and does not necessarily reflect the view of the entire
Federation.]
The Ballot Box and Popular Power: Charting a Better Way Forward
By Frank Ascaso and Patrick Berkman
With the surprise entrance of Vice President Kamala Harris as the
Democratic Party's presidential candidate, the character, but not the
nature, of the 2024 election cycle dramatically changed. Progressive
activists immediately started volunteering for her campaign, spurred not
by any substantive shift in policy - Harris has pledged to carry on
Biden's pro-Israel and anti-immigrant agenda - but by the simple fact
that the candidate wasn't Biden. As well, Harris has broken all previous
fundraising records for amounts raised in a single quarter, a success
owed largely to business interests and Silicon Valley. However, the
months since her ascension have shown a steady re-consolidation of
support for Trump in key states. The outcome of the election remains too
close to predict.
The dead heat of this race is, in part, due to this election cycle
offering the choice between the party of genocide and the party of
fascism. This is no choice at all. It is part of the formula that has
led to our worsening social crisis. For decades we have faced exactly
this same calculus at the ballot box: choose the lesser evil candidate
to stave off much worse outcomes for working and oppressed peoples. And
yet, conditions continue to worsen each cycle. This is a process that
has been slowly moving all of us toward fascism, climate crisis, and
genocide. Working within these options does not change that trajectory.
Only by working outside and against them can we alter our course.
To break free from this cycle rather than focus on elections, we suggest
using an ecosystem model to better understand political struggle and
organizing. In election years, progressive groups urgently call for
activists to work for Democratic candidates. However, it's important to
remember that groups engaging in political work are not a monolith: we
are part of an ecosystem of different social actors with different
orientations. While liberals, progressives, and allied forces work to
elect and influence politicians, those of us on the anticapitalist left
should build popular power. By building independent, disruptive
organizations of the working class, popular power can not only force
concessions from the ruling class in the present, but also carry the
potential to overthrow capitalism and the state in its entirety. Key to
its revolutionary potential is its operation outside and against the
existing structures of social and political domination. Understanding
our place within the larger ecosystem refocuses our efforts on class
struggle outside of the electoral arena, while progressive formations
will continue to work for politicians. They have a candidate to elect.
We have popular power to build.
To be clear, socialism isn't measured by how far to the left our
politicians are; nor is our proximity to fascism measured by how far to
the right they are. Fascism has taken over nations after both left-wing
and right-wing elections: what matters most is the people's ability to
organize themsleves and fight for something better. Whoever wins the
election in November, our focus should remain on the forms of popular
organization we build together.
Amid Compounding Crises, a Political Impasse
The ruling classes in the United States and other western powers
continue to face an acute crisis of legitimacy, with major social
institutions failing to meet the most basic needs of working people, be
it housing, climate, labor, health, cost of living, or a slew of other
issues. More importantly, the horror of the US-backed genocide in Gaza
and now Lebanon, as well as the blatant criminality of the Supreme Court
and other major governing institutions, have intensified this crisis of
legitimacy.
In this election, different sectors of the ruling class are fighting
among themselves over how to best manage and navigate the crisis. The
Democrats are further solidifying their role as the party of status quo
capital, with major corporate and billionaire donors from tech, finance,
Hollywood, and manufacturing supporting the Harris candidacy. Those of a
more social-democratic leaning are boxed out by the party bureaucracy on
one side and a hostile donor base on the other.
Meanwhile, on the right, there is another set of ruling class interests,
particularly in fossil fuels, tech, and finance, who are comfortable
with the Trump movement's use of political violence, criminality, graft,
and continued tax and regulatory gifts to big business. The profits made
during his administration have convinced them that whatever kind of
threat he poses, it's not a threat to their interests. Many of Trump's
financial backers - and hard core volunteer supporters - come from
small-time capitalists, members of the petty bourgeoisie like car
dealers and internet based commercial retailers.
The US-supported genocide in Gaza and its spread to Lebanon has
intensified this crisis of legitimacy and political impasse. As the
death toll rises and public anger increases, Gaza will continue to put
politicians in a bind. Republican politicians are opting for a quick and
decisive military victory, with Trump calling for Israel to "get it over
with" and promising to clamp down on protests. Many Democrats in office
would prefer a return to low level conflict that would move off the
front pages of the newspaper but allow Israel to continue its process of
ethnic cleansing and occupation. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have
clearly signaled that aside from a few wagged fingers over humanitarian
aid, they are firmly with Israel's ever-expanding war to the bitter end.
Zionist groups and defense industry interests fund campaigns to oust
pro-Palestinian politicians such as Cori Bush, who lost her primary race
thanks to tens of millions of dollars spent by the pro-Israel group
AIPAC. Neither party can let go of Israel because it is the centerpiece
of US military and foreign policy in the region.
Another major issue this cycle is, once again, immigration, where the
Democrats have lurched to the right, adopting much of the Republican
platform as their own. Dropping their opposition to Trump's harsh
anti-immigrant border policies, in June 2024 the Biden administration
issued an executive order that can shut down the border, suspended
asylum protections, and allowed for immediate deportations. A panicked
center will adopt the policies of the right if they think it will help
them stay in power. But as Democrats and their counterparts in Europe
have found out over the past decade, moving rightward on immigration
will not end the electoral threat of the far right.
Democrats are trying to make protecting abortion rights their
centerpiece campaign issue. The 2022 Dobbs decision ended what few
abortion rights remained in Roe v. Wade and consigned reproductive
rights to a patchwork of wildly different state laws. For many in
conservative-governed states, striking down Roe only codified what was
already for all practical purposes a total abortion ban. Attacks on
bodily autonomy, like abortion and trans healthcare, are joint endeavors
of heteropatriarchy and capitalism as they demand harsher control of
social reproduction. However, abortion bans are wildly unpopular with
the general public. Harris has, true to form, embraced the bare minimum
promises needed to attempt to keep the rallying cry potent. Trump, after
initially crowing over Dobbs and state-level abortion bans, has tried to
downplay them as the general election approaches: the Republican
National Committee even removed a federal abortion ban from its platform
for the first time in forty years. Regardless of the election's outcome,
neither party will have the kind of Congressional majority to actually
settle the issue even if they wanted to. And democrats, when they held
the majority in Congress, took no action on abortion. Like the pre-Dobbs
dynamic, most politicians are in practice happy to keep the controversy
alive, all the better for fundraising and mobilizing their base while
the rest of us pay the price.
These crises are not going away anytime soon. They are part of a cascade
of social crises. US ruling interests cannot address them within the
current frameworks of capitalist democracy and imperial interests that
they represent. These crises will continue to afflict us until we can
radically break out of this dynamic.
What Can Be Done: Outside and Against
Given present circumstances, we see debate on whether or not one should
vote as a distraction, generating much heat but very little light. Those
on the anti-capitalist left should not provide time, energy, or money to
electoral candidates. Popular power lies outside the state, and it
includes the power to impact and influence the state. We should work to
develop and build that power by organizing and acting collectively.
Beyond the importance of organizing at your workplace, apartment
building, and neighborhood, here are five avenues of action for the
present moment that are much more worthy of our time than canvassing for
candidates.
1. Organize with migrant workers and disrupt anti-immigrant repression
We can defend migrant workers and disrupt repression. We can build
unions and union-like formations in sectors with a high proportion of
immigrant and undocumented workers (e.g. farms, light manufacturing,
food service, gig work). These organizations, and solidarity networks,
workers groups, labor centers and others should be formed and
strengthened. For immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, ICE watch and rapid
response groups should be built, with members undergoing regular
operational and information security trainings to prepare them. These
groups are necessary now and will remain so under either Harris or
Trump. The social and physical infrastructure of border enforcement,
detention, and deportation are obvious and everywhere, even far from the
border. Direct actions during the first Trump term provide numerous
examples of how to slow their gears
2. Heighten the cost of the genocide in Gaza
In the case of Gaza, we can raise the cost of inaction on the part of
institutions at all levels by organizing and radicalizing alongside the
people within them. This way we can fracture the Zionist consensus
within the political class. We can organize for the campus occupations,
the BDS campaign, Palestinian resistance groups like Workers in
Palestine, and other immediate efforts. Importantly, we can continue to
shift the rhetorical climate from the minimum demand ("ceasefire now")
to opposing Israeli apartheid and Zionism more generally.
Taking the struggle for justice in Palestine directly to the
institutions that support the genocide is exactly what we mean by an
"outside and against" strategy. Frequent marches and rallies are good
entry points for the newly politicized, but their exclusive use diverts
energy and resources from more difficult but effective tactics. Blocking
arms shipments, disrupting weapons manufacturing, and halting the
machinery of genocide will have immediate impacts. New conditions demand
new tactics, and we need to continually re-examine them on this shifting
terrain.
3. Erode the bedrock of fascism
The sharpest edges of fascist movements are aimed at Black, Latine,
Indigenous, and Asian people, along with immigrants and those of
oppressed genders and sexualities. Successful organizing efforts will be
rooted in the lived experiences and communities they belong to. Through
popular education we can channel public disaffection away from
scapegoats and to the real villains: the ruling class of capitalists and
the state. Anarchists are uniquely well-positioned to speak to popular
disaffection in a way that liberals and conservatives cannot. We need to
engage with potential supporters of the right by speaking plainly and
convincingly of the necessity of liberatory struggle.
The lifeblood of fascism is the petty bourgeoisie: small and
medium-sized business owners (landlords, restaurants, franchises, car
dealerships, retail, general contractors, etc.). Just as we must
organize our own class, we should seize opportunities to disorganize
theirs, particularly individuals and companies most politically active.
Deny them their profits and prestige: engage in coordinated opposition,
making them toxic to clients, customers, business partners, and local
politicians. Encourage worker unionization of their workplaces, and
tenant unionization of their rental holdings. Undermine and disrupt
local and state chambers of commerce through public opposition campaigns.
If the petty bourgeoisie are fascism's lifeblood, the police are its
muscle, and we should strengthen popular anti-police sentiment. The last
four years shows that our capacity to demoralize them is potent.
Revitalize cop watch efforts linked to and under the umbrella of larger
mass-level organizations, like tenant or worker unions or neighborhood
assemblies. Research and organize to oppose the many Cop City-like
projects and new prison construction that may be springing up near you.
Even failed opposition campaigns, when done well, grow anti-police
sentiment in a long-lasting way. Build a steady drumbeat of anti-police
outreach, including: exposing police officers' extremist views,
highlighting abusive officer conduct, holding film screenings, town
halls, and other public events on police violence, and disrupting police
recruitment and training events.
Their Dilemmas, Our Opportunities
While US political culture and corporate media is focused on
national-level politics, we shouldn't miss the trees for the forest.
Organizers should tailor their activity to capitalize on the context
around them. To that end, in addition to the nationwide conjunctural
analysis and strategy that Black Rose members create, each chapter
creates its own versions that examine the local political, economic, and
social circumstances in which it operates to determine where organizing
efforts should be focused.
As the adage goes, generals always prepare to fight the previous war.
Revolutionaries, too, often prepare to fight the previous revolution. We
must not fall into that trap. We need to better understand the strengths
and flaws of the ruling class - and of our own - not as they were, but
as they are.
We can use the problems of the present to create offensive campaigns
that both win lasting change and empower us, rather than being
constantly stuck on the back foot. Whether it is Trump or Harris in the
White House, the horizon we walk toward remains the same, even if the
path may change with the terrain.
Imagine the next moment of rupture, revolt, and possibility that will
come in the months and years ahead. What will you think back and wish
you were doing right now with your coworkers, neighbors, and friends to
prepare? What's stopping you?
Let's build a new way forward, and a better future together in struggle.
https://blackrosefed.org/the-ballot-box-or-popular-power-which-way-forward/
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