Bryan Koulouris, Socialist Alternative (ISA in the United States)
(This article was first published on 3 January 2025)
Around the globe, incumbent parties are losing elections, and the right wing is gaining in many countries by posing as “anti-establishment.” People are looking for a change as the world plummets further into economic uncertainty, war, climate change, and various other types of unnerving chaos. Right-wingers like Trump cynically promise a return to the “good old days” while looking for scapegoats to blame for a miserable situation created by capitalism. Unfortunately, much of the “left” responds to this by being apologists for the establishment Democrats instead of building an independent movement that fights in the interests of working class people.
The less money someone has, the more likely they were to vote for Trump. The more they were worried about inflation, the more likely they voted for Trump. The more someone has been impacted by economic insecurity, the more likely they voted for Trump. Trump gained from his 2020 vote in every demographic, whether it’s women, Black people, young people, Latinos (in record numbers for a Republican), or union members, though the majority of all these demographics still backed Harris. Ninety million people opted not to vote at all, repulsed by both choices. But among those who voted, for the first time in recent history the Republican candidate won the poorest voters while Democrats won the richest. This isn’t surprising: the Democrats have insisted to working people that the economy’s doing great while housing and other key needs grow more expensive every day.
Trump’s commercials across the country showed a clip from a Kamala Harris appearance on the TV show The View. Harris was asked what she would have done differently than Biden if she had been President the last four years, and she responded, “nothing…comes to mind.” This showed millions how out of touch rich Democrats are while wars continue to escalate worldwide, severe storms rock the country, and housing costs continue to skyrocket. In this context, Trump was given space to cynically pose as the anti-war, pro-worker candidate who could do something about the floundering economy. It worked, but Trump won’t be able to live up to expectations people have for him. How will the Democrats respond?
What next for The Democratic Party?
Trump 2.0 will be an unpredictable administration, but we know there will be attempts to deport millions of migrant workers, attacks on trans people, and layoffs in the public sector. The far right racists are emboldened and will quite possibly take to the streets and carry out violent assaults on oppressed people over the coming years. The Democratic Party leadership won’t mobilize the mass protests, student walkouts, direct action, or strikes that could stop Trump and the far right’s agenda. Instead, they’ll only get involved in movements to derail them into the “safe” ineffective channels of letter-writing, polite lobbying, and voting for corporate-backed candidates.
After the Democrats’ resounding defeat in November, the party is scrambling to pick itself up and decide how to remake itself. Dozens of Democratic pundits have said their party needs to shift even further to the right. Well, that didn’t work for Kamala Harris! She lost every single “battleground state” despite not challenging Trump’s ridiculous anti-immigrant rhetoric and instead following him to the right with promises of harsh border crackdowns. She flipped from her 2019 position to declare a newfound love of fracking and dropped any mention of guaranteed health care. She was more pro-war than Trump and competed to try to be just as anti-China. The Democratic Party leadership won’t shift to the left and start representing ordinary people because they’re controlled by billionaires, and that’s in their DNA.
On the other hand, Bernie Sanders finally “returned to form” and released a scathing statement saying, “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” This sentiment is certainly right (though the idea that the Democrats genuinely once had workers’ backs is an illusion), and it had an important echo among the progressive left. Better to say it than not, but unfortunately, this message is too little, too late. Over the last decade, Bernie and The Squad had enormous momentum to transform the political landscape of the US, but following through would have required a break with the Democrats. Instead, they provided cover, and their potential has waned considerably. It is highly unlikely that this statement will move the needle towards any genuine left populism in the Democratic Party.
A few Democrats won their elections by pretending to stand for working people while echoing Republican talking points against trans people and immigrants, and some are pointing to them as the future of the Democratic Party. In one example, victorious Washington state Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said, “We need people who are driving trucks and changing diapers and turning wrenches to run for office.” This is empty rhetoric from fake populists more likely to back aspects of Trump’s agenda than stand up to him.
The Democratic Party is a capitalist party. They’ve just happened to lean on more progressive rhetoric when it suits them. In 2019, Democratic Party presidential candidates—including Kamala Harris—were talking about things like Medicare For All and an increase in the federal minimum wage. This is because the movement behind Bernie Sanders’ populist campaign forced the Democrats to mimic some of Bernie’s rhetoric. Now, in the absence of a mass movement of working people, events have pulled the curtain on the Democrats to show they’re just saying whatever they need to win votes and keep society running in the interest of their billionaire backers.
Bernie ended his statement by saying we should “stay tuned” for an announcement. Socialist Alternative will participate in any serious mass organization that can forward the interests of workers and the oppressed, but without complete independence from the Democratic Party, such a project will not have the necessary foundation to overcome the corporate political system. Like dozens of attempts before them, Bernie and The Squad failed to change the Democrats, rather they were changed in the process, becoming far less combative against the injustices of capitalism. This shows the dead end of trying to make movements acceptable to the Democratic Party leadership by limiting our criticisms and demands.
We need fundamental change
Like Biden before him, Trump will oversee a capitalist economy in decay. If Trump implements the tariffs he keeps talking about, inflation will rise, deeply disappointing some of his newfound base. Meanwhile, the far right thugs that are emboldened by Trump’s victory will embarrass him if we get organized to push them off the street with mass protests. The Democrats could make gains in the midterms in that situation, but that will likely be an even more right-wing version of “team blue,” and we can’t wait two years for elections to fight Trump.
We need to build coalitions now of union activists, climate justice organizations, student groups, welcoming all working class and young people who want to fight against the far right. Instead of trying to change the Democrats, we need to make steps towards a new party of working people that is connected to the labor movement and struggles to change society. These movements against Trump and steps towards a new working-class party shouldn’t limit themselves to just socialists, but revolutionary ideas and organization will be necessary if we want to end the system that spawns monsters like Trump worldwide. The right wing looks strong now, but they can be defeated.
These two cynical parties, controlled by the ruling class, change what they stand for all the time. With that, new “coalitions” of voters are cobbled together, but this whole arrangement can be cut across quickly in times of crisis. Make no mistake about it: we live in times of profound crisis. We need fundamental change by building a movement to take the top corporations into public ownership under control of working people. This democratic control of our everyday lives could lay the basis for building a world based on solidarity, free of war, poverty, and discrimination.
Even under Trump and the many other right-wing authoritarian governments around the world, people will fight to try to create a better society. Socialists will struggle shoulder-to-shoulder with them and aim to provide ideas that can both give leadership to movements today and blaze a path for overthrowing capitalism.
