When Two plus One does not Equal Three

Disillusionment with the Democratic and Republican parties has always been high.  Not since 1964 have more than 60% of eligible voters turned out for a presidential election.  Since 1900, 42% of eligible voters on average stay home each presidential election, effectively choosing “none of the above” rather than voting for either of the anointed candidates.  The number abstaining in non-presidential election years is even higher.

For many, elections are irrelevant as they know their lives will not fundamentally change, regardless of which of the major parties rules the roost.  But for an increasing number, abstention is more conscious.  There is growing recognition that both the Democrats and Republicans represent Wall St. and big business, leaving the majority who slave away, working for a living, only the narrowest of choices between this or that representative of the slave masters.  In 2013, a record 42% of Americans identified themselves as “independents” rather than claim loyalty to either big business party.

Everyone knows that the system is rigged, that election spoils go to the highest bidder, and that the major parties use the power of their office to tilt election rules in their favor.  As frustration with the corporate two-party shell game increases, “reformers” and “third-party” candidates will put themselves forward as solutions.  But how can we distinguish the genuine alternatives from the pretenders?  What criteria should we use to separate well-meaning but misguided reformers from authentic movement-builders that could actually lead us out of our current political trap?

Getting Oriented

To solve this or any intractable problem, you have to look at it from the right angle.  For example, based on every-day experience, it’s “obvious” that the Earth is stationary and the Sun orbits around us.  Yet we know from scientific evidence that reality is quite the opposite.

Similarly, and contrary to appearances, elections are the wrong place to start in assessing how to break out of the current political impasse.  Elections are the “tail” being wagged, not the “dog” doing the wagging.  The problem is not elections per se, but the degree to which big business is calling the shots in every aspect of our society: economically, politically and socially.  The Democrats, Republicans, and the entire political apparatus serve at the pleasure of big business, not the other way around.  This is key.  To put things right, we need to democratize our economy and our political system.  We need to replace the unelected rule of a handful of corporate titans with the democratic rule of working people—the majority.

In order to accomplish this, working people in their overwhelming numbers need:

• To be conscious of their role in production and society.  To understand that they produce all of society’s wealth, and that they can and should run the economy directly and democratically.
   
• To unite.  To know who their friends and enemies are.
   
• To organize and to fight for political power in their own name.

Anything that helps working people become conscious of their power and ability to change society for the better; anything that helps them organize and act as a class to challenge corporate America for political and economic control is good.  Anything that hinders the class consciousness, organization and involvement of large numbers of workers in fighting for their interests is bad.

With this in mind, we are equipped to asses various third-party election challenges and see how they stack up.

The Same Old Same Old

What we don’t need are new parties or candidates that amount to clones of the major parties in everything but name. Candidates who, like the Democrats and Republicans, have no interest in challenging corporate rule.  Ron Paul (Libertarian, 2008), Pat Buchanan (Reform, 2000) and Ross Perot (Independent, Reform; 1992, 1996) are classic examples of this type. These candidates present no challenge to the system or even the status quo; they merely offer themselves as better, more effective servants of Wall St. and the one percent.

Like the two major parties, candidates and parties of this type will tell you that “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country”.  They disingenuously claim that there is one America and insist that they champion the interests of “all” Americans—as if the interests of corporate America and working people were not counterposed and completely irreconcilable.

The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Another case that confuses and disorients many is the “progressive” candidate who opts to “challenge” the corporate parties from within.  Such candidates can have wonderful sounding campaign rhetoric, often opposing war and advocating corporate reform.  But their candidacies are always a net loss for working people because:

• The implied message is that the Democratic or Republican parties can be fixed and that working within the corporate parties can advance the struggles of working people.  In fact, it is precisely the failure to break with the parties of capital that has held back the struggles of working people in the U.S. for so long. 
   
• These candidates provide left cover for the big business parties, allowing them to pretend to represent all interests when in fact they are beholden only to the very wealthy.  (For information on where the money comes from, see here and here.) 

As more and more people become disillusioned with the two major parties, we can expect those parties to put forward more progressive sounding candidates in order to lure people out of the streets and back into the fold.  This was the role played by the McCarthy campaign in 1968, McGovern in 1972, Elizabeth Warren’s senatorial campaign in 2012 and her possible presidential run in 2016.

The years in office as representatives of the Democratic Party for Paul Wellstone, Dennis Kucinich, Russ Feingold, Al Franken and others have had a similar disorienting effect for working people.  Together, these politicians amount to a rare progressive-sounding drop in the corporate bucket, and yet the story of their careers has been spun into a myth of inclusiveness and rebellion which serves to strengthen the Democratic Party and the corporate interests it serves.  Meanwhile, real independent political action on the part of working people—which necessitates breaking with the two business parties—has been further diffused and delayed.

Which Side Are You On?

What about formations like the Green Party?  Here we have to pause and take a careful look.  On the one hand, the Green Party is composed of many dedicated, sincere activists advocating numerous progressive reforms.  On the other hand, the party is far from clear about where they see those reforms leading and what the ultimate goal should be.

The Green Party platform tells us that, “Vast concentrations of wealth and power that have occurred in recent years are inherently undemocratic.”  (My emphasis.)  Hmm, does that mean that the share of wealth controlled by the top 1% in, say, the 1920s (60%), the 1960s (65%) or the 2000s (65%) was democratic?

The platform proclaims that “[Greens] seek to repair the plummeting opinion of the United States in the international community resulting from our arrogant, narcissistic foreign policy of recent years.”  Does this mean to suggest that, until recently, US military interventions were primarily benign or even progressive?  Which of the hundreds of US military interventions in the last two centuries does the Green Party endorse?

In other words, are these and other problems we face systemic in nature or just temporary modern excesses?

Can our current political and economic system be fixed or must it be replaced?  Are elections the sine qua non for political change, or should elections be seen as just one tool for building movements?  Is it possible to speak of what’s best for America as a whole, or do we have opposing classes with conflicting interests which compel activists to choose sides?  Are private ownership and control of industry, banking and natural resources compatible with the Green Party’s “Ten Key Values”?  Ask a hundred Greens these questions and you’ll get a hundred different answers. Unfortunately, this leads to much confusion and many missteps.

For example, on the crucial issue of independence from the Democrats and Republicans, the Green Party’s message has been decidedly muddled.  Greens rail against the two-party duopoly, but they rarely run in races against popular or well-entrenched Democrats.  David Cobb, the Green Party candidate for president in 2004, made a point of campaigning only in states where the race between the Democratic and Republican candidates was not “close”.  The not-so-subtle message: Sure, we’re running against the two major parties, but not on principle. (Wink, wink.)  When push comes to shove, we must defeat the Republicans at all costs!

Is this just nit picking?  Why do we have to examine the strategy, program and actions of the Green Party and similar organizations so closely?  Well, they are not tied organizationally to the working class, as a labor party would be.  Nor are they based organically on Latino, Black or other communities of the most oppressed.  So the only bases upon which they can be assessed are their program and actions.  And in examining these, we have to look beyond abstract sentiments of “freedom”, “democracy” and “justice”—for what political party would not claim to embrace these?  Since neither the Green Party’s composition nor their program spells it out, we are forced to wonder, “Which side are you on?” 

The Democrats, Republicans and the corporate powers they represent have our economic and political systems locked up tight.  To break free, it’s not enough to oppose them in elections, candidate-for-candidate.  We need to oppose them more broadly, paradigm-for paradigm.  We need to challenge Wall Street’s presumed role as masters of the universe by openly, consciously fighting to take economic and political power out of their hands altogether.  So, in evaluating third-party electoral challenges, we ought to aspire to something beyond rearranging the deck chairs.  We ought to insist that, for a third party to be meaningful, it should bring clarity to the landscape and move us some distance along the trajectory of fighting for working people taking economic and political power into their own hands.

Looked at in this light, an organization like the Green Party is not the best vehicle for fighting the foe we face.  By all means, we should join together with Greens and others on joint projects where we agree.  But in seeking to build a third-party alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, we can and must do better. 

A Way Forward

What type of candidate or third party would increase worker’s class consciousness, confidence and fighting spirit?  What type of electoral challenge would help unite working people and point the way toward fighting for political power as a class?  There are a few.

A labor party, allied with the union movement, with active participation of working people of all stripes—organized and unorganized; employed and unemployed; Black, white, Latino and Native American—would be a real game changer in the US today.  The appearance of a party that, by its very nature, proclaims the unique interests of working people to be paramount would be a great step forward.  A labor party would demonstrate in action how workers can benefit from having their own representatives in politics, much as they benefit from having their own representatives on the shop floor.  Such a formation would be to the Democrats and Republicans like a cross to a vampire. 

Is this practical?  Absolutely.  The labor movement has the financial and human resources to field viable candidates in local, state and national races right now.  If the $400 million and the army of door-to-door foot soldiers that organized labor placed at the disposal of the Democrats in 2008 were directed instead toward launching a labor party, the impact would be earthshaking.  Any union could start the process. Neither unanimous agreement of all unions nor the blessing of AFL-CIO president Richard Trumpka are required to get started.

But how do we know a newly formed labor party would really fight for working people?  How do we know a labor party in the US wouldn’t capitulate to the bosses like the British Labor Party or the Canadian NDP?  There are no guarantees.  Working people will have to organize and fight within a labor party to keep it on a true course.  The big difference is that in this case, we’d be fighting to steer a party of labor as opposed begging for crumbs from a party of capital. 

But we have much more going for us than that.  This is not Canada or Britain.  Labor in the US has refrained from independent political action for so long that, like water accumulating above a dam, when the wall breaks and the current begins to flow, the power behind it will be all the greater for having been so long delayed.

Reality Check

You may ask, “Wouldn’t it be easier to build a party that already exists, like the Green Party, than to hold out for a more radical solution like labor party?”  Yes it would.  In fact, it would be even easier to build the Democratic Party, which is far more electorally viable at the moment than the Green Party or any other “third party”.  But this is beside the point because neither of these roads will get us where we need to go.  For too long all emphasis and effort have been directed toward what seems easy.  Consequently, our start down the more difficult but more effective path has been much delayed.

Besides strictly labor candidates, there are others that could pose a worthy challenge to the two corporate parties.  A movement rooted in the communities of the most exploited sectors of the working class could lead the way by forming an independent Black or Latino party. Such a formation could provide an example for working people generally of how to organize in opposition to the two-party shell game.  Moreover, as race is used by the powers that be to divide and conquer any opposition, a fighting, independent Black or Latino party could cut across the prejudices that divide us and point the way to fight back.

Parties and candidates of the “far left” that openly side with the working class can be worth a close look.  These parties often refer to themselves as socialist, or communist, or revolutionary.  Today, all of these groups in the US are small, but that wasn’t always the case.  In 1912, socialist and labor leader Eugene Debs won close to 900,000 votes in a campaign that proclaimed, “The workers in the mills and factories, in the mines and on the farms and railways never had a party of their own until the Socialist Party was organized.  They divided their votes between the parties of their masters. They did not realize they were using their ballots to forge their own fetters."  Regarding the feasibility of an independent working-class campaign Debs famously declared, “I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it, than for what I don’t want and get it.”

Debs was the real deal.  But labels can be deceiving; more than a few self-proclaimed leftists have turned out to be closet Democrats.

What about Bernie?

Case in point: Bernie Sanders. By all accounts, he’s a nice, progressively-minded guy.  But, as The Nation notes, he’s “an independent who caucuses with the Democrats”.  And Sanders struggles with “the difficult question of whether to run as a Democrat or an independent”.  As Bernie puts it, “[T]he dilemma is that, if you run outside of the Democratic Party, then what you’re doing—and you have to think hard about this—you’re not just running a race for president, you’re really running to build an entire political movement. In doing that, you would be taking votes away from the Democratic candidate and making it easier for some right-wing Republican to get elected—the [Ralph] Nader dilemma.”  Clearly, in terms of the framework we’ve established, Bernie doesn’t cut it.

*    *   *

When does two plus one not equal three?  When you’re offered a “third” choice that is little more than a disguised version of your two original choices.  As patience wanes and tempers rise, we will see more attempts by both the powers that be, and by well-meaning forces that oppose them, to put forward alternatives that amount to third parties in form but not in substance.  If we choose as our yardstick the increasing self-awareness, self-confidence, organization and willingness to fight on the part of the working class, it won’t be difficult to distinguish the real developments from the distractions.