American elections – No answer to Trump behind Kamala Harris – Solidarity Online

Fears of another Trump presidency mean much of the US left is rallying behind Kamala Harris, weakening the movements needed to bring about real change, writes Matilda Fay

Kamala Harris’ rise in the polls after taking over as Democrat presidential candidate has sparked a wave of enthusiasm among many people fearful of another Trump presidency.

Donald Trump’s racist dog whistle about Haitian migrants “eating the pets” in their presidential debate set off alarm bells for anti-racists everywhere. Black and Haitian communities in Ohio have reported experiencing an increase in racial harassment in the wake of his comments.

The threat Trump poses is real: The scars inflicted by the brutal border policies of his time as president run deep, and he promises to increase deportations if he returns to power.

But Kamala Harris offers no counterbalance to Trump’s racism, beyond the empty politics of “representation,” and she is at the helm of a Democratic party machine that has crushed radical movements time and time again.

Border racism and imperialism

Instead of opposing the current frenzy of anti-migrant racism, Harris is playing into it.

In July, she boasted about prosecuting “gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers who illegally entered our country” during her time as California attorney general.

At times, she has tried to outflank Trump on the right by promising to “bring back the border security bill that killed Donald Trump,” put forward by Democrats but rejected by Republicans in Congress, in what she calls the strongest border security legislation in decades.

Under Democratic President Joe Biden, the US regime of ICE raids, deportations and child detentions has changed little since the Trump years.

Biden is deporting migrants at rates that match those of the Trump administration, and millions of migrants have been expelled at the border while trying to enter the US.

By combining deportations and deportations, Biden has sent back more than 4.4 million people, which is more than any US president in a single term since George W. Bush.

Perhaps the bloodiest demonstration of the Democratic Party’s true politics is their collaboration in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.

The Biden administration has continued to supply weapons as Israel has indiscriminately bombed Gaza, killing more than 40,000 Palestinians, and as the death toll in Lebanon now rises. The US has thrown its weight into the UN Security Council and repeatedly used its veto power to protect Israel.

Biden gave Netanyahu a small slap on the wrist in May when the US delayed a shipment of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs in an effort to pull Israel back into line. But shipments of 500-pound bombs quickly resumed in July, despite Israel’s atrocities in Rafah, and the US remains steadfast in its willingness to provide money and weapons.

In August, the US approved another $20 billion in arms sales to Israel.

Harris has been careful to emphasize her continuity with the Biden administration on this issue. She met Netanyahu just days after Biden endorsed her as the Democratic Party candidate and accused protesters who demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress in July of “despicable acts.”

During the presidential debate, around October 7, Harris made a point of re-spouting Israeli propaganda, declaring that she had spent her “entire life defending Israel.”

The Democrats position themselves as the party of the imperialist establishment. Behind their criticism of Trump’s ‘America first’ policy lies a shameless statement to the American ruling class: Harris wants to make it known that a Democratic administration will be an enthusiastic advocate of American military interventions abroad.

Whether in Ukraine, Palestine or Lebanon, a Democratic White House promises not to shy away from sending weapons and providing funds to influence wars around the world in the interests of American capitalism.

Follow the money

The decision in the Democratic establishment to oust Biden in favor of Harris caused an improvement in the mood of big business.

Just a week after the decision, Harris’ campaign raised more than $200 million in donations. Yale management professor Jeff Sonnenfeld said CEOs are “delighted by this choice.” Most of the ruling class views Trump as dangerous and unpredictable. Harris promises a steady hand that will protect their interests.

As a result, corporate money has poured into her campaign, which has already raised more than $1 trillion, giving Democrats a big fundraising advantage over Trump, who has raised just $642 million so far.

Both Democrats and Republicans represent parts of American capitalism and a political system owned and controlled by big business.

Harris’ supporters include Wall Street financiers, billionaire “philanthropists,” tech executives and venture capitalists. Trump’s business base is of the same breed, but tends toward economic protectionism and social conservatism.

Both campaigns are funded primarily by large contributions of more than $200,000 – accounting for 59 percent of Harris’ campaign funding and 68 percent of Trump’s. Neither party is on the side of the working class.

At various points in Biden’s term, Democrats sought to position themselves as the “friend of the worker,” with Biden shaking hands late last year for photo ops at a picket line for auto workers. But twelve months earlier, he intervened to halt a national railroad strike, brokering a wage deal that pushed back workers’ wages amid rising inflation, and threatened that Congress would overturn the action prohibit.

Biden’s economic program speaks louder than his union pictures. The US has plunged deeper into economic inequality as consumers pay for high inflation while corporate profits soar.

Despite all this, many left-wingers in the US will rally behind the Democrats as a “lesser evil” for Trump.

The Democratic Socialists who rose to prominence as part of the opposition to both Trump and the Democratic Party establishment are now working to rally the left-wing party behind Harris. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Harris at the Democratic National Convention, while Bernie Sanders endorsed her as a “progressive” who is “doing what she thinks is right to win the election.”

But it is a disaster for workers’ struggles and social movements to rally behind the Democratic campaign. This means weakening the only force that can reverse the rise of the far right and fight the racism, wars and attacks on workers that both parties stand for.

Ceding power on the streets to a campaign for the status quo would only breed more despondency. And despondency is the fuel of Trump and the far right.

The Democratic dead end

The history of radical movements in the US is littered with examples of struggles led to democratic election campaigns and quickly destroyed or betrayed.

During the 1960s, the civil rights movement agitated against the Democrats’ racism and their actions in the Vietnam War. Leaders of these movements were pressured to reduce their fighting spirit with promises of a seat at the table – promises that were inevitably broken.

In recent years, the MeToo movement suffered a similar fate. What started as a turning point in 2017, in which millions of women took to the streets against Trump as part of the Women’s March during his inauguration and spoke out about sexist harassment and abuse, became a means to raise women’s hopes for installing a Democrat. Drive Trump out of the White House.

Leading figures in MeToo chose to campaign in the media to wage an ideological war, rather than build their strength on the streets. A movement that had seen half a million people take to the streets in DC, and five million people march worldwide in one day, was quickly curtailed.

By the time the Supreme Court overturned it Roe v. Wade In 2022, with women in many conservative states deprived of the right to abortion, MeToo campaigners turned the ensuing anger into a call to support Democrats in midterm elections.

But having a Democrat in power for the past four years has done nothing to protect abortion rights.

In fact, Democrats have had plenty of opportunities since the election Roe v. Wade which decided in 1973 to codify constitutional protections for abortion, but did not do so.

In 2007, Obama promised Planned Parenthood that passing legislation to protect abortion would be “the first thing I would do as president.” But when he was in power in 2009, he described it as “not the highest legislative priority.”

Biden promised to make this happen in 2020 Roe v. Wade “the law of the land” and could have done so in 2021 and 2022, but did not. And yet today, Harris has the audacity to campaign for abortion rights.

The US has seen the same horror and outrage in recent months as its leaders supported a genocide in Gaza, and the same political unrest as the cost of living rises, as elsewhere.

The American student camps that began in May sparked a global wave of the Palestinian movement. Researchers have tracked more than 3,700 days of protest activity on campuses across the US since October 7, representing more than 500 colleges, universities, schools and school district offices in 317 cities and towns.

There is bubbling resentment against the tried-and-true politics of the Democratic Party, which demands that radicals be content with “a seat at the table.”

In a speech to students in April, Princeton African American studies professor Ruha Benjamin condemned a black American ambassador to the UN who voted against a ceasefire in Gaza, saying that “black faces in high places do not will save.”

Some speculate that anger over Palestine will see Harris punished in key states with high Arab populations, such as Michigan.

But the most important measure for socialists is the extent to which this mood turns into sustained resistance on the streets, on college campuses and in the workplace.

This is where we can build the power to turn the system to our own advantage and beat back the warmongers, whether they are Democrat or Republican.