Les Miserables
Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's houses were vandalized in the midst of the stimulus debate.
What we've seen transpiring in the last couple of days in the US Senate is nothing short of outrageous. In the throes of the biggest health crisis the world has seen in a hundred years, the Senate would not move to vote on increasing the stimulus checks from $600 to the $2000 supported by Senator Bernie Sanders, and even Donald Trump. The Senate, however, would still make the unprecedented move of overriding Trump's veto of the defense bill, clearing the way for billions of our tax dollars to go to war, and foreign intervention.
Adding insult to injury, the staggering number of 41 Democratic senators decided to side with Republican Mitch McConnell and voted to stop the debate on the $2000 in order to vote on the defense bill, including Senator Kamala Harris, Vice-president elect, who come January 20 will become leader of the Senate.
When discussing Donald Trump, one of the Democratic talking points has always been to point at his populist demagoguery. It is now clear that the charge of populism means very little in the face of blatant disregard for the needs of working class people. While in other countries their people were guaranteed monthly stimulus checks, the U.S. let its own people die in poverty as their service jobs disappeared, the economy slowed to a halt, and the COVID19 pandemic ravaged its most underserved communities.
Donald Trump, of course, used this opportunity to push his own demagoguery when he said he wanted $2000 to be sent to working Americans, and citing the problems with the bill as it was presented to him. "The bill also allows stimulus checks for the family members of illegal aliens, allowing them to get up to $1,800 each. This is far more than the Americans are given," Trump said. He also denounced the foreign "aid" (intervention) going to countries such Burma, Pakistan, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador as "wasterful."
Trump's base is largely composed of business interests who would want less government regulation and suppression of labor rights in order to get a leg up in their business. However, they are also composed of the most downtrodden and neglected sectors of the U.S. population who have seen the indolent Washington elite funding programs and initiatives from which they see little benefit themselves. At the same time, they see their manufacturing jobs go overseas, the social programs that guarantee them social mobility being gutted, and the political power they once held as union members slowly diminishing. It is in this vacuum that Trump's attacks on government spending on Black and immigrant communities, and calls for an American revival, find receptive ears.
Now that Trump is going out of office the weight of the responsibility for fighting fascism falls on the labor movement. But as a labor movement we cannot side with these indolent government elites that make it easier for hate and intolerance to fester in the minds of working people. In order to fight fascism, we must organize the downtrodden sections of the Trump base into a new labor movement that emphasizes the need of solidarity with all working people. The hard part is redirecting their anger at other working people who Trump convinced them were the problem, and focusing on the political class of Washington and corporate overlords that have conspired throughout the years to squeeze the livelihoods of the working class.
Firstly, working people need to start to look at themselves as a class. The only way the working class can see itself as a class is through active class struggle against those of capital. It is important for unions to do away with business unionism models in which they see themselves as business partners with the signatory companies. Instead, unions must adopt active organizing models, going into non-union companies to organize new workers. More importantly, they must stand in defiance of unjust laws that limit their organizing such as secondary strike laws. Industries change and trade-based unionism no longer applies in companies whose workers do everything from bricklaying to electrical installation. We must go back to industrial models of organization where workers in the same sector come together to exercise power.
Secondly, union rank and file must organize independent solidarity movements that go beyond trade or union membership. #CountMeIn set an example of what union members can do when solidarity is put at the forefront of organizing. Union members can do similar movements on their own, and mobilize to respond to social issues, like police brutality and immigrant rights, that affect working class communities as a whole.
Finally, working people need a new political center. The Democratic Party is a party of capital, and only answers to the desires of corporate interests in spite of those of working class people. Workers and their institutions of powers must abandon such decadent institution in favor of building their own political front. A party does not only work to win elections. A party must be a political center through which working people can coordinate their different struggles into a common goal. Power and control of our communities doesn't need of simple majority.
As neo-liberals once again gain control of the US, fascism will seek to capitalize on their failures by mobilizing its supporters against both the Washington elites, and populations they seek to eliminate. Labor must be organized and reanimated ready to stand their ground. Our duty remains to guard our communities against the enemies of the people.
