by Peggy Wang
Massachusetts Teachers Association (personal capacity)
Boston, MA

American workers face a rotten “choice” this November in the presidential elections. The majority of voters don’t want either a Trump or Biden presidency. Biden, Trump, and their corporate parties don’t represent a real choice for working-class people. 

Biden faithfully supports imperialist policies like sending billions of dollars in military aid to back up the Israeli state as it murders Palestinians in Gaza. He has escalated tensions in the Middle East despite the risk of a wider war. Meanwhile, Trump’s scandals and record of right-wing attacks on immigrants, women, Muslims, and the LGBTQ+ community disgust many. Both parties are so discredited that 63% of Americans want a third political party (Gallup, September 2023). The key question is how to build a genuine working-class political alternative. 

Many working people understandably fear another Trump administration that will continue attacks on workers’ and democratic rights. The far-right will try to capitalize on another Trump victory. After four years of crisis under Biden, the threat of a Trump come-back is real.

A New York Times poll conducted last fall showed Trump leading in several key battleground states by as much as a 10-point margin. The Democratic Party and its supporters are pulling out all the stops to ensure a Biden victory. Future Forward, a Biden Super PAC, plans to spend a record $250 million on advertising in the three months between the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August and election day. Sanders and other so-called “progressives” will, yet again, fall in line behind the DNC’s chosen candidate, Biden, talking up the threat of Trump to press workers to vote for the “lesser evil.”

But as we in the Independent Socialist Group warned at the start of his presidency in 2021, a Biden administration would only set the stage for further “Trumpism”:

“Rather than a defeat of Trump and all he stands for, [Biden’s] inauguration represents a return to the policies which made the Trump candidacy viable in the US election system. Biden regularly stood against workers throughout his Senate career, authoring the 1994 Crime Bill which helped to create the modern prison-industrial complex and expanded the disastrous and racist War on Drugs. He voted in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, deregulating the banks by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, going to war with Iraq in 2003, and removing bankruptcy protections for student loan debts in 2005. The combined effect of these policies pushed by Biden helped lead to the devastating economic crisis in 2008, a crisis the Obama/Biden administration failed to solve. The bailout of the banks, not working people, played a large role in paving the way for Trump to come to power as an “anti-establishment” candidate in 2016.

“The need for a political alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties is clear. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will offer solutions to the growing far-right or worsening unemployment, evictions due to months of unpaid rents, more police brutality, attacks on democratic rights, and devastating medical debt due to the lack of free and universal healthcare.” 

ISG Statement on Biden’s Inauguration
January 22, 2021

Four Years of Widening Inequality

Biden has only added to his sordid track record since. His administration increased US imperialism’s record-high military budget by nearly $100B more than Trump’s and continues to negotiate in Congress for an additional $105B (on top of billions of prior “aid”) for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and Trump’s border wall. The Department of Homeland Security deported 3.5 times as many people per month under Biden as under Trump. Biden approved 50% more oil drilling permits than Trump’s administration. Despite rhetoric condemning the Supreme Court overturn of Roe V. Wade, Democrats refused to pass federal abortion rights protections when they controlled Congress under both the Biden and Obama administrations.

While workers lost their jobs, homes, and lives in the pandemic, ultra-wealthy Americans obtained billions from stimulus funds and tax cuts passed by both the Biden and Trump administrations. Both parties work to defund IRS tax enforcement on the ultra-wealthy in federal budget negotiations. Biden failed to extend life-saving pandemic-era welfare such as expanded Medicaid, the eviction moratorium, the student loan pause, and food stamp increases. Not satisfied with letting these vital, but still insufficient, measures expire, his proposed 2024 budget cuts social spending while increasing military funding, a practice both corporate parties follow every budget cycle.

Biden delivered little more than crumbs for working people. His student loan forgiveness covered only 8.6% of borrowers, forgiving just 8% of the $1.7 trillion in student debt. Repayment resumed last October, burdening millions already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. New students are still forced to take out ever-increasing loans.

Under Biden, corporations made record profits while workers faced devastating inflation. Between 2021 and 2023, the profits of the richest 722 companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, UPS, Moderna, and Pfizer, increased 89%. Yet real wages have fallen since 2020 when accounting for inflation. Democrats have helped keep the federal minimum wage at $7.25/hr since 2009. Rents increased by over 21% from 2001 to 2022, while renters’ incomes increased by only 2%. More than 12.1 million households now spend over half their income on housing.  

According to the Federal Reserve, the top 1% of Americans held $38.7 trillion–or 26.5% of wealth–by mid-2023. The bottom 80% of households hold only 26.3% of total US wealth. The ten richest people in the world—nine of them Americans—doubled their fortunes during the first two years of the pandemic while the incomes of 99% of humanity fell.

A Two-Party Race to the Bottom

But the problem is bigger than just Biden. The Democratic Party as a whole, locally and nationally, operates in the interests of the capitalist class. 

For example, Massachusetts, a one-party “blue” state, bans public sector workers from striking. Democratic Governor Maura Healey defends the ban and threatened to crack down on the Newton Teachers Association’s recent strike. Democrats in Newton blocked $56 million in “excess” funds from being used to start addressing decades of public education underfunding. Other Democrat-run towns responded similarly in the recent teachers’ strike wave, fining Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) locals hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

In October, the Democratic-controlled MA state legislature passed $392 million in tax breaks to the rich after voters passed the “Fair Share” Act taxing millionaires to address systematically underfunded public services.

In New York, Democrats Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul are scapegoating immigrants in their effort to dodge backlash due to years of cuts to public services, including a $1.2 billion cut from Medicaid in January. Democrats in control of Chicago brutally repressed Black Lives Matter protesters. Countless other examples exist across the country and over the years.

Those who claim to represent a “progressive” wing of the Democrats capitalize on popular demands using symbolic rhetoric to assemble and deliver a base of voters to the DNC’s chosen candidate. Recent figures—like AOC, the Squad, and Sanders—united behind Biden in 2020 and 2024, supporting his policies that have hurt working people.

Biden Lays Basis for Trump 2.0

Lesser evilism shifts politics to the right. In 2020, Biden and the Democrats campaigned as the antidote to Trump. Most of the capitalist class considers Trump to be unreliable, especially in the wake of the January 6th riot at the Capitol and Trump trying to overturn the election results in 2020. The Democrats face a possible Trump win after supposedly making him history. Biden is campaigning as the “defender of democracy” as part of an attempt to rehabilitate an increasingly discredited American political system.

Trump-like figures are necessary for capitalism when frequent economic crises—corporate business-as-usual—threaten to push workers to the left or even socialist ideas. Right-wing populism vaguely promises improved living conditions while using racist scapegoating of immigrants and people of color, and using transphobia against the LGBTQ community to divert blame from the capitalist system. 

The bottom line of the corporate duopoly is the false choice of kicking out one corporate party regime for another as some sort of protest vote over and over again. The Democratic and Republican parties represent differences among sections of the capitalist class in how to implement their interests best. But at the root, the two parties form the ultimate bipartisan pact to defend capitalism and imperialism above all else, no matter the cost in poverty, inequality, climate change, and war.

The capitalist class is looking for the most stable and reliable administration possible to navigate the likely turbulent coming period and to maximize profits while provoking minimal class struggle. The 2024 election will be tight. Neither candidate will be capable of mobilizing significant support among the working class, and the new administration will oversee further declines in living standards for most people unless enough working people organize an alternative to corporate politics.

Unions Need to Help Build a Workers’ Party

Biden’s title as “the most pro-labor president in history” is a cruel joke for working-class people. In 2023, union density fell in the US for the second year in a row. Key unionization battles at Amazon and Starbucks are stalled as corporations refuse to negotiate or settle first contracts. Reforms championed by unions that Biden and the Democratic Party claimed to support have been dropped. The Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act is dead in the water. Labor leaders undermine union strength and opportunities to grow by pushing “vote blue no matter who” despite all evidence to the contrary. By not challenging both corporate parties in electoral politics, union leaders severely weaken labor’s ability to fight back and make real gains for working people.

The freight railroad contract battle in 2022, highlighting living standards, workplace safety, and systematic understaffing issues, is one bitter example. Biden’s Presidential Emergency Board, presented as a mediator between workers and the bosses, adopted the corporations’ proposal nearly word-for-word. When railroad workers nationwide voted it down, the Democrats, Republicans, and Biden passed a bill within 72 hours imposing the contract and making it illegal for workers to strike. “Progressive” Democrats justified their votes in favor by putting forward a separate bill with a few crumbs for workers, like a minimal number of paid sick days. Unsurprisingly, the vote to impose the concessionary contract passed overwhelmingly, while the “sick time amendment” was rejected. 

Organized labor could win major victories if it put its considerable resources, membership, and activists toward building a new political party. Despite the declining density, 71% of Americans approve of labor unions, and 75% support strikes. A surge in strikes and union drives shows workers see unions as a way to fight back. But unions won’t be able to improve living standards or reverse decades of union decline unless they break ties with the two corporate parties and work to create an independent political party. 

The labor movement could take an immediate step forward by running their members for public office on an independent basis and supporting independent left candidates. Unions can identify key seats and members to run for them on platforms democratically decided by the union membership. 

Rank-and-file caucuses can start building internal campaigns to break their unions from the two corporate parties. They can put forward resolutions to devote resources to independent electoral candidates, organize a new party, and refuse to endorse or campaign for corporate candidates. This can open discussions among rank-and-file union members about the need for a party of our own. 

Labor Misses Opportunity

The United Auto Workers (UAW) squandered a critical opportunity when it folded and endorsed Biden in January. Union auto workers waged a six-week battle against the “Big 3” car manufacturers in 2023 and won improved pay and benefits. UAW President Shawn Fain called for a “working class reckoning” against corporate greed. The UAW joined other unions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. A major union like the UAW, with the momentum of a widely-supported strike and the record popularity of the labor movement, could have taken a giant step towards a new party by supporting or running independent left candidates. It could’ve stood as a pole of attraction for millions nationwide and inspired confidence for independent working-class politics.

Discussions should begin among the left, progressives, and the labor movement to figure out the strongest independent left presidential campaign, as well as local and state campaigns, to unite behind in 2024. So far, presidential contenders include Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West. Multiple factors need to be weighed, including the strength of their platforms, ballot access, and the potential for the campaign to contribute to building a new party.

Working-class activists, organizations, and voters can link up around specific electoral and issue-based campaigns. From there, these groups would need to unite around the beginnings of a party structure and run candidates in local, state, and presidential-level campaigns. Party membership should include the rights and responsibilities of discussion, voting, and dues, with representation for unions, social movements, and working-class organizations. Such a party would need a democratically decided party platform and accountability measures like instant recall and only taking the average wage of a worker if elected. Such a party would help build, not obstruct, mass protest movements and keep pressure on the two corporate parties beyond elections.

Even in formation, a workers’ party could raise people’s expectations and push the political terrain to the left. Efforts that start small and local can grow quickly by uniting people with demands like major cuts to military spending, a $25/hr minimum wage, universal healthcare, rent freezes, price controls, a public works program for housing, transit, energy, and infrastructure, complete student loan cancellation, and more. 

Independent Opportunities in 2024 for the Working Class

Dan Osborn–an independent candidate running for Senate who led his union’s 2021 strike against Kellogg–is leading in polls against Republican Deb Fisher in a traditionally “red” state. The promising start to Osborn’s campaign shows the potential power of independent, working-class politics. If the void on the left isn’t filled, if no mass workers’ party forms, workers will pay for deeper capitalist crises, and the right will continue to grow unchallenged. 

None of the problems the working class faces can be solved under capitalism. Starting to organize a workers’ party is a step towards building the confidence and organization of working people to face the capitalist class and their corporations head-on, take the major parts of the economy under democratic workers’ control, and run it according to a plan to protect the environment and meet the needs of all.