The election results were clear. In the vacuum of political leadership who addressed the needs of working people, workers across the country either sat out of the election or turned to a fascist demagogue who blamed the problems workers face on the “other,” namely, immigrant workers. Today, the working class is more divided than ever.
Instead of listening and speaking to working people across the racial, ethnic, and gender spectrum, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party leadership chose instead to turn to the right, campaigning with the Republican hawk Liz Cheney, billionaires, and celebrities.
Before the elections, the Break the Chains coalition, among many other workers and organizations, demanded that Harris must end imperialist wars, support universal healthcare, and support equal rights for all workers, undocumented immigrants and others alike, so that the working class can join together to fight to raise their conditions. These demands are interconnected.
Instead of ending the wars, Biden is doubling down on his stance on Israel’s genocidal war, ignoring protestors and Congressional Democrats calling for a cease-fire. In November, Congress refused to halt Biden’s $20 billion weapons deal on the same day the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden called the ICC’s actions “outrageous.” He also just authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike further into Russia. If Joe Biden and the Democrats have any appreciation of the havoc they have wrought, before he leaves the presidency, they must at the least end the war in Gaza and the Ukraine.
American engagement in imperialist wars have long interfered in the democratic practices of other nations, provoked unjust wars, destroyed the livelihoods and homes of people in those countries, and driven their exodus to other countries, including to the U.S. In the 1980s, foreign intervention in El Salvador and Guatemala drove those populations of immigrants here; in the 1990s, NAFTA drove Mexicans to the U.S.; and more recently sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba have contributed to the influx of those immigrants, escaping instability in their countries. While Trump used lies about Haitians eating pets to fan anti-immigrant sentiment, he failed to mention how the U.S. for more than 100 years has destroyed Haiti’s economy–invading, seizing assets, making impossible loans, driving Haitians from their homes.
When those dispossessed and displaced migrate here, the U.S. law treats undocumented immigrants as criminals without the right to work and gain a livelihood. Although the Democratic Party claims to be pro-immigrant and the Republican Party claims to be anti-immigrant, both parties agree on criminalizing immigrants and maintaining this underground labor class without the right to organize. Both parties try to hide the real role of this underclass–the Democrats ignore its negative impact on other workers, while the Republicans blame immigrants for worsening conditions. The result? Workers see each other as enemies while their wages fall, workdays get longer, and working conditions further decline, while sweatshop bosses, developers, and big corporations reap greater profits. So long as the government denies immigrants the equal right to organize, all workers will suffer the cost. The liberals’ campaign to keep immigrants because they do all the work US workers won’t do and the right wing’s mass deportation effort will likely result in a mutual agreement to maintain a more docile underclass.
By pointing their fingers at this sector of the working class, Trump and the billionaire class will continue to wreck the economic, health, and housing conditions of the working class and eviscerate hard won rights Americans have fought for over years past. In addition, despite widespread support for universal healthcare, the Democratic Party would rather pour billions into foreign wars.
The Democratic Party’s refusal to listen and unite the working class cost them in the November elections and paved the way for fascism. Trump’s plans to expand his own powers, strip away the rights of working Americans, and carry out “the largest deportation effort in the history of this country” will drive more workers into the shadows and divide the working class further.
The only way to defeat fascism is to unite the working class and popularize demands that can unify and elevate us all as a class: end the wars, equal rights for all workers, and universal health care. We can no longer fight the same way. We can no longer engage in defensive struggles to just hold onto what few rights we have. We can no longer call for a ceasefire in Gaza without connecting to ordinary Americans how the war affects their own livelihoods. We can no longer say we “support immigrants” and laud them as a cheap source of labor for the American economy, and must instead, fight for equal rights for us all so we can together lift up our conditions. We can no longer delude ourselves that fighting for crumbs for the social mobility of sections of the working class, by race, gender, or sexuality is enough; this type of identity politics does more to divide than unite the working class. And we can no longer afford to depend on the Democratic Party, whose neoliberal policies has ushered us into fascism. Nor can we afford to ignore the Democratic Party; we must hold them accountable for their mistakes and to working people.
If you agree with this statement, contact your congress members and demand the government end the wars, and legislate equal rights for all workers and universal health care. Even though we face an uphill battle, we must popularize and use these demands to unify working people. Let’s seize this pivotal moment to create a path forward for working people to go beyond sheer survival, to lead the struggle for a future where we all can thrive.
Join Break the Chains by calling us at 212.358.0295, email us at nmassworkerscenter@gmail.com, following us on our social media or donate in care of the National Mobilization Against SweatShops here.
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