EDITORIAL
The Working Class Needs Its Own Candidates, Its Own Party

Aug 25, 2024

The two conventions are over. Republicans kicked it off, Democrats followed up.

Both parties tried to appear as a bunch of ordinary people. Candidates of both parties told us they grew up poor in small towns. Some said they were raised by single moms. Some talked about living in poor urban slums as kids. All of them claimed by hard work to have made a success out of their lives.

Maybe so. Maybe they worked hard. All of us work hard, every day. In any case, these special hard workers somehow got into the elite universities that turn away most workers kids. These special hard workers were hired by elite law firms, by big banks or corporate giants. Clawing their way out of the working class, they turned their back on people like themselves.

So be it. The main issue is not what class these candidates originally came from, but the policies they propose. The candidates featured at the two conventions have consistently pushed and carried out policies that favor the capitalist class.

The two parties may appear different, but both act to serve the capitalist class. Republicans gave big tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest people. Democrats gave outsize subsidies to the corporations, which slide right down to the wealthy class which owns them. Of course, both parties pretend their budget priorities will help us but neither party takes up our basic problems: the lack of decent jobs and falling standard of living.

Trump claimed his tax cut was for the middle class. But nearly 75% of its benefits went to the upper, upper class, the wealthiest 10% of the population. Biden and Harris pretended their infrastructure plan would provide jobs, while improving water systems and schools. So far, the one thing really improved has been profit rolled up by big companies.

No, these two parties do not govern in the interest of the population no matter how many working class people they put in the spotlight at their conventions.

But, hey, yes, it’s true, working people do need our own candidates, candidates who know from their own lives the problems working people face every day. The working class needs our own candidates, workers, the sons and daughters of workers. It doesn’t matter if they are full-time workers, temporary workers, part-time workers working two jobs to survive, retired workers, disabled workers. It doesn’t matter where they work in factories, in offices, for the state, in health care, in hotels, in the schools. It doesn’t matter if they are union or not. What matters is that there be worker candidates proud of their class.

There are such candidates in 2024, in Michigan and in Illinois, running for the Working Class Party. There is a non-partisan candidate running in Los Angeles, who stands for the working class building its own party. There are people in Maryland collecting signatures to register a working class party.

Yes, these are 3rd parties. Wise-asses will tell you that voting for a 3rd party means you throw your vote away, since 3rd parties can’t win.

Well, in the first place, when working people begin to think for themselves, parties like this WILL win because working people make up the big majority of the population.

But it’s not true you throw your vote away even now. When you and others vote Working Class Party, you show how many workers want to have their own representatives. And that can be a step on the way toward getting their own party. A first step maybe, but a big step.

For more information see the independent website https://workingclassfight.com.