EDITORIAL
Workers’ Answer to the False Choice of a Two Party System

Sep 19, 2016

Donald Trump has clawed his way back and is now running neck and neck with Hillary Clinton. With much of the electorate sick of both parties, Democratic and Republican, Trump is portraying himself as the outsider, the independent.

This election, Trump is a Republican. (In earlier ones, he supported the Democrats.) But the fact that he doesn’t appear to be part of the Republican establishment and many of them even oppose him, plays to Trump’s advantage. The more that Democrats, Republicans, and much of the news media attack Trump, the better they make him look. They allow Trump to appear not afraid of taking on the entrenched establishment of both parties, nor the big shots who run the big news media operations.

Of course, it is all an act, a scam.

Trump is as much of an outsider as any Rockefeller ever was. The son of some scheming, major New York City real estate developer, Trump was born into the elite club of the very wealthy and powerful. For his entire life, Trump has taken advantage of the laboring population in order to add to his own fortune and wealth, the worst exploiter of workers. He even used his reality television show to brag about how much he did this.

In other words, Trump is an avowed enemy of the working class. So, how could he have gained the support of so many white workers and lower middle class people, not to speak of some Latino workers and even a few black workers?

Yes, part of it is his appeal to racist, anti-immigrant attitudes that some may hold. But the fact remains that so many respond who ordinarily wouldn’t be racist, because they are angry. They are being crushed by the unending unemployment, worsening job prospects, the lack of educational opportunities, the lack of affordable housing–everything is getting worse. Many had voted for Obama eight years ago, because he promised “change.” Now, they rightly feel betrayed.

So, they don’t want to vote for Clinton, another Democrat, because she represents more of the same. And she IS more of the same. She is the establishment candidate–which she has proven during her long political career, in which she has faithfully served the capitalist exploiters against the working class.

That leaves Trump as the supposed protest candidate. But whatever Trump says about the lack of jobs and the companies that are cutting them, the worsening schools and neighborhoods, this grotesque billionaire’s proposals would only make things worse. By playing up the worst prejudices against different parts of the working class, including black workers, immigrants, women, Muslims, he is directing one section of workers’ anger against other parts of the working class. He spouts the same vile racist and sexist garbage that other politicians, as well as capitalists, say using innuendo.

Sure, many who might vote for Trump say they don’t necessarily trust him. But any support of Trump, even half-hearted, means accepting his disgusting inhuman attitudes, which drive more wedges between working people, and fan the flames of violence of all kinds.

Whether Trump wins or loses, his campaign has already reinforced the growth of racism and prejudices in the population.

In fact, this election poses a choice for workers. But not between Clinton and Trump, which for workers is a false choice.

It is whether or not workers begin to organize themselves to fight to protect their own class interests against the capitalist class, whether or not workers begin to build up their own class party to confront the capitalist parties in the political arena. That is, whether working people, in their disparate parts, begin to see themselves as part of a single and unified class.

If not, slimy politicians like Trump will use the workers’ own anger against themselves, trapping workers in a worsening cycle of economic decline and violence.