EDITORIAL
A Return to “Normal” Is Not Enough!

Oct 12, 2020

With Trump clowning in the White House, every day is a new show.

How many dozens of his staff and White House workers were infected by his reckless behavior? Is he really going to hold rallies after that? What about the aid package he said he won’t, no will, sign!

The list of questions is endless. Not to say it is not important. His callous disregard for the illness of millions and deaths climbing over the 214,000 mark, while bragging about being a superhero, is disgusting. As has been stated repeatedly, his tricks and cons and blustering are not working on the virus, which continues to work its way through the population.

But his tricks keep him in the news media, and they are setting the tone for the upcoming election in a way that is, without a doubt, beneficial for his opponent party, the Democratic Party.

Under his watch, the health crisis surrounding the coronavirus is deepening, not receding. In areas of the country that are dominated by the Republican Party, where sections of the population long felt immune to infection, the virus is spreading like wildfire. And there, whole sections of the population are now sick, without work and devastated by natural disasters on top of that.

There is talk this might result in a landslide victory for the party not in office, in this case, the Democratic Party. Trump is becoming more frantic as the polls reflect a shift across the country toward Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

But the crazy behavior of Trump is only a surface-deep reflection of the crises we are facing. Those crises weren’t created by Trump and the Republican Party, and they won’t be resolved by electing a Democratic president and a Democratic congress.

In a clarifying moment, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris told us just that in her debate with Vice President Mike Pence. Gone were the discussions of Medicare for All, and tackling environmental disasters with a Green New Deal. Gone were any “Defund the Police” and “Black Lives Matter” mantras.

What Harris presented was a platform clearly right-of-center, even law-and-order; a promise to fight the virus crisis and accompanying unemployment crisis with a return to the old normal, business as usual with promises of a better future.

But it was business as usual that ushered in the multi-crisis events that we are living through!

Yes, Trump is a monster, and yes, his platform to transfer money to the rich while supporting racists, misogynists, bigots from all walks, and mocking COVID-19 victims, is unacceptable and has to be rooted out.

But without drastic measures, without revolutionary changes to the society, to employment, to hospital and drug and medical systems, to food distribution systems, to school systems, to transportation systems, and on and on, we will remain victims of a crisis that is not temporary, but permanent, and worsening.

As comforting as it may be to hear kinder, gentler words from candidates, it is not enough. Because capitalism functions for profits, and kinder and gentler is not in the program of this upper class that continues to make mega-profits in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis that is taking the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Today, there is no significant political party of the working class, no party that will fight for the working class to lead a struggle to take control out of the hands of the capitalists and the apologist politicians who lead for them. There is no mobilization of working people to pull capitalism down, and to force the transfer of billions of dollars out of the hands of the big capitalists and into the hands of the population—those who can fight to build new systems that benefit the majority.

But there are new political parties in two states that give workers a means to express these aspirations. They are the Working Class Party of Michigan and the Working Class Party of Maryland. These two parties have candidates who are themselves workers, and are giving voice to a message that says working people can reject capitalism and its functioning, reject the foundation that has created a never-ending environment breeding joblessness, poverty, racism, sexism, child illiteracy and devastating diseases, like the coronavirus. A return to the old, rotten normal is not enough!