United States:
And in the End, the Bourgeoisie Wins

Oct 28, 2024

This article is translated from the October 24 issue, #2934 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.

As the U.S. presidential election campaign enters its final phase, the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris looks tight in a few key states.

It’s not that outbursts from either side do much to enlighten voters. Trump regularly calls his rival a “mental defective”: a thinly veiled appeal to the racist prejudice that black people are stupid. He also recently called her “a shit vice president” at a rally before discussing the penis size of a deceased golf player .... For her part, Harris is quick to describe Trump as “cruel, unstable and deranged.”

That’s how low the presidential debate is going. Those commentators who see this election as decisive for the future of the world can rest assured that the policies pursued by the next occupant of the White House will bear no relation to what he or she said on the campaign trail. Wading through this nonsense served up by the media, many workers are above all preparing to vote against one candidate despite what the other represents.

There are plenty of reasons to reject Trump: sexist, racist, he drags in his wake an extreme right-wing that could run riot not just in elections, as has already been seen in the attack on the Capitol. But why are some workers prepared to vote for this billionaire, who has the nerve to promise well-paid jobs while congratulating bosses who are laying people off? The exasperation of many wage earners who have seen their standard of living seriously dented by inflation in recent years has a lot to do with it.

Joe Biden and his vice president Harris appear to be responsible for an economy that reduces real wages and puts housing, health care, education and even food out of reach for more and more working class families. All the while, billionaires grow outrageously rich.

Representatives of the Democratic left, such as Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as union leaders, are backing Kamala Harris, describing her as “a fighter for the working class.” It’s unconvincing, because it flies in the face of reality. On the contrary, by asserting herself as a “capitalist,” she seeks the support of Wall Street financiers or that of Republicans hostile to Trump by promising to include them in her future government. Harris thus openly turns her back on working people and gives Trump the opportunity to present himself as their defender.

What’s more, when Harris promises to fight immigration by extending the wall on the Mexican border, or expresses solidarity with Israel, which is waging bloody wars in the Middle East, she is placing herself on the same political terrain as Trump.

In reality, it’s not the voters, with their ballots, who decide the policy that will be pursued in Washington, but the very great fortunes of U.S. capitalism. The richest of the multi-billionaires, Elon Musk, is single-handedly financing Trump’s campaign to the tune of 75 million dollars. But Harris is not to be outdone, raising over a billion, from just as many big capitalists. These people know what they’re buying: they want a presidency that’s devoted to them, whoever they elect.