Monday, November 4, 2024
2024 U.S. Elections
What to Expect
"No Votes for Genocide" march passes Capital building in Washington, DC, November 2, 2024
• The Problem of Unreliable Predictions
• Concern Over Probability of Violence
• Failed Attempts to Use Portrayal of Kamala
Harris to Promote
False Consciousness
• Civil War Talk about Enemies Within and Rising Resistance
• Egregious Attempts to Block Third Party Participation Further Disgrace the U.S. Democracy
2024 U.S. Elections
What to Expect
The Elections taking place in the United States on November 5 are not only for the next president of the United States but, in addition, for the entire House of Representatives comprised of 435 members, who each serve two-year terms. One third of the Senate is also up for election. The Senate has 100 members, two from each state, who are elected to serve for a term of six years. The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives make up the two chambers of Congress.
State and local elections also occur as part of the same November 5 election.
Media reporting is rife with speculation about whether Harris or Trump will win the presidential election. Many media reports give an impression that Harris is the favourite but, in fact, this is not certain. It is not the popular vote which determines the outcome of an election in the U.S. but the verdict of the Electoral College where 270 Electoral College votes out of 538 are required to claim victory.
According to the New York Times News Service report, early voting exit polls for the 2024 U.S. election "show that the Presidential race for the White House is becoming a tight one."
The "U.S. presidential race appears to be hurtling toward a photo finish with the final set of polls by the New York Times and Sienna College finding Kamala Harris showing new strength in North Carolina and Georgia as former President Donald Trump erases her lead in Pennsylvania and maintains his advantage in Arizona," the NYT News Service wrote.
According to these exit polls, Harris is narrowly ahead in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, while Trump leads in Arizona. They are "locked in close races" in Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The results in all seven races, considered key for an electoral college win, "are within the margin of sampling error," meaning neither candidate has a definitive lead in any of them.
More than 70 million people have voted in states that have early voting, a majority of them. An estimated 40 per cent of registered voters "in the hotly contested states," have already voted, the NYT News Service says. What goes for news reporting then speculates on slight majorities for those who already voted in favour of Harris and slight majorities for those who have yet to vote for Trump and so on.
There is also speculation over whether the Democrats will keep their majority of 51 in the Senate and the Republicans their majority in the House of 221-214. The large majority of Senators up for election are expected to get re-elected. Nine races are considered significant for the Senate and lean Republican.
Twenty-two of the 435 races for the House of Representatives are expected to decide the outcome. Democrats need a net pickup of just four seats and no losses to win a majority in the House.
To generate some excitement, CNN writer Harry Enten said, "The House could flip from Republican to Democratic control, while the Senate may flip from Democratic to Republican control. If that happened, it would be the first time in over 230 years of congressional elections that the two chambers of Congress changed partisan control in the opposite direction."
However the elections to the Senate and House go, the Congress can be expected to remain as dysfunctional as ever due to the high level of factional in fighting and the fact that the system of wheeling and dealing between factions often no longer gives rise to even temporary truces.
The Problem of Unreliable Predictions
March in Dearborn Michigan November 2, 2024, expresses peoples' anger with candidates that stand for war, genocide and impunity
One problem with predictions on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election as a two-party race is that the Democratic and Republican parties no longer function as political parties. The cartels of private interests that operate shift and change alliances, and so do the votes of their representatives in Congress. There are factions within these factions that show themselves not only during elections but for voting on legislation and other matters in between elections. The huge difficulty the House of Representatives had in electing a speaker last year is an example. The lack of a speaker halted all legislative activity for three weeks until finally a settlement was cobbled together with a lot of give and take nobody was happy with.
Cartel machinery in different states organized to defeat elected representatives presenting themselves for re-election in the primaries, often by targeting those who supported Palestine, or who did not bow to Trump, or who otherwise refused to be bribed.
Whereas in the past, candidates tended to rely on the party machinery to get elected, what stands out more today is that candidates must generate their own machinery. For instance, Obama built his own "army" of volunteers beholden to him directly, not the Democratic Party. The same kind of thing is evident with the two presidential candidates today.
While the individual candidates are still beholden to their private funders, they are not beholden to party machinery but to the machinery built around themselves. It is their private backers who generate the machinery. It has nothing to do with political parties which were at one time an integral part of a public system to involve the people in supporting the system of party government. Today, the narrow private interests of oligopolies have completely usurped the power of the state. These narrow private interests select the candidates, set their agenda and decide the outcome.
Thus, to more accurately predict the outcome of an election requires seeing what problems the U.S. ruling class faces at home and abroad, what agenda it is advocating and who it thinks can best impose that agenda on allies and foes alike. The anarchy and chaos the U.S. "rules-based order" has created both at home and internationally and the fact that the cartels and coalitions of the oligopolies work all sides at once in the style of very rich Las Vegas gamblers, makes prediction a game of chance.
Elections are also a matter for the gamblers to bet on as in any horse race, except in this horse race, it is nearly impossible to know at the starting point just what shape the horses are in.
In this election another wild card is the extent of anger amongst the people with candidates that stand for war, genocide and impunity and what effect their organized resistance will have on the election outcome.
Concern Over Probability of Violence
There is a lot of anxiety surrounding the U.S. presidential election this year, as people anticipate violence on election day and after. Already Washington State and Nevada have the National Guard on standby and others may follow. In 2022, 14 states had National Guard on standby. Most states and counties have plans for a significant police presence at polling places, which in itself is an act which is intimidating for voters.
Trump has promised to have 200,000 supporters at polling places nationwide. How many of these will be his neo-Nazi militia forces is not known.
There is also great concern, among the rulers and the people, about the likelihood of violence in the days following the election and the period from November to January when the inauguration takes place. This includes the potential for extreme violence and state racist attacks directed against the people in the name of law and order.
Talk of Enemies and Retaliation Against Them
Concerns about violence comes in part from the considerable civil war talk from the Trump side about "the enemy within" or, as Kamala Harris puts it, defending the Constitution from "enemies foreign and domestic." It is important to look at what is being said and what is its significance. Given how key the military and civilian bureaucracy are for forestalling and/or launching civil war, it is also important to see how they are lining up one way or another.
A main reason Trump's attempted coup in 2021 failed is he did not have sufficient backing from the military or civilian forces like Vice President Mike Pence and others. If he loses this election, it is not clear if he will first attempt legal recourse, as occurred in 2020, then more open violence, or resort to violence more quickly. Various neo-Nazi militia forces are lined up behind him but so far not so the federal military and policing agencies. Where the many policing agencies at the state, county and city level stand is also a consideration.
If Kamala Harris loses, she is also promising challenges about voter intimidation or for recounts, etc. The difficulties for both are that the courts are highly discredited so their rulings may not be accepted, especially by the people.
Both candidates are also preparing for retaliation against "enemies" if they win, though Harris is considered more likely to try reconciliation as part of her efforts to unite the military and civilian bureaucracy. The weeks immediately after the election, and again at the time of inauguration, will be critical.
Biden remains in power during this period from November 5 to January 20.
Failed Attempts to Use Portrayal of Kamala
Harris
to Promote False-Consciousness
Despite the promotion of Kamala Harris as a "minority woman of immigrant parents," who supports women's rights, allegedly supports the cause of justice because she is a prosecutor by profession, the working class and people of the United States are increasingly visibly immune to this false consciousness. False-consciousness describes a person's inability to recognize the reality of social, political or economic structures in society. For instance, it is often said the working class and people in the U.S. are unable to recognize inequality, exploitation, and oppression and, if they do, they do not ascribe it to the structures imposed by the U.S. Constitution.
But the anger about the genocide in Gaza and concerning government impunity and the lack of any means to hold the president and state and local officials to account is very great and widespread. While the elections will again mean the change demanded by the working class and people will not materialize, they have no illusions about that. They know that finding a way forward depends on them, not the representatives of the ruling class no matter what rhetoric they use to claim they represent the people's demands against war, racism, inequality, increased exploitation and impoverishment, neglect and impunity. Their years of intense struggles have clearly revealed that it is the working class and peoples, strengthening their organized resistance, that can achieve the change needed and wanted.
Civil War Talk about Enemies Within
and
Rising Resistance
"No Votes for Genocide" march in New York City, November 2, 2024
Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are using civil war talk about enemies within the country. Given the intense rivalries among the ruling factions vying for the presidency, this reflects concern about the likely failure of a peaceful transition of power and the potential for open violent civil war following the election.
While many in the ruling class are desperate to avoid civil war and are championing Harris in the hopes that she can preserve the Union, they cannot predict the outcome. The basis for targeting both the peoples' movements and government officials is being laid by both candidates to justify actions against them after the election.
Trump has repeatedly talked about "the enemy within." He names both "radical left" protesters, such as those who demonstrated against racist police killings -– which number in their millions -- and people associated with Kamala Harris.
On October 27, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, clearly referring to Biden and Harris, Trump said that the "enemy from within" is harming the country with "open-border policies (and) record-setting inflation." This is the same rally where extreme racist statements were made about Puerto Rico being garbage. Biden responded saying it is Trump supporters that are garbage, a statement he later tried to fudge. But both candidates speak of working people not as human beings with rights but as being disposable, in the words introduced by both campaigns, like trash to be discarded.
Attacks on Puerto Rico also serve to hide the fact that Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, if they live in Puerto Rico, are not allowed to vote for President. Puerto Rico has no representation in Congress and, unlike the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), has no Electoral College votes either.
On October 13, Trump told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that U.S. Representative Adam Schiff of California is "the enemy from within." Schiff was lead prosecutor for the first impeachment against Trump when he was president. In the same interview, when asked about the possibility of Election Day chaos, Trump spoke about there being "very bad people," "radical left lunatics" who should be handled if "necessary" by the National Guard or even the military.
On October 6 at his Juneau, Wisconsin rally Trump said, "And by the way, the enemy from within, the crazy lunatics that we have, the fascists, the Marxists, the communists, the people that we have that are actually [running] the country, not her, she's not running it and Biden's not running it either, and you all know that." "Those people are more dangerous, the enemy from within than Russia and China and other people," he said.
By giving emphasis to "the enemy within" by naming both those organizing for rights and government officials, and often repeating claims that the 2020 election was stolen, Trump also implies that those associated with Harris are also enemies. In this way, Trump is laying the ground for retaliation and violence against them. This is especially true of protesters, to be dealt with not only by police and National Guard but also the active military, as he has said is required.
By naming fascists and communists together, he is using the old, Cold War method of saying the two are the same. This is to hide the reality that the U.S. working class and people stood as one with the world's peoples including the communists and anti-fascist resistance forces against the German Nazis, Italian fascists and Japanese militarists and defeated them with much sacrifice. They stood as one with the Soviet Union and cheered its superlative victories in the battles of Stalingrad, Moscow, Kursk when the Soviet Red Army fought virtually alone.
It is a means to discredit the organized resistance today while justifying increased repression, including against all those opposing U.S. genocide at home and abroad. There is no doubt that in the coming period the rulers will more directly accuse people of antisemitism -– a charge which has utterly failed but is used anyway -– as well as of being terrorists or agents of terrorist states or foreign powers. These accusations are used against all those who refuse to conciliate with U.S. crimes. Efforts are already being made to jail communists, anti-war, anti-racist and pro-Palestine activists as well as opponents of anti-migrant, anti-women and anti-LGBTQ2S+ attacks and laws and all progressive forces.
New York City, November 2, 2024
It can be recalled that the "enemy within" phrasing was used previously by Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to brand communists, those associated with them in the struggle, and many other progressive trade unionists, writers, actors, musicians, television personalities, film producers, academics and anti-fascist organizers, as threats and enemies to be punished. Many were fired, jailed, blacklisted, lost citizenship and had their lives destroyed in countless ways.
With this whole promotion of "enemy within" Trump is laying the basis for action by the presidency whether or not he is elected. He is also promoting the idea that a main problem in the country is not the dysfunctional institutions and violence of the rulers, but the people who are persisting in fighting for their rights. As for analyzing the cause of the dysfunction in the ensemble of relations between humans and humans and humans and nature and what they reveal, that is totally off the table.
When it comes to Harris, take note that when she refers to defending the Constitution from "enemies both foreign and domestic," this is what the military oath calls for. Her campaign is essentially painting Trump and his backers as enemies and she is also organizing to oppose the "enemy within." This is the position of the U.S. state itself, not just this or that candidate for election. It is done in the name of "national security" and defending the U.S. from internal and external enemies.
For example, responding to Trump's "enemy within" and use of the military against protesters, the president of National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A), Retired Rear Admiral Mike Smith said "Mr. Trump's statement is un-American and anathema to the system that has served our nation for two-and-a-half centuries."
"Any suggestion that military force should be wielded against political rivals undermines the democratic processes that safeguard life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," Smith added. Referring to the Constitution, he further added that Trump "does not respect the democratic principles upon which this nation was founded." He concluded by saying, "The military is a nonpartisan institution dedicated to defending the Constitution and protecting the nation from external threats. Using the military for personal or political vendettas would erode the independence of this vital institution and set a dangerous precedent, echoing the tactics of authoritarian regimes."
Since 2021, the NSL4A has been striving to unite the military and civilian bureaucracy by promoting itself and the military as "bipartisan" and concerned about "national security." It has now endorsed Harris, who repeats, as the NSL4A does, that Trump is "unfit to be Commander-in-Chief" and that she will represent bipartisan interests.
Speaking to concerns of the rulers as a class at this time, the NSL4A said Harris has "preserved a united front in support of Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression. She grasps the reality of American military deterrence, promising to preserve the American military's status as the most 'lethal' force in the world."
Using terms like authoritarian, un-American, and tyrant, as Harris calls Trump, are all means to say he is an enemy of the Constitution that needs to be dealt with as such, including by the military.
In
conditions where the existing institutions and their means of resolving
conflicts short of civil war have failed, looking at where the military
and civilian bureaucracies line up is significant. Forces like the
NSL4A are part of the effort now to unite the military behind Harris in
hopes of
preserving the Union while also preparing to deal with anyone they deem does
not defend the Constitution, especially among the people. In this
manner both Trump and Harris are providing a means to justify violence,
repression and more racist attacks in the period after the elections.
It is also the case that the intelligence agencies are again intervening in the elections, this time by backing Harris. They are raising the specter of a possible danger as a result of foreign interference. Even though the last time they did this in the Clinton election against Trump no evidence of Russian interference was ever found, this accusation is used to instill fear about "adversaries" determined to undermine the U.S. to provide the basis for actions against them, be it Russia, China, Iran or any other.
According to the image provided, these foreign powers are responsible for "protests," not the peoples of the U.S. contesting the conditions and policies of the U.S. themselves, including the U.S./Zionist genocide and the whole election process that goes against the interests of the people. It is the peoples fighting for their rights and the rights of all who are always portrayed as inciting violence, not the state agencies and the intelligence forces of the U.S. ruling class, operating at home and abroad.
Connected with claims about foreign actors, especially Russia, being able to "stoke protests" is the effort to discredit the protests themselves. For instance, it is becoming commonplace to hear it said that actions supporting Palestine are organized by Hamas which the U.S. has declared to be a terrorist organization. So too those opposing the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, designed to crush Russia, are called Russian agents.[1]
March in Bay Area, California, November 2, 2024
This emphasis on foreign interference is also designed to divert from the fact that the existing institutions do not provide "free and fair" elections. The candidates are not chosen by the people and do not represent them, as the pro-war, pro-genocide, anti-social stands of both main contenders for the presidency indicate.
Nobody
believes that U.S. elections, notoriously riddled with corruption and
massive amounts of money from private interests, are democratic. They
are designed to keep the people, the majority, out of power and the
rich in. That is the source of the anger and dissatisfaction among the
people. To
divert attention away from the fact that the establishment forces do
not provide information and analysis on these problems or permit
discussion on the solutions the peoples are putting forward, this
specter of foreign interference to undermine U.S. democratic
institutions is widely promoted.
The peoples are well aware that these claims about foreign interference are directed against them and are not recoiling. They do not accept the violations of their conscience based on the dictate that their role is to accept the pro-war, racist, anti-people actions of whoever is elected.
Unity is built by the people in action to bring about changes that favor their interests. Actions in support of Palestine persist as do demands for an arms embargo against Israel to end the genocide. Webinars, tribunals, teach-ins and more are already planned.
Note
1. See also TML-In the News, November 2, 2024.
Egregious Attempts to Block Third Party Participation Further Disgrace the U.S. Democracy
While it is well known that the electoral process in the United States is not designed to bring the people to power, less well known in Canada are the egregious lengths to which the electoral machines of the main two candidates go to block third party participation. Numerous barriers are in place which make it very difficult for third parties or independent candidates to get on the ballot. The huge expense, even for state races, is also prohibitive.
Elections in the U.S. are also unfair and unequal as they are state based, with the rules in every state different, for registering to vote, for being a registered party, for running for office and getting on the ballot, for fundraising and reporting on funds, and so forth. In general, the rules are designed to the advantage of the cartel machinery, to keep small parties and working people out. And changes to these laws increasingly favor only cartel party forces.
The southern states have long made it difficult simply to register to vote and this continues, often on a racist basis meant to keep Black people from voting. As well, the drawing of district lines for voting and other meddling with the law and registration process are used to favour particular candidates and exclude others.
At the state level, the state Secretary of State controls the voter rolls and can arbitrarily remove people, as has occurred in Virginia and Alabama this year when, based on claims that they were non-citizens, hundreds of eligible voters were removed. As well as skewing the outcome of the vote, this is part of efforts to whip up fear and anger against immigrants who have been labelled as illegals, fraudsters, liars, cheats and more.
Voting rights banner in Poor Peoples March on Washington June 21, 2021.
Laws are also passed to block third party participation. In New York, for example, whereas normally there are several additional parties on the ballot, like the Green Party, Conservative Party, Libertarian Party, this year there are none. New York is a state where the Democratic candidate for president wins, so keeping small parties off the ballot has nothing to do with Democrats' "fear" of losing. It is to ensure no other voice but that of the cartels is allowed.
To get on the ballot in New York it is necessary to gather 45,000 valid signatures of registered voters in a period of 6 weeks with at least 500 or one per cent of enrolled voters coming from at least half of the congressional districts statewide. The Green Party succeeded in getting 46,000 signatures. These were then challenged by the cartel machinery, which declared that less than 45,000 signatures were valid. As a result, Dr. Jill Stein, the presidential candidate of the Green Party, was kept off the ballot.
Candidates outside of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party who could be on the presidential ballot in certain states include Jill Stein for the Green Party, Cornell West -- Independent, Chase Oliver for the Libertarian Party and Claudia De La Cruz for the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Robert Kennedy Jr. who suspended his candidature to join Trumps' campaign might nonetheless appear on the ballot in some states.
Among the small parties that run, the Greens are on the ballot in more states and so often face the brunt of attacks by the cartel machinery. An estimated $500,000 worth of digital ads against them are being run in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, considered key states for Harris. In Ohio, the cartel machinery forced a court case to make sure votes cast for Dr. Stein will not be counted, although she is on the ballot. In Nevada they sued to keep her off the ballot, again claiming problems with the signatures.
The court cases, besides ensuring Greens are excluded, are expensive and time-consuming.
In every state the ballot is different, and thus who electors can vote for is also different. So are the rules over issues like whether write-in votes are allowed and will be counted. Some states will have just Trump and Harris on the ballot; others will have several candidates.
Rules for voting also vary. These include rules for registering to vote, then what is required such as ID on the day of voting. Oregon and Washington State are all mail-in votes. Most other states are a combination of mail-in, early voting and election day voting. This all impacts the speed at which votes are tallied on Election Day and provides grist for challenging the results in court after Election Day.
Keeping in mind that it is possible for a candidate to secure the majority of the popular vote and still lose the Electoral College vote, as Clinton did when she ran against Trump in the 2016 election, another feature of the inequality is that a handful of states, and commonly not the most populous like New York, California and Texas, play deciding roles in determining the Electoral College vote. This means voters in other states are left out of the campaigns and their voice is considered inconsequential. This year, seven states are considered the key states that will determine the outcome of the vote – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
There are a total of 538 electoral college votes, with 270 needed to win. Each state gets the same number as their Congressional delegation, House and Senate combined, and Washington, DC gets three, Puerto Rico none.
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
Website: www.cpcml.ca • Email: editor@cpcml.ca