Paying Attention to the U.S. Election 
July 20, 2020. Strike
for Black Lives in Seattle, Washington, part of nationwide day of
action.
If it were not for the reports in the
Party press, including reports from the U.S. Marxist-Leninist
Organization's Voice of
Revolution and other U.S. fighting organizations, and
information that people can glean on social media of the resistance
movement in the U.S., one could fall into the trap of despair that the
media paints of hopelessness and chaos, of an America divided between
"progressives" who voted for Biden and "reactionaries" who voted for
Trump. According to this rendering it is the aims and manoeuvres of the
ruling elite that matter and the people are nothing but voting cattle.
The two Americas in contention, as pointed out by Kathleen
Chandler in TML Weekly
November 1, are the vision of the people versus the vision of the
rulers. Pundits are wringing their hands and wondering why four years
of Trump did not result in a landslide vote for Biden. What is striking
is the consciousness of the U.S. working class and people that the
problems that they are facing are not going to be sorted out by the
election but on the basis of the ongoing fight that is being
waged.  The U.S. working
class is not passive and disengaged, which the media would have us
believe, as shown in the many many actions of organized and unorganized
workers over the past several months, addressing issues of police
violence and repression as part of the resistance spearheaded by the
African American community, putting forward the demands of health care
workers, teachers and other frontline workers for adequate protection
for themselves, those they serve and the public in the face of the
COVID-19 pandemic, and with regard to the election itself.
The resolution of the 70,000 member Rochester labour council
calling for a general strike if Trump does not respect the outcome of
the election, which also spoke of the diminished quality of existing
institutions, and the council's intent that their stand spark a
national conversation is a reflection of the growing consciousness of
the working class that it, and not the 'leaders' and 'authorities' are
upholding their social responsibility, as workers and as electors. The
Juneteenth actions of workers in 30 U.S. ports in solidarity with Black
Lives Matter, the walkouts of workers in fast food places, nursing
homes, rideshare businesses, farms, airports and other workplaces on
July 20, along with thousands more who walked off their jobs for 8
minutes and 46 seconds to remember George Floyd and others killed by
police, and the continuing organizing of nurses and teachers to demand
action to protect themselves, patients and students from COVID-19 all
show what the U.S. working class is made of. In the
aftermath of the 2016 U.S. election, the media and politicians of the
main U.S. cartel parties and their counterparts in Canada "analyzed"
that the U.S. working class was divided between those who supported the
Republican Party and Trump in particular, and those who supported the
Democrats and Hillary Clinton in particular. Four years later, in
reporting on the initial results of the 2020 presidential election, the
same nonsense is being spouted. That shows that the media and the
politicians of the cartel parties have only one aim in mind and that is
to keep the working class and people of the U.S., Canada and the world
disenfranchised and out of the picture. What the ruling elite fear more
than anything is the participation of the workers, youth, people from
national minority communities, African Americans and people
from all walks of life, who have taken to the streets since May to
demand an end to police violence and uphold the rights of all, including,
most importantly, the right of the people to participate in making the
decisions that affect their lives. It is in that fight for the New that
the future lies.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 43 - November 7, 2020
Article Link:
Paying Attention to the U.S. Election
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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