Politics: With Whom and For What
By Mike Miller
Preface
Wilson Carey McWilliams, mentor, teacher and friend during my days in the early UC Berkeley student movement, said, “Politics is with whom and for what, and in precisely that order.” [paraphrased] (The full quote: “The political process is an effort to unite [people] in the pursuit of a common goal and vision. Politics, then, involves two questions: the question of ‘with whom’ and the question of ‘for what.’ Furthermore, it involves these questions in precisely that order.”)
My appreciation for that thought’s importance has steadily grown over the years. It is especially relevant to the times in which we now live. Here I apply it to the angry reactions to Teamster Union President Sean O’Brien’s speaking and speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC).
I don’t write to support what he did—but to attempt to explain it from an outsider’s perspective so that the energy condemning him is better spent.
What He Said (in brief)
O’Brien gave the Republican National Convention a militant defense of working class interests and organized labor as the best vehicle to fight for them. He declared himself a “life-long Democrat” and noted that past labor trust in Democratic Party politicians had been misplaced—(he didn’t acknowledge Biden’s strong support for unions and ignored the deeply anti-union history of the Republican Party in general, and Trump and Vance particularly). He added criticism of “backlash from the Left” that attacked him for being there.
The 1.3 million Teamster membership appears equally divided on the presidential race, with many of them having voted for Trump in earlier elections, and committed to him again in 2024. That membership is now engaged in an internal process—a small “d” democratic one—to determine whether, and if so who, to endorse. From what I understand, this process was initiated by O’Brien and his allies and is the most small “d” democratic one that has taken place in the Teamsters for many years, if ever. That O’Brien wants that process to take its course seems a welcome sign to me.
O’Brien sought favor with Trump by calling him “one tough SOB,” and thanking him for opening Republican doors previously closed to the Teamsters. He gave the impression that the Republicans might actually support unions. I think he could have gotten where he wanted to go without doing that. Harking back to Abraham Lincoln would have been a better way to go.
What His Critics Say
Criticism of O’Brien has been widespread among labor, left, progressive and liberal observers. Among the most thoughtful of these are Larry Cohen’s Nation article, “Donald Trump Is Not a Friend to American Workers”, and Labor Notes Alexandra Bradbury‘s July 18, “O’Brien Speech Played into Republicans’ Phony Pro-Worker Rebrand”.
The criticisms are widely noted, and don’t need repetition here. But there are other things in the articles that deserve both mention and emphasis. Clear clues to why O’Brien might have done what he did are to be found in these critics’ articles.
Bradbury/Labor Notes
“Union leaders, though, should lead. They owe it to their own members—and to every member of the working class who would be harmed by a second Trump administration—to fight to keep anti-worker politicians out of office.
“We get why union leaders want “access”; they’ve been shut out of real influence for so long.(emphasis added) But it’s delusional to think that Trump might swap out his anti-worker—really, anti-humanity—policies; they are at the core of his being. One more person kissing his ring won’t change that.”
When leaders and organizations don’t have the power to win something, they seek access to insiders to help them get it. That may be part of what O’Brien is doing. Certainly in the long-term it doesn’t work, and often it doesn’t in the short-term. But it does give “consumer members” the idea that leaders are trying to represent their interests. He may also be taking his pro-Trump members through a process that leads them to conclude for themselves that Trump isn’t their man. That would be very good.
Cohen/The Nation
“For too many of us in labor, we confuse our individual journeys in life with a collective one. We all echo the rhetoric of an “injury to one is an injury to all,” but too often our own immediate fame, or even our own organization, takes precedence over the needs of working-class Americans. With just 6 percent of collective bargaining covered here in the United States—the lowest, by far, of any democratic nation—we need to focus on outcomes, not our individual value as a messenger.
“We can’t condemn O’Brien for speaking at the RNC unless we commit to working together in a much deeper way, and building a movement for economic justice and democracy, and a political movement that delivers results, and not just promises.” (emphasis added)
What Cohen confirms is that the labor movement we would like to see is not the labor movement that is. “Unless” is the key word here. The “movement” Cohen has worked for remains an ambition to be realized, not yet a fact on the ground. We have labor organizations, not a labor movement. The question is: how to build one.
Perhaps the sharpest indictment of O’Brien comes from a fellow Executive Board member of his union:
“We have been used enough! If O’Brien is going to satisfy his ego, if he’s going to pander and beg for the Republicans to abandon their anti-union policies, then the Teamsters’ membership would be better served if O’Brien stayed home.” John Palmer, a Teamster Vice-President, “Teamster President Sean O’Brien Should Not Speak at the RNC,” writing in New Politics (7/10/24).
Much as I appreciate and have learned from New Politics over the years, I feel on firm ground when I say not many Teamsters read it. It reads like the thought of someone positioning himself to oppose O’Brien in the next IBT election.
Here’s a different spin on O’Brien, after reading a number of the negative ones: He is walking a tight rope between where his membership is, where the rest of organized labor is, and where the country is. I hope he walks it safely. In any case, the deluge of criticism is hardly a fraternal one, and it is fraternal conversation that is required to build a movement not a number of separate organizations and separate individuals jockeying with one another for position in the labor and political worlds.
The “Labor Movement”
It is widely recognized among radicals that most unions are service and advocacy organizations. “The union” is a combined insurance company and law firm. Elected leaders and staff do things for not with members. They deliver services for them and speak in their behalf. They “turn them out” for internal and general elections. At best, union democracy imitates national political democracy: honest elections are held; a few leaders develop a following among activists; together they seek to sell their candidate as the best person to act for the members.
To expect the leader of that kind of organization to take a position that is deeply divisive within his own organization is asking too much. The expectation of these leaders that they will “educate” the rank-and-file is dangerous—in practice it means leaders tell members what they ought to think and do, sometimes by lecturing to them, other times using participatory techniques without their liberation principles, and speak on their behalf without representing what they think.
With whom
The country in general, and workers in particular, needs a strong labor movement whose participating unions act powerfully for their members, the communities in which their members work and live, and the common good. They can best do that by building their own people power and acting in concert with other people power organizations—both at the workplace and in communities. Characterizations of newly elected reform leaders as “kissing [Trump’s] ring” aren’t helpful. In my experience, they turn regular people off, insuring that they will remain the consumers of what others claim (and sometimes hope) to do in their behalf.
Fraternal debate and deliberation are what is now needed. It is needed in face-to-face forums, not in the mass media. It needs to reach deeply into the rank and file of all the organizations and constituencies required to build a base for transformative politics in the United States.
Self-righteous characterizations of rivals (as distinct from adversaries) are not helpful.
For what
We agree on a lot, but not so much on the means to get there. In recent times, the Left hasn’t been particularly good at the latter—i.e. fraternal discussion and debate. It has to cross this bridge before its common good program of equality, liberty, solidarity, community and justice for all can take concrete shape that will convince majorities.
Conclusion
Eugene V. Debs got it right:
“…I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands.”
I can conclude no better than to quote from a leader in Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) who doesn’t support the indictments of O’Brien and wishes to remain anonymous:
“Trump is a master peddler of hate and division and a lethally dangerous front man for Wall Street, employers and the ruling class. TDU members are some of the best leaders I know to organize workers away from the Trump disaster. They’ll be in this fight, just not in the name of TDU.”
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To learn more about Mike Miller and his work, visit: www.organizetrainingcenter.org
Labor Organizer Chyanne Chen Runs For SF Board of Supervisors
By Katie Quan
In the November 2024 election, Chyanne Chen is running for the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco’s District 11, an area that includes the neighborhoods of Cayuga Terrace, Crocker Amazon, Excelsior, Ingleside, Merced Heights, Mission Terrace, Oceanview and Outer Mission. I first met Chyanne in the early 2000s when she was organizing homecare workers for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and she impressed me as a scrappy young immigrant organizer who was deeply committed to the workers she was organizing. Ten years later we met again in China when she represented her union to establish relations with unions in China, and where she articulated the need for workers to build solidarity across borders. Now ten more years later she is running for political office, a transition which is unusual among Asian Pacific Islander labor organizers. To understand what she was thinking and what kind of support she has, I spoke with Chyanne and two of her supporters, Dr. Albert Wang and Rebecca Miller. This is what they had to say.
Katie Quan (KQ): Chyanne, what made you decide to run for political office?
Chyanne Chen (CC): It’s about my kids. I want them to be able to live here in a San Francisco that is safe, affordable, with a good quality of life.
But we have some problems. My family has experienced hate crimes–my daughter has been spit on three times and my aunt got pushed because they are Asian. During Covid the message out there was if you were Asian you were the virus. No one should experience this kind of hate, not Muslims, Blacks, Jews, or anyone. And if you called the police, nothing was done, so people stopped calling. But when they stopped calling there was no record of incidents, so the police wouldn’t have the data to send officers out. It is frustrating.
These days it’s hard to survive as a working class immigrant. The cost of living is so high that most people can’t afford to live in San Francisco. And cutbacks in services like mass transit deeply impact them. Recently I spoke to a man in my district who told me that an employer in Chinatown wouldn’t hire him because he didn’t think the worker could get to Chinatown by 7 am to open his shop, because the buses don’t start until 6 am, and often they are not on time. The only way the employer would hire this man was if he moved to Chinatown. This is unacceptable!
Even those with their own cars have issues with quality of life. Traffic is slow, and finding a parking spot is a headache.
The biggest drive for me to run this year is that there is a risk that there will be no Asian Pacific Islander (API) representation on the Board of Supervisors. That would be terrible–there is a lot at stake. Since a number of long-time community leaders have urged me to run for political office, I began to consider running. If I ran, it would be an opportunity for our working families’ voices to be uplifted–immigrants, Asians, women, moms. I would ensure that policies and actions to enable families to stay in San Francisco are enacted. Even though I would be elected as a District 11 Supervisor, many other API residents outside my district would likely feel that I could represent their voices.
I have never run for public office, and the pressure has been really intense. But my family is totally supportive, and I am going to give it my all.
KQ: What do you want to accomplish?
Safety is the #1 concern for our community right now. It means personal safety, but includes making sure that we invest in first responders, including police officers, firefighters, 911 dispatchers, and front line essential workers like nurses. It also means making sure that we support people who have already been impacted by the system, meaning those who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, so they have housing, jobs, health care, and so on, and have pathways to becoming meaningful members of society.
“When we know neighbors really well, we get stronger and are resilient in the face of adversity.”
When talking about safety, prevention is really important. We have to especially make sure that our young people bond with their communities, and receive loving, caring, and uplifting from others. When I walk the business corridors in the Mission, around Geneva and Ocean, the merchants talk about robberies by young people, like grabbing cell phones and running away. There might be many causes of this, like poverty, but if we have programs for youth early on to find meaningful things in life to do, we can prevent them from harming themselves and members of their community.
We have to invest in our youth so they have a path to hope in the future, with skills, housing, basic medical care and fine values. They have to “own” their community. I myself was loved by others and uplifted by many, and I benefited from youth programs when I was a teenager. I was cleaning graffiti, helping at the library, talking to merchants, all the while bonding with residents in the community. This is what builds support systems and a safer community. When we know neighbors really well, we get stronger and are resilient in the face of adversity. We understand that individual acts of bad behavior do not reflect on an entire race of people.
In this context, it’s important that the City’s government agencies distribute services equitably. I’m all about investing in education, including after-school programs. You know that the west side of the city (Sunset and Richmond) schools have better after-school programs, so a lot of Asian families travel far to send their kids to these schools. But how can we make sure that all neighborhoods have good-quality schools? As Supervisors we cannot directly impact that, but we can make sure that after-school programs provide enrichment that will complement basic education.
“Right now there are 1000 vacancies in the Department of Public Health, so they are vastly understaffed.“
Of course, there is the issue of government administration. Right now there are 1000 vacancies in the Department of Public Health, so they are vastly understaffed. What suffers is programs like ones that I participated in as a teenager. As I said, these programs help young people to find a sense of purpose in life, meaning, and accountability. But these programs are being cut back because of staffing issues.
The number two part of my platform is making sure that people have secure jobs in the city. With my background at the union, I am obviously concerned about workers. The workers providing care to our kids and parents need a pathway to providing quality care while working good jobs. Homecare workers in San Francisco only have 40 hours of paid sick leave, and they don’t have pension benefits. They deserve much more, and there is a long way to go. We need to have training for low wage service workers like them, so they can get higher pay and more job stability. We need to invest from kids to elders.
The next part of my platform is about supporting small businesses. I think we should hold the government accountable to residents and continue business corridor revitalization. These will help build community and resilience. In the Mission/Geneva/Ocean area, a lot of small businesses are owned by immigrant women, and they don’t know how to access resources, and they don’t trust the government. The Office of Small Business might have grants available, but these business owners don’t know about them, and when they find out, they might not think that it’s worthwhile to fill out a 20 page application for $5000. Some agencies, like one in the Excelsior district, don’t have the staff to reach out to small businesses in the languages that the business owners speak. These community relationships take a long time to develop, and because I’ve built those relationships over many years, I feel that I can bridge that gap.
There are many needs for services for kids and seniors, but part of the problem is that there is no one like me who has the organizing skills to reach the community, build alliances across different communities, and then advocate at City Hall. I started being an active volunteer in the community at age 16 at the library, supporting small businesses, SRO seniors, fire prevention, tutoring kids, putting on earthquake workshops. Now I am active in the PTA. In my last 24 years, it has been nonstop volunteering and supporting the community.
What is unique about me as a candidate, is that I have strong experience working with diverse coalitions, including Latino, Black, LGBTQ and Asian communities. I am a good listener and communicator. I go to budget hearings to make sure that budgets reflect the needs of the communities, and are equitably distributed.
“You have to imagine outside the box“
With my global perspective, I can imagine policies that locals might not have thought of. This morning I met with a 50 year old resident of District 11 whose sister comes home from work at 12 am and can’t find parking near her home. I have traveled abroad for work extensively, and have seen how others have solved transportation problems. When I heard this man’s problems, I wondered how affordable technology can be made useful to residents. I thought about partnering with auto-pilot companies to make rates for this resident’s sister affordable in her situation. It might not be practical right away, but you have to imagine outside the box, rather than fighting each other for parking spots.
In the end it’s about making San Francisco a place where everyone can be successful at chasing their dreams. I want my kids, our kids collectively, to be able to stay in San Francisco and call it their home.
KQ: How do you stand on the recent recalls of elected officials in San Francisco?
In general, I do not believe that recalls are the best way to solve problems. As for safety, I don’t think that things are safer now than when Chesa Boudin was the district attorney. Yes during Covid, people felt unsafe, but now that Chesa is gone the replacement is no better. The Ingleside police station even put out literature that is supposed to be a Chinese translation of the English, but because I can read both languages I knew that the English and Chinese versions actually said different things. That’s insulting. Except now people are not blaming the D.A. because they know that nothing is going to happen. They have stopped calling the police and don’t trust the government. The recall wasted a lot of money and disrupted the government.
And yes, during Covid the School Board had some wrong priorities. But does that really mean recall? I got involved as a parent, and demanded that the School Board change its priorities. But some people went to the extreme and made divisions stronger. The result is that our kids, including our Asian kids, are behind, while all these lawsuits are going on. The group that has separated from the District and formed their own school is saying that the kids are behind, and they have stoked up the parents to speak at town halls. But these monolingual parents are not being given enough information to make good decisions. So it’s a big mess and the district is talking about school closures. I’m able to read the policy side and help parents understand the whole picture.
KQ: What unique qualifications do you bring to the job of Supervisor?
I understand the people in my district and their needs. I have over 20 years of experience of building community with underserved, under-represented populations. I know the struggles of immigrants. I’ve worked with all kinds of people, Chinese, Latino, Black, etc. I’m comfortable having conversations with anyone.
I have organized and advocated for my constituents from the outside, and I also have advocated for them inside City Hall. I have experience lobbying, understanding the budget processes among the different agencies, what kind of programs will make an impact, and how to hold the officials accountable for those monies.
I have also built broad coalitions. I organized homecare workers for eight years, which required an alliance with consumers, the disability and senior groups who received care. Better homecare for the disabled and elderly requires job security for their caregivers. The same goes for childcare. State legislation that supports better jobs for childcare workers helps the community. I have worked with all the stakeholders in these issues.
My union experience has given me skills in listening, negotiating, sometimes compromising, and forming consensus to move forward. I think this is what is needed at this moment in San Francisco. We need people who are willing to have conversations, bring people together, and fight for common sense policies that work for the City. This is my strength.
I am not afraid of hard work and difficult conversations. I have thick skin. If you turn me down this time, I’ll be back. If I need that union card to be signed, I’ll knock on your door ten times.
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KQ: Dr. Albert Wang, what strengths do you think Chyanne will bring as Supervisor?
I think that as a 1.5 generation Asian American, she can bridge the cultural gap between Chinese Americans and mainstream society. By 1.5 generation, I mean that she came to the U.S. when she was 15, and is culturally proficient in both Chinese and American cultures, and is trilingual in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. So she can help both Chinese and Americans navigate difficult problems, like why Asian Americans are against affirmative action at Harvard. Those who brought the lawsuit don’t understand that affirmative action is beneficial to society, and they need to understand that self-interest is not necessarily good for human survival. On the other hand, non-Asians need to understand that those who are against affirmative action came from farm towns in China where there was no hope to get ahead besides studying, so they became very focused on succeeding at Harvard.
I think Chyanne’s focus on workers, seniors, and childcare is important. I work in Silicon Valley where the Chinese are highly educated, but others need education as well. Chyanne speaks for the under-privileged, and with an important title people will listen.
Chyanne’s record of voluntary activism in the Chinese community is impressive. She has been at it over 20 years and started as a teenager. It speaks to her as a person.
She handles herself well. She knows what’s going on in the world and speaks with confidence. On stage she definitely has presence.
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KQ: Rebecca Miller, what strengths do you think Chyanne will bring as Supervisor?
Chyanne has deep connections to homecare workers in San Francisco. They tend to be in silos of Chinese, Russian and Latinos, but Chyanne can cross over the different ethnicities and politics of those groups. I trusted her deep reach.
Chyanne could move people, like a natural. She was a leader, and workers followed her. But the conversations were not weird or patronizing. She had tremendous credibility. She wasn’t ahead of the workers, she was with them. As the union’s political director, I could count on her to organize and mobilize. She was really strong.
Chyanne was really thoughtful about how to resolve conflicting issues. Homecare workers are underpaid, and one strategy was to bring in training for better care, which would lead to economic mobility for the workers. But within the IHSS (In-Home Supportive Services) movement many providers are family members, and they resisted the union’s attempt to make training mandatory. I remember that Chyanne was really thoughtful about how to thread the needle to make sure that homecare workers who were desperate for a raise got it, while ensuring that the other side was heard. She strongly pushed me and the union to work with independent providers to get everyone on board.
Chyanne also had a deep reach among politicians that the union did not necessarily have relationships with. She got us meetings, especially with Asian legislators, that we might not otherwise have had.
Chyanne supports progressive ideas, but she has friends on both sides of the aisle and will be a unifier. In this polarized climate, she can transcend different factions, and people from different groups will look to her leadership. She is an Asian leader that we need. I wish she lived in my neighborhood.
Conclusions
Chyanne Chen is the young scrappy organizer that I once knew, but now she has become so much more. She is not just a grassroots leader with tremendous depth, but she is a “unifier” who builds alliances across communities, even when the conversations are difficult. Her voice is not just reflective of the community, but she also imagines policy solutions, and is savvy about how to advocate those policies at City Hall. No wonder she has support from a range of different respected groups and individuals.
This is Chyanne’s first time to run for political office, and there definitely will be a learning curve. On the other hand, she has proven that she is a reflexive learner who can analyze her experiences and take her understanding to higher levels. Given her good values, grounded instincts, and strong organizing skills, I have no doubt that she will succeed.
If Chyanne gets elected, she will be among a very few Asian Pacific Islander (API) labor organizers who have been elected to political office (except in Hawaii where APIs are the majority). In this sense she will be breaking through a barrier to political power that exists for APIs and labor, and both communities will benefit from her voice.
Chyanne Chen’s campaign website
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TRANSCRIPT: Rep. AOC Delivers Major Floor Speech on Articles of Impeachment Against Justices Thomas and Alito
By Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The Stansbury Forum believes it is important to provide the full text of AOC speech.
July 10, 2024 – Press Release – View the Speech
REPRESENTATIVE ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to introduce articles of impeachment against Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. Against Justice Thomas the resolution includes three total articles. One count of failure to disclose financial income gifts reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions among other information and two counts of refusal to recuse from matters concerning his spouse’s legal and financial interests before the court.
The second resolution includes the following impeachment articles against Justice Alito, one count of a refusal to recuse from cases in which he had a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party before the court and one count of failure to disclose financial incomes, gifts reimbursements property interests, among other information. Mr. Speaker, nomination and appointment to the Supreme Court is one of the highest privileges and most consequential responsibilities of our nation.
Such an appointment is uniquely insulated in its power. Confirmation to the court is a lifetime appointment, whereby justices are entrusted with decisions that powerfully shaped the nation as well as the lives of every American. For this reason and others, the Constitution rightfully and explicitly holds justices to even higher standards than members of Congress, or even the president.
Section one of Article Three of the Constitution commands federal justices to hold their offices during good behavior, in addition to its clauses barring treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors, and Congress has exercised its power to reinforce this higher standard of the judiciary before this body has impeached and removed eight federal judges for transgressions rates ranging from evading income tax and perjury to intoxication on the bench and abandoning the office to join the Confederacy.
Perhaps most critical to the legitimacy of the institution, these traditional standards require justices to recuse themselves in any proceeding where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In other words, if a person could reasonably believe that the legitimacy of a justice’s judgment could be or be perceived to be compromised, due to their personal involvement in the case or its parties, the standard is clear. The Justice must recuse. They are required to recuse.
That stringent and sacred standard exists for the good of the ruling the judiciary and the country. Mr. Speaker, I believe that everyday Americans independent of party or ideology can reasonably conclude that Justices Thomas and Alito’s years long pattern of misconduct and failure to recuse in cases bearing their clear personal and financial involvement represents an abuse of power and threat to our democracy fundamentally incompatible with continued service on our nation’s highest court. For the good of the institution and the nation, absent resignation, they must be removed. The proof is undeniable.
And here I will lay it out. Justice Clarence Thomas, for decades now has carried on a close financially entangled personal relationship with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow. It is of material importance to the American people to note that Justice Thomas’s relationship to the billionaire only began after Thomas’s powerful appointment to our nation’s highest court. The cash, goods, and services Justice Thomas received over the years include large loan balance cancellations, tuition payments for family and vacations in private jets and yachts worth up to half a million dollars alone.
In total, Justice Thomas appears to have received more than $1.5 million worth in goods, cash equivalents and services from Mr. Crow. And that is just what we know of. But truthfully, we won’t ever really know the total sum of contributions Thomas received from Crow. Justice Thomas not only accepted these contributions, while Mr. Crow had business in front of the court, but he accepts had them in secret feeling for years and years to report them. Yet Thomas did report smaller gifts during this time, demonstrating a clear understanding of his legal obligation to report. Would a reasonable American question that receiving lavish gifts from Mr. Crow might lead Justice Thomas to have a bias towards his quote friend with business before the court? Without a doubt, yes. But to Justice Thomas recuse? No.
Now take Justice Samuel Alito, who has no shortage of billionaire associates of his own. After billionaire Paul Singer gave Justice Alito a luxury fishing trip on a private jet, a contribution that was also hidden from the public and the court. Justice Alito not only refused to recuse, but changed his mind regarding his gracious hosts case. Just a short time after accepting the lavish undisclosed trip from singer Alito joined the court in reversing its previous position and took up Singer’s case he did not recuse. Justice Alito also refused to recuse in the case itself, ultimately leading to a ruling that netted Singer $2.4 billion and that ruling did not just enrich Singer. It also structurally tilted the playing field further away from working people and towards the vulture funds, siphoning money and resources away from the communities that need the most. Could a reasonable American question whether or not Justice Alito could have acted impartially in this case, given his personal relationship with Singer? Absolutely.
In January 2021, after the former president of the United States incited an insurrection on the Capitol in this chamber to interfere with the results of the US election, Justice Samuel Alito and his wife flew an upside down American flag, a symbol of solidarity with the attack outside their home. Two years later, they publicly displayed outside their home yet another incendiary symbol, a flag associated with extreme right wing Christian nationalism. Justice Alito maintains that his wife, Martha Ann Alito, is the only one responsible for the flags. But common sense maintains that such a close and incendiary revelation requires recusal by the Justice from January 6th related cases. Despite the overwhelming appearance of a conflict of interest, Justice Alito refused to recuse himself from cases surrounding the 2020 election and questions of the former president’s legal immunity in the attack. Would a reasonable person question that Justice Alito’s conduct exhibits and demonstrates reasonable concern for bias in these cases? Absolutely. And without question.
And finally, Justice Thomas, who is married to Virginia Thomas, a financially and personally involved operative in the Stop the Steal movement and Capitol attack also joined opinions in these cases, even as clear evidence mounted that not only was his wife fully committed to overthrowing the results of a fair election, but she was actively lobbying members of the Trump administration attempting to do just that. The questions before the court had unquestionable implications for Thomas’s wife, and consequently, Thomas himself, making his refusal to recuse one of the most shocking examples of conflict of interest in the court’s history. And crucially, it was both Justices Thomas and Alito, who cast critical votes in the ruling.
It now follows that because of Alito’s, and Thomas’s refusals to recuse everyday Americans cannot, should not, and will not believe that these Justices and consequently the court they serve is working to uphold the Constitution and put the country ahead of their own individual self interests. Americans will not believe that the Court interpreted the law independent of profit for themselves and their newly termed friends. Without action against these blatant violations, reasonable Americans have and will continue to lose faith in the court itself. Reasonable Americans will and do believe that Justices Thomas and Alito are prone and subjected to corruption, that the institution failing to punish them is broken, and that consequently, their impeachment is a constitutional imperative and our congressional duty. The abuses of power committed by Justice Thomas and Justice Alito, are precisely the types of corruption that the framers understood was an existential threat to our democracy.
Instances like these, and misconduct like that of Alito’s and Thomas’s are precisely why the framers gave us the tool of impeachment. Corruption, without consequence, infects all it touches. And that is why this body, Congress, has a constitutional and moral obligation to hold these Justices accountable, to maintain the integrity of our courts, and to uphold the standards of the judiciary and our institutions. Lastly, we cannot ignore the most important material consequences of this Court’s unchecked corruption, and its resulting influence, the suffering of the American people.
We cannot ignore and pretend that this corruption is wholly unrelated to the millions of pregnant Americans now suffering and bleeding out in emergency rooms under the court’s unleashing of extreme abortion bans across the United States, which was a key political priority of these undisclosed benefactors, and shadow organizations surrounding Alito and Thomas’s misconduct. Nor can we ignore the millions of Americans now suffering hours long wait times in the hot sun, often without water, just to cast a ballot, also a direct result of this corrupt courts gutting of the Voting Rights Act, allowing the closing of polling sites across the country.
You see, neither of these Justices, nor their shadowy benefactors have to answer to the parents of developmentally delayed children about their decision to gut the power of the EPA and the entire administrative state with it. But they do have to answer to us, the Congress, whom these people the American people have elected and entrusted to protect them, to serve them, and to defend the well being of our democracy.
Mr. Speaker, I am here today presenting these articles of impeachment, not because I am a Democrat, and not because I am blind to its odds in a Republican led chamber. I present them because it is the right thing to do. And while our framers perhaps may not have envisioned someone like me, in this seat, they absolutely did envision the necessity and value of the impeachment action upon which I seek to advance today. Thank you and I yield back.
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Organizing the Ignored, Forgotten, and Suppressed
By Kurt Stand
A Poor People’s Movement Action and Agenda
Inspired by a call to build a movement for a “resurrection of justice, love, truth,” as opposed to an “insurrection of injustice, lies, and hate,” a few thousand people assembled in Washington, DC, for the Poor People’s Campaign Assembly on Saturday, June 24. DSA members from Prince George’s County in Maryland were there, but it was clear that for many in this racially, socially, and age-diverse group, going to public protests was not a common occurrence.
Whether they had been mobilized by their church or union, whether they simply heeded the call and showed up on their own, they were serious about being there. As I wandered through the crowd toward the end of the rally, I ran into a group of hospital workers excited to be there, some coal miners who had come up from West Virginia just to be present, and many who sat on the ground listening (really listening) to the talks and nodding as they might in church.
As at other Poor People’s Campaign gatherings, the political message was not directed at institutions or organizations but at those who find themselves trapped in poverty, whose everyday existence is defined by the need to tread water to avoid drowning. And the message delivered was clear: those living in poverty are the “swing vote,” the ones who in their numbers and their moral strength can ensure the defeat of Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans in the upcoming elections.
As PPC Campaign co-chairs Bishop William Barber II and Rev. Liz Theoharis expressed in their opening remarks, the choice is not about personalities, as the media might have us believe. It is about focusing on those issues the media, and most politicians, ignore: the realities of the grinding poverty that is the fourth leading cause of death in society.
Their opening addresses also drove home the point that change comes from the bottom up, and rather than be distracted by whether people are liberal or conservative, left or right, people have to focus on the needs of those in our society who endure housing insecurity, food insecurity, and job insecurity. Politicians must address the needs of those who live paycheck to paycheck. We cannot accept a politics that “accepts” homelessness, hunger, and violence as immutable realities.
Values
A resurrection is a rebirth, building “from the ashes of the old,” if you will. And so the assembly called for “Moral Revival,” directly challenging Christian nationalism. Repairers of the Breach, the organization Barber founded and leads, stands for centering the language of morality by building a movement united across lines of race, class, gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, and faith in opposition to those who claim that the preeminent moral issues of our day are prayer in public schools, abortion, and property rights.
The program of the assembly reflected those values. Big-name speakers were not on the program, the aim of which was to give voice to the voiceless. The speeches were divided into three cohorts: church leaders, unions, and impacted individuals. Each speaker had one-and-a half minutes, and the timing was strict; music would start playing the moment they reached the 90-second mark. This allowed many voices to be heard and forced speakers to come to the point quickly.
In their own ways, each faith leader, regardless of affiliation, spoke to a sense of oneness: that we are each other’s keepers. This stands in opposition to any institutional religion corrupted by nationalism, racism, the idea that some countries or people are superior to others, and in opposition to church doctrines that proclaim that women should be subservient to men.
By contrast, the language of universality used by the faith leaders was embodied in the political program of unity in support of social and economic justice, in support of peace and environmentalism. And contrary to the uniformity demanded by religious nationalists, this kind of unity embraces individuality and the sense of identity (or perhaps, better put, the multiple identities) we all have. This is an expression of the “Moral Fusion” that is central to the Poor People’s campaign and can be summed up in the biblical injunction “to do unto others as you would have done to you,” for our individual and collective needs are inextricable combined.
A secular expression of this is embodied in union solidarity. And it is impossible to understand the significance of the assembly without recognizing that it was a “Poor People’s and Low Wage Workers” Assembly. Numerous unionists were present – hospital workers from 1199 Service Employees; hospitality workers from UNITE-HERE; members of the Amalgamated Transport Workers who have been engaged in big fights in Northern Virginia and Washington, DC; members of the American Postal Workers Union; and government workers from federal (American Federation of Government Employees) and state, county and municipal (AFSCME) unions, and many others. A union officer would speak, followed by a rank-and-file member. Bound by the same time limitation as faith leaders, their comments focused on the importance of organization in lifting wages and the need to mobilize voters to protect those gains. Rank-and-filers especially stressed the critical importance of the work they do. Underlying their comments was the key point that raising those at the bottom benefits all working people and is the only pathway to equality.
Finally – and crucially – the people who suffer the most impact from poverty spoke from direct experience. A woman from Philadelphia told about watching the apartment complex where she lived and raised her children bulldozed by a developer who decided he could make more money by displacing people from their homes, a disabled women from Miami described her feelings after being told that she should lower her expectations and drop out of her college program, a man from Wisconsin described what it felt like to be denied needed medical coverage even though he had health insurance – and so it went, on and on. And the chant in response to each was, “We are the swing vote!”
Past to Future
This movement has been a long time in the making. Its direct antecedent was the Moral Monday civil disobedience movement in North Carolina that followed a Republican takeover of all three branches of state government. The North Carolina Republicans used that victory to launch an all-out assault on voting rights and other long-standing rights.
Every Monday, at the state legislature, Barber led mass civil disobedience sit-ins organized with faith-based, labor, student and other organizations. The issues ranged from defense of voting rights, to opposition to cuts in unemployment and Medicaid benefits, to support for abortion rights, and defense of public education. The movement opposed the death penalty, changes in environmental law, and bathroom laws stigmatizing transgender individuals. The broad coalition sparked similar movements throughout the South and was partially successful in halting the assaults on popular justice.
It laid the basis for the relaunch of the Poor People’s Campaign, Barber called for a Third Reconstruction, following the democratic advance of Reconstruction after the Civil War, and the progress made by the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. It was then, under Martin Luther King’s leadership, that the initial Poor People’s Movement was formed to tie demands for racial justice with demands for economic justice and democratic rights.
Some of us were reminded of the ongoing relevance of that history when viewing Love & Solidarity, which was screened at the Labor Heritage Foundation’s Bread & Roses series three days before the Poor People’s Assembly. The documentary was of Rev. James Lawson, who died about three weeks before the assembly. Lawson, an apostle of Mohandas Gandhi, worked with Martin Luther King to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and in support of the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis in 1968, Lawson later relocated to California, where he worked with immigrant workers, including those engaged in a bitter organizing strike at the New Otani hotel in Los Angeles.
Lawson’s activism was rooted in the same conviction that motivates the Poor People’s Movement of today: love can be a source of power, and the roots of that power lie in the dignity of labor, for labor is what defines us as human. That labor should be well-compensated and its dignity respected as a fundamental right. Nonviolence at home also means opposition to militarism and war – as King recognized in the past, as Barber and Theoharis recognize today. Lawson served time in prison for refusing induction during the Korean War, opposed the Vietnam War, and stood in solidarity with the victims – and immigrant survivors – of our “indirect wars,” in Central America in the 1980s.
After the film, Linnell Fall, tri-chair of Maryland’s Poor People’s Campaign made these links explicit in terms of her own commitment and advocacy.
What Follows
Several thousand attended the assembly on a brutally hot day, vowing that the next step would be a “Movement” of people to the polls. The campaign seeks to register as many poor and low-income people as possible and organize them to vote in November.
And everyone reading this article, whether you were at the assembly or not, can sign on to the Poor People’s Campaign Pledge and do the following:
- Commit to working toward a moral public policy agenda
- Commit to waking the sleeping giant of everyday people who’ve been silenced by the fake populism of extremists and the compromises of so-called “moderates.”
- Challenge every candidate for public office to make clear where they stand on a just, loving, truth-telling agenda rooted in our deepest constitutional, moral, and religious values regarding the least of these.
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Jane McAlevey Tribute
By Peter Olney
The death of union organizer and strategist Jane McAlevey has prompted tributes to her passionate organzing training and guidance to pour in from around the world. I immediately heard from two German comrades who emailed in from their parental leave in Norway: ”The union movement around the globe lost such an inspiring person. Luckily so many people got to learn from her and she was able to change many things in the union institutionally. Our union work we do would be very different and much less successful if it wasn’t for her. Also, just for Germany speaking, we know she got a lot of young people motivated to join the union movement. Therefore we are very grateful and glad that we had her as a comrade.” [1]
The beautiful obituary in the NYT by Margot Roosevelt captures the twists and turns of Jane’s life and her contributions to organizing theory and practice. What is striking is that Roosevelt mentions that she interviewed Jane for the obituary in November of last year. I guess this is a common practice for obit writers to hook up with potential important subjects who they consider to be close to death. But it is also indicative of the fact that Jane courageously battled cancer for a long time confounding the judgments of her doctors who gave her a short lifespan, which they had to constantly modify as Jane kept keeping on, and continued to do trainings in person, on Zoom and appearing in a memorable Democracy Now radio show in April.
The little “c” in McAlevey stood for big time courage!
One side of Jane that I got to know was her passion for sports and the Oakland Raiders. We debated and reran the 2004 Patriot AFC championship victory over the Raiders in the Foxboro snow bowl. She called Patriots coach Bill Belichick, “Cheatacheck” for instructing the snow blowers to clear a clear path for Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri to hit the winning field goal.
Jane was a jock and that stood her well in the union-organizing world that is still often dominated by a very macho culture. Many men bristled at Jane’s rough edges and found her aggressive tone and stance “difficult” and “not very nice.”
Jane was an avid recreational cyclist and started a riding club during her stint in Connecticut called “Hammer and Cycle.” My son and I rode the Marin Century with her in 2012. This is a 100-kilometer recreational road race in Marin County north of San Francisco where Jane was living. Jane kept up a running conversation throughout the rigorous ride. But the topper was at the end when she mixed up some margaritas and served them up to dehydrated riders. I got so looped I couldn’t drive back to San Francisco.
Jane was never at a loss for words or discussion of sports, politics and of course organizing. In 1996 when I was working on the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project, a multi union organizing project with some kinship with Jane’s Stamford Connecticut Project, we rode down to Asilomar on the Monterrey Peninsula together for a training she was doing for SEIU Local 250. I rode with her and a friend. My friend was not accustomed to Jane’s non-stop conversation, and when we stopped to fill up the car with gas he got out of the car to get some relief from Jane’s monologue. Jane was undaunted. She promptly got out of the car and joined me at the pump and continued on with her topic.
My last direct phone conversation with Jane was in 2022 when she was working with Amazon workers at the newly organized Staten Island facility helping them steel themselves for the company’s post election onslaught and preparing them to organize actions to win a first contact. She told me that she had been riding across the GW Bridge towards New Jersey and that she had a flat tire. How was she going to get home? She remembered that a Staten Island worker, a leader of the committee, lived in New Jersey. She also remembered he had a car big enough to transport her bike. She called him up and asked for a ride to Manhattan. He showed up, picked her up with the disabled bike and they argued organizing all the way to her apartment.
Jane was very loyal to her friends and valued friendship and rewarded it with margaritas and more. Her teachings will live on in her books, countless writings, Zooms, Videos and the deeds of her trainees. She was a formidable force and loyal comrade. I will miss her.
Bike on Jane!
[1] Hannah Nesswetter and Hauke Oelschlagel from the DGB, an umbrella union federation of 5.7 million members
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Choosing Our Opponent: Why I will work to elect Joe Biden
By Mike Johnston
Watching Joe Biden put the full force of our country behind Israel’s genocidal response to the horrific Hamas attack of October 7 has been a gut-wrenching experience for me as it has for huge numbers of Americans and people of conscience around the world. Across the US, Palestinians students and progressives have quickly built a robust movement in support of a ceasefire and divestment, using tactics ranging from university encampments to massive campaigns to withhold primary votes from Joe Biden. While some actions such as the pause in the delivery of a few munitions, public criticisms of Netanyahu, and the recent push for a brokered permanent ceasefire seem to show that our efforts have had at least some impact, our government is still pushing huge amounts of weapons to Israel and by and large standing by as civilians are slaughtered.
This has made progressives across the country question how they could possibly work to support Biden, given the horrors being committed daily in Gaza with our government’s support, not to mention his return to some Trumpian policies on closing the border. It makes total sense that so many of those among the young, progressives and people of color who were so key to Biden’s victory four years ago are loath to turn out for him this time. Despite the recent pressure for Biden to withdraw, that prospect seems extremely unlikely.
For me, it helps to go back to 1980, when much of the Left argued against supporting Jimmy Carter’s re-election race against Ronald Reagan, a position which I believe in retrospect was wrong. Carter was not the universally respected icon that he is today. After we had pushed Lyndon Johnson out of the 1968 race for his conduct in the Vietnam War we got, instead of a more progressive president, two terms of Richard Nixon. After Nixon’s administration collapsed in disgrace, with his vice president Spiro Agnew resigning to avoid prosecution on bribery charges, and Nixon himself resigning to avoid impeachment, 1976 gave us a Democratic president, the relatively conservative, uber-Christian, governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.
Carter’s term was marked by a faltering economy, an energy crisis, and increasing tensions between superpowers. Carter’s conduct of his first term was, in a word, bad.
Domestically, Carter endorsed the Supreme Court’s racist Bakke decision outlawing the use of racial quotas to achieve affirmative action in university admissions. He pushed corporate tax cuts, rolling back pollution regulations, and weakening OSHA to “strengthen the economy”. His budget cuts overwhelmingly targeted minorities and the poor, slashing funding for food stamps, welfare, job training, and aid to the cities. He conciliated with religious fundamentalists who wanted to teach creationism in the schools.
Carter’s record in foreign affairs was no thrill either. He supported the bloody regimes in El Salvador and Iran, backed Israel in its continued expansion onto Arab lands, and declared the Persian Gulf to be within the US’s “Sphere of Influence” to be defended with military intervention if necessary. He was also a key architect of rearmament and speeding up the nuclear arms race.
“While Jimmy Carter was the point person for Democratic neoliberalism that gave us the Clintons, Ronald Reagan was amazingly effective in his two terms at slashing …’
It was not surprising that in 1980, when former California governor Ronald Reagan ran against Carter, many on the left argued that there was no meaningful difference between the policies of the candidates or the interests and ideologies that they represented and advocated non-participation in the election and that Reagan did not represent a concrete danger of fascism. At the end of this article are links to the League of Revolutionary Struggle’s position, published in Unity Newspaper, making that point. Much if not most of the organized left took similar positions as did the Communist Party USA, which ran a slate of their Chair, Gus Hall, and Angela Davis for President and Vice President.
The Marxist left were not the only ones incensed that Carter was the nominee. International Association of Machinists President William Winpisinger declared Carter “the best Republican President since Herbert Hoover” and led a walkout of 300 delegates from the Democratic convention to protest Carter’s nomination, and the choice between Reagan and Carter was later characterized by AFL-CIO head Lane Kirkland, who was far from being a progressive, as “a choice between Dracula and Frankenstein.”
In retrospect we were wrong, not to participate in that election. While Jimmy Carter was the point person for Democratic neoliberalism that gave us the Clintons, Ronald Reagan was amazingly effective in his two terms at slashing the safety net of the New Deal, mobilizing white supremacism as an electoral force, dramatically transferring wealth to a smaller and smaller fraction of US society, dramatically weakening the US labor movement through such actions as breaking the air traffic controllers’ strike, actively intervening militarily abroad as in secretly arming right-wing forces seeking to overturn the elected Socialist government of Nicaragua. For all of our legitimate criticism of Carter, his election would have presented us with a less dangerous opponent.
Today, now
Today, we face a somewhat similar choice, but the difference between our options is overwhelmingly sharper, and the potential outcomes are far more consequential. Clearly, Biden is not a change agent. He represents the liberal wing of mainstream capitalism. For all of the reasons laid out at the start of this article, and despite the ways in which his administration has moved on such issues as workers rights, student debt, climate change, etc., he does not fundamentally represent a positive direction forward for the people of the US or of the world. We have had to fight to get much of what we have gotten from his administration and if he is re-elected we will have to continue to fight. However, Donald Trump has already proven himself and continues to prove himself, an exponentially more dangerous threat.
Trump, as opposed to Ronald Reagan 44 years ago, legitimately represents a clear and present danger of fascism in the US and of disastrous impact on the world. I hardly think it necessary in this piece to make that point, as his advisors and handlers have been remarkably open with their “Project 2025” agenda about their plans to deport 15 million people. To crush the labor movement, and roll back environmental regulations. To shut down initiatives dealing with climate change by moving away from fossil fuels. To make the US a white Christian nation. To eliminate the Department of Education. To set women’s,’ and trans folks right to control of their bodies back decades further than was accomplished as a result of his last term. To remove tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with committed fanatics, and to eliminate by any means necessary the Marxist radicals whom they see as threatening the nation.
Of course, Biden’s recent disastrous debate performance has likely increased the chance that Donald Trump will win, and the recent Supreme Court decision granting virtually complete immunity to a sitting president for any violations of the law and constitution while in office makes the prospect of a Trump presidency exponentially more dangerous to the people of the US and the world.
Better Ground On Which To Fight
It is no accident that Trump’s election is supported by right-wing anti-democratic forces around the world. He has already moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, is now accusing the Biden administration of “abandoning” Israel. He has supported the extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank, and some in his orbit have called for nuclear strikes to defend Israel. He proposes to bomb the cartels in Mexico and invade that country, if necessary.
We in this country have the privilege of selecting the most powerful person in the world, whose influence will impact billions of people who have no say in the election. We cannot afford to simply walk away from that privilege. If we sit this election out because of our righteous anger at Biden we, and the rest of the world, will regret it for generations because without our support Trump will win and will implement Project 2025.
Additionally, if we sit this out and Trump wins, it will clearly be far worse for the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank. Trump has clearly indicated his support for the State of Israel extending sovereignty over the entire Occupied Territories and integrating them into a religious state. This ties into his evangelical Christian allies’ mystical vision of a new Jewish state and rebuilding of the temple as a precondition for their mythical apocalypse (in which, ironically, they believe that all but “true Christians” would perish, including the Jews).
If we defeat Trump in November, that means that we (and the Palestinian people) have better ground on which to fight, and that our movements and institutions will not be forced into totally defensive battles for survival. That is a far cry from saying if we elect Joe Biden, or whomever might replace him, we have won – but it is supremely important for us in the US and for the people of the world.
Defeating Trump would give us far more space to build a movement inside and outside of the Democratic party to support the people of Palestine and to move a Progressive agenda across the board.
There is a binary choice before us, Trump or Biden. Who would we rather have as our opponent?
…
The choice that isn’t: A communist view of the election Unity Newspaper (Vol. 3, # 19, October 10, 1980)
Thanks to my daughter Jessica Tully for content and editing help and to old Unity comrades and the OWG book group for content suggestions.
Election 2024: Block, Build, and Ceasefire!
By Jeff Crosby
A recent article by Fred Glass, “Words and History: The Trouble With ‘Genocide Joe” (Stansbury Forum, April 14, 2024) makes the essentially correct argument that defeating Trump and the New Confederacy that Trump represents requires a Biden victory – or, in the wake of the first presidential debate, a victory for another Democratic candidate if that should happen. Glass lays out some of the likely devastating impacts on our peoples of a Trump victory, both the immediate material consequences and the repression that will make building our movement more difficult. And as a historian, he explains how a divided left that missed the principal threat of fascism helped bring about Hitler’s rise, and more recently the election of Richard Nixon.
But he also makes wrong arguments for defeating Donald Trump in November. In opposing the term “Genocide Joe,” he condescends to and underestimates the Ceasefire movement. He also separates domestic and international issues in a metaphysical way that, coming from the belly of the beast, is objectively national chauvinistism.
Calling Out Biden for Genocide
Opposing the term “Genocide Joe” is a waste of time and comes off as lecture-y. Biden is the key supporter of a genocide, and it is fully accurate to say so. If we understate that, we lose all credibility with the youthful Ceasefire movement and cede ground to the sectarian line on November 2024 that Glass is arguing against. Variations of the sectarian line include abstaining from the presidential vote, casting a pure and symbolic useless vote for a third party candidate, or even accelerationism, i.e., “the worse the better”–the idea that, despite all the history that Glass cites, fascist authoritarianism will somehow bring about progress or even socialism.
Would those of us who ran through the streets in 1968 chanting, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” have listened to some old folks lecturing us on proper language, like “Don’t call LBJ a baby-killer, it’s really the system”? Biden is the principal defender of the slaughter, the president, the Commander in Chief! To equate the use of the term “Genocide Joe” with Trump’s personal insults at his enemies, as Glass does, makes no sense. Biden is funding a genocide. This has no resemblance to calling someone “horse-face” or “Sleepy Joe” or whatever. Prefigurative politics—acting today in a way that mirrors the society we hope to build–doesn’t preclude calling a purveyor of a genocide what he is.
Domestic and International Struggle: Two Sides of the Coin
The domestic (Biden good) vs. international (Biden bad) dichotomy Glass puts forth is inexact and counterproductive. In both arenas we are in a better position to win victories if Biden wins.
On the domestic front, those who support abstention or worse have to explain why it does not matter if Black people or students can still vote, it does not matter if women can decide for themselves if they want an abortion, it does not matter if Trump deports millions of immigrants in a fascist sweep, it does not matter if every environmental protection we have is lost, and taxes are again cut for the most wealthy, it does not matter if the Department of Education is eliminated and public education defunded and left to Christian nationalist zealots, it does not matter if all government employees are stripped of job protections, fired, and replaced by those loyal only to Trump, and so on.
And anyone who celebrates the union organizing victories at places like Starbucks or the election of Shawn Fain in the United Auto Workers (due in part to organizing victories among grad students) has to be honest that these would not have happened without the Biden appointed National Labor Relations Board forcing expedited union elections. This will disappear in a Trump presidency.
Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates had it right at a meeting during the Labor Notes conference last month: “I want things to be ‘less hard’ for people like me.” Under Biden, things will be ‘less hard’ in ways that matter if you are deeply committed to the welfare of our peoples. The things that are “better about Biden” are things that the social movements won, and that we can continue to expand upon going forward.
Turning to the international arena–is it true, as Glass argues, that domestic policy is “a different story” from international policy? To the contrary, with a Biden victory we have a better chance of influencing U.S. racial capitalism in positive ways around international as well as domestic affairs. For example, the Biden Department of Labor has acted promptly to support democratic union elections under the reformist regime of AMLO and the Morena party in Mexico, through the rapid response procedure in the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement that replaced NAFTA. Trump and the Republicans have promised to send more troops to the border and special forces into Mexico, and to “bomb the cartels”. Will an invasion of Mexico eliminate the billion dollar market for drugs in the United States, or stop the flood of U.S. made weapons into Mexico that arm the cartels? Is anyone confident that Trump won’t do what he threatens to do?
It was Biden, not Trump, who got U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.
The centerpiece of the abstentionist or third party or accelerationist argument today is of course Gaza. But here again the argument is wrong. We have a better chance of influencing Biden than Trump to end the carnage in Gaza.
The two political parties in the United States represent coalitions of different social forces, or social blocs. The Democratic and Republican parties have different social bases and respond to different pressures. Despite his protests to the contrary, Biden has begun to respond to his loss of support among people of color and young voters, where the rage over the genocide in Gaza is the strongest. So, for example, he is scrambling to forgive more student debt, and spoke at Howard University about “the poison of white supremacy.”
Biden is a traditional coalition builder in the U.S. goal of world domination, especially in his efforts to rebuild relations with Europe, as opposed to Trump’s erratic go-it-alone aggression and isolationism. So Biden has to be concerned about the splintering of support for the U.S. position and Israel’s well-earned position as a pariah state. UN resolutions and charges against Netanyahu and Israel from world courts matter. Perhaps most of all, the splintering of European support for Israel, such as the recent recognition of a Palestinian state by Spain, Norway, and Ireland, undermine U.S. dominance of the Western bloc. Diplomacy without action is words, but diplomacy is not nothing either; it has political impact.
Biden’s constant criticism of Netanyahu and the “pausing” of the delivery of large bombs is a small opening. His efforts to maneuver Israel into a ceasefire agreement that they originally supported is a more recent example. We need to kick down the door with powerful protests, whatever you choose to call the president.
Trump, on the other hand, is already attacking Biden for “abandoning Israel” and other Republicans have even called for nuclear strikes to defend Israel. Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and has promised to recognize Israel sovereignty over the West Bank, where Biden has initiated sanctions against a few of the most murderous of the 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers in that occupied territory. The Republican House of Representatives is trying to force Biden to reverse even his small gesture.
The white nationalist evangelical base of the Republican New Confederacy, now dominates the older big business groups and traditional fiscal conservatives of the party. This leaves Trump little room to create separation from Israel and the “end times” apocalypse the Christian nationalists long for in the Promised Land.
To separate the domestic and international the way Glass does leaves our position open to the criticism that we are willing to turn our eyes away from the Gaza genocide for the self-interest of getting a better NLRB.
Transforming Democracy and Independent Political Organization
Ours is a fight over terrain to build an independent working class movement by defeating the main danger at this moment. This means educating people around the basic concept of strategy, as an analysis and a practical effort to build a united front/social bloc to contend for governing power and ultimately state power. The “terrain” notion comes from founders of Black Lives Matter, among others. And the “Block and Build” formulation that has come from Convergence magazine is a good formulation: Block the MAGA right and build our independent political power.
The goal is not just to “Defend Democracy,” but to “Defend, Expand, and Transform” democracy, which requires a brutally honest and loud assessment of the actual state of democracy in the U.S., as explained in Liberation Road’s Strategic Orientation.[p. 6] This formulation is a Marxist one; it doesn’t simply defend “the democratic experiment called the United States” that Glass mentions, a phrase that covers multiple generations of sins.
A strategic understanding of social blocs and terrain is important. Defending material benefits that we have won from Biden or can win in a second term is important.
This does not mean making cold calls for the Democratic Party. It means developing our own independent political organizations that can fight inside and outside the Democratic Party, and inside and outside the electoral system. We vote our resistance, and we take to the streets. This certainly means marching against the Gaza genocide. It also means supporting the Working Families Party, or the Democratic Socialists of America, or the many local formations from the Carolina Federation to the Working Families in Chicago. Without that, the ‘Build’ part of ‘Block and Build’ is just a thought.
I grew up politically in the social movements of the late 1960s and ‘70s, stuffing envelopes for SNCC, trying to end the war in Vietnam, organizing unemployed people, and fighting for my union. The times were exhilarating in many ways, but strategy was often displaced by a comforting dogma. The contributions of social movement leaders and thinkers like Ella Baker of SNCC or Amical Cabral of Guinea-Bisseau or the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci were unknown or under-appreciated, and sectarian divisions were commonplace. The concepts of building a united front and independence for our forces within it were missing or underdeveloped.
Today a different and substantive struggle on the left is taking place, between a vaguely insurrectionist outburst and righteous personal outrage on one hand, versus a serious analysis of social blocs and a road to governing and political power for a Third Reconstruction. [p. 9] from those of us who are equally outraged–but want to win. How we carry out that line struggle may make the difference between a momentary challenge and a strategic challenge–an outcome that we will have to deal with for a very long time.
Yes, Biden is a war criminal. And yes, I am voting for him. For the material needs of our people, and for more favorable terrain to build a better world–including a Free Palestine.
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Originally published by Liberation Road
Election 2024: A Chess Move, Not A Valentine
By Rand Wilson
When I heard that Bernie Sanders was going to run for president in 2015, I became a “born again Democrat.” Through my experience of the Bernie campaign, I have completely embraced Tom Gallagher’s “Primary Route” political strategy of working inside the Party to move it to be more oriented to labor and the left.[1]
But being a Democrat doesn’t mean I always support the party — far from it. I’ve been a vocal critic of the conduct of both the national and state parties.[2]
Despite the Democrat’s progressive platform and rhetoric,[3] the party rarely mobilizes its huge base to win on key working class issues. Party leaders spend most of their time raising money from the well-to-do, and as the old adage says: “follow the money.” That’s to whom they are accountable.
So despite the party’s generally progressive platform, for far too long it’s been all talk — and no action. Working people are understandably fed-up, and it is that deep frustration that has brought us to the brink of fascism.
No daylight between the candidates?
It’s understandable that many fellow labor activists want to use the November presidential election to show their frustration with Biden’s foreign policy. The administration is supporting one of the most horrific wars of our time.
I came face-to-face with this sentiment at the June 2 Massachusetts Democratic state convention where I was an elected delegate from Somerville.[4] When I learned that DSA was going to hold a rally in support of a cease fire outside the convention, I was excited to take a break from the endless speeches and attend the rally.
Outside the convention was a small but dedicated group of DSA members marching in a circle with signs and banners calling for a cease fire in Gaza. I enthusiastically joined in on chants like, “cease fire now”, “stop the genocide”, and (with much less enthusiasm) “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
But soon the chanting shifted to “Don’t vote blue,” clearly aimed at support for Biden. I thought seriously, what are these people thinking? Who could possibly imagine that U.S. imperial foreign policy could get better under Trump?
Waiting for a pause, I shouted, “I’m voting for Biden!” Suddenly things got quiet. Although there were a few heads nodding, most of the protesters were shocked by a voice in support for Biden.
I went over to a long time union leader and labor activist I recognized and asked him about the chant. He said, “Voting for Biden doesn’t matter in Massachusetts because, it’s a safe state.”
“Yes, that’s true,” I replied. “But in this election, the popular vote will be especially important. If Biden wins, he’ll need a popular vote majority to help counter the ‘Biden and the deep state stole it’ narrative. And if — God forbid — Trump wins, we’ll need a popular vote majority to further discredit our outdated, undemocratic, and racist electoral college system while making the case that a majority of voters don’t support his election.”
My old friend disagreed, “That doesn’t matter because, in good conscience, how could anyone cast a vote for Biden who is responsible for genocide in Gaza?”
Later I spoke with a much younger DSA rally organizer. He told me, “There isn’t any daylight between the candidates. We gave the Democrats a chance, they blew it.”
Yes, the outrage on the left about Gaza is justified. But the “Never Biden, don’t vote Blue” responses I heard are concerning. Thinking of your vote as an act of personal consciousness misses the point. As I wrote with Peter Olney last March, in “Labor’s Political Dilemma,”[5] “Voting is not a valentine. It’s a chess move.“[6]
Pretending there isn’t “any daylight between the candidates” is a serious miscalculation of the moment we are in. Conditions for Palestinians will be made much worse with Trump and the left’s environment to influence foreign policy would be seriously diminished. People of color, immigrants, and other vulnerable folks are likely to suffer serious consequences if Trump is elected. I was tempted to say, “Your white, male privilege is showing!”
Our “margin of effort” will be key
Despite the horrifying situation in Gaza, the Biden Administration’s domestic achievements – particularly for labor — are considerable. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,[7] the Inflation Reduction Act,[8] and the CHIPS and Science Act[9]investments in infrastructure and manufacturing has already provided for thousands of jobs. Beyond the new jobs and massive investments in infrastructure, other positive accomplishments like the Butch Lewis pension protection legislation[10] and NLRB appointments have strengthened the labor movement’s power.[11]
Indeed, as Peter Olney and I have written before, so much of the upswing in labor organizing and successful contract campaigns have been supported by the Biden administration’s pro-labor policies.[12] Biden walked the UAW’s picket lines during the successful standup strikes against the Big Three auto manufacturers. His appointment of Jennifer Abruzzoas NLRB General Counsel[13] who has aggressively fought for decisions upholding the original intent and purpose of the National Labor Relations Act to foster unions and collective bargaining.[14] The Board’s recent CEMEX decisionpromotes a streamlined path for workers to gain union recognition.[15] The Labor Department’s recent directive on what constitutes an independent contractor shines a spotlight on the phony and exploitative employment schemes of the giant gig platforms like Uber and Lyft.[16]
That’s why labor and the broader progressive community need to support Biden despite his support for the Israeli war against Palestinians.
Are the Biden Administration’s policies and investments enough to carry the majority of union members to vote for Biden? We sure hope so! However, despite the efforts of labor leadership, union members make their voting decisions based on competing sources of information and with concerns that transcend their economic life.
That’s why we can’t count on print, video, or social media to win working people to support Biden. It will take an unprecedented member-to-member, worker-to-worker, and face-to-face campaign. Winning this election will involve a massive effort to get people to recognize what political strategist Michael Podhorzer has often pointed out: While Biden’s poll numbers are dismal, in the end it will be a matter of “margin of effort, not the margin of error.”[17]
In addition to the GOTV work in key battleground states, I believe that the popular vote for Biden will also be critical because we need to show — as we did in 2016 — that Trump is not supported by the majority of voters despite the result in the electoral college. And of course, in addition to the presidency, it’s imperative that Democrats recapture the House by winning just a handful of seats. For instance, seven seats in California are possibly winnable for Democrats. If they are flipped, it would be the margin to retake the House.
Union members, like all Americans, are impacted by social legislation and attacks on democracy. They can be rallied to work for imperfect Democratic candidates to block authoritarians like Donald Trump. While it’s tempting to cast our votes based on emotion, leaving the door open for a Trump victory is too risky. Instead, let’s get out on the doors in the battleground states and congressional districts to defeat Trump and his ilk in 2024.
[1] The Primary Route: How the 99% Take on the Military Industrial Complex, Tom Gallagher 2015, https://tomgallagherwrites.com/the-primary-route-how-the-99-takes-on-the-military-industrial-complex/ Reviewed by Peter Olney, https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-primary-route-how-the-99-take-on-the-military-industrial-complex/
[2] “Why Our Revolution Is Fighting To Make The Mass Democratic Party More Democratic,” by Rand Wilson and Henry Wortis, originally published in Organizing Notes, newsletter of Our Revolution Massachusetts on Nov. 28, 2023. https://rand-wilson.medium.com/why-our-revolution-is-fighting-to-make-the-mass-democratic-party-more-democratic-8bf863d86a7f
[3] https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/
[4] https://massdems.org/takeaction-2/convention-2/
[5] Labor’s Political Dilemma, In These Times, March 27, 2024, https://inthesetimes.com/article/labor-2024-political-dilemma-biden-trump-gaza-election
[6] Quoting Rebecca Solnit:
[7] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/06/fact-sheet-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/
[8] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/inflation-reduction-act
[9] https://www.nist.gov/chips
[10] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/05/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-historic-american-rescue-plan-pension-relief-for-millions-of-union-workers-and-retirees/
[11] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/the-board
[12] “Can Labor Seize Its ‘Movement Moment’? by Peter Olney and Rand Wilson, Convergence Magazine, April 7, 2023, https://convergencemag.com/articles/can-labor-seize-its-movement-moment/ and “Wake Up, Everybody! Midterms are Almost Here,” by Rand Wilson and Peter Olney, Convergence and The Stansbury Forum, February 25, 2022, https://convergencemag.com/articles/wake-up-everybody-midterms-are-almost-here/
[13] https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/the-nlrb-welcomes-jennifer-abruzzo-as-general-counsel
[14] See NLRA Section 1: https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/national-labor-relations-act .
[15] https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-materials/GC-resources-Cemex
[16] https://blr.com/resources/dols-new-contractor-rule-bringing-big-changes-if-it-survives-challenges
[17] Podhorzer citations: https://substack.com/@michaelpodhorzer
From Italia: Behind the Curtain of The EU Elections All Is Not What It Seems
By Nicola Benvenuti
The results of the European elections on June 9-10 will have significant consequences for the political balance in the European Union: the majority of the European Parliament remains on paper with a pro-European orientation (the European Popular Party (EPP), the winners of the elections, the European Socialists, the liberals of Renew Europe) but the shift to the right, especially at the expense of liberals and greens, has been marked.
In Italy the electoral debate focused on national controversies and only lightly touched on European politics; in particular, the absence of the theme of peace as a political determinant of the vote was surprising, perhaps because pacifism is today a watchword especially of the radical right and of pro-Putin positions.
Abstentionism also increased: 49.68% of those entitled to vote voted, compared to 56.09% in 2019. In this climate abstentionism is not disinterest, it is dissatisfaction with what is offered, and voters are waiting for something that there still is not. Further assessments of the European political balance will depend on the composition of the European Council that will elect the President: the EPP has announced that it will re-nominate Ursula von der Leyen, but other names are also being mentioned, including Mario Draghi, past Prime Minister of Italy.
More disruptive consequences occurred in individual countries. In France where the rightwing LePen front leaped to 31%, outclassing President Macron’s party. Macron acknowledged the defeat, and dissolved the National Assembly the same evening as the results. The new elections will be held on June 30th: the victory of Jordan Bardella, face of the LePen front, is looming and the beginning of a long period of difficult coexistence between the Presidency and the government. Soon after Macron’s call for reelections left wing leaders, including the hard left France Unbowed (LFI), the Socialist, Communist and Green parties, agreed on an election alliance called the New Popular Front. However one swallow does not make it springtime! The “rassemblement de la gauche” is against LePen (and in fact being against has already worked in France, but in the presidential elections) … the problems emerge when one advocates for something. If it works in the political elections, that is, not only to block Le Pen’s path, but to build a government, it would be a miracle. The timeframes are really very tight and the divisions are marked. We shall see.
In Germany Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) has become the second party (+5 points compared to the 2019 elections) behind the CDU-CSU centre, but ahead of Chancellor Scholz’s SPD which has already been tested by the disappointing results of 2019. Greensalso suffered a significant decline. The stability of the Scholz government is uncertain but no elections are expected until the natural deadline in the autumn of 2025.
Even in Austria the right reached 25.5%, while in Belgium the government resigned after the outcome of the vote. Going against the rightward trend, in the Netherlands the Labor-Green alliance stopped Wilders’ far-right. The question arises as to where France and Germany are going and whether they will go in the same direction or will they diverge for the first time since the birth of the EU?
A stalemate situation is emerging for the EU which has already demonstrated that it is unable to play an autonomous and incisive role in foreign and economic policy – exemplified by its inability to define an autonomous policy on the war in Ukraine. Several times the USA (and Trump in his own way) have signaled their intention to disengage from Europe (read push the Europeans to commit more to European defense) to dedicate the USA to confrontation with China. Already in the Mediterranean and the Middle East you can see the presence of the Russians, the Turks (Libya). Among the EU tasks to be faced there are also economic ones, like the green turn, closing the gap with the US on information technologies, energy policy, etc. To solve these problems more integration is needed (but the right wants less of it). On the military question, better coordination between European countries would perhaps be sufficient even without increasing expenses,just as the coordination of European finances would also be very useful for eliminating tax havens present in Europe. The EU urgently needs greater integration between the different countries on military and fiscal grounds, as well as the abolishment of the right of the veto which blocks every decision. Now Timothy Gordon Ash’s prediction from a few weeks agoof the strengthening of Greater Germany, even in the military sphere after the economic one, seems more uncertain.
The danger from the right is becoming more marked and and is shifting towards the West, whereas until a few years ago the right was rooted above all in former socialist countries. With it, the attempt to constitutionalize the European right began to make it attractive in a coalition policy: individual exponents of the EPP, even within the various countries (for example the Gaullist right whose president looks to an alliance with Le Pen, exponent of those forces and ideologies against which Gaullism was born and established itself), are already moving in this direction.
This context is reflected by the pro-Atlanticism and pro-European reliability of the Meloni government: while the outflanking of the Fratelli d’Italia on the right by the Liga – and in France by Le Pen’s Éric Zemmour – perhaps suggests that there are two right-wing parties, one with the more moderate Conservatives and one with Identity and Democracy more to the right. For the Liga their extreme right turn is almost suicidal to the point that its old founder, Umberto Bossi, openly disavowed it. Even if the candidacy of an openly fascist leader like General Vannacci, brought to the Liga by its leader, the shaky Matteo Salvini, 500,000 preferences (and maybe this is the real news). This explains the evident contradictions of Meloni: reassuring and reliable (in the Atlanticist sense) in foreign policy, but at the same time employing nostalgic identity politics internally. Positions she hopes will hold together the hard core of the party made up of violent and even criminal groups, not to mention its management group inhabited by former thugs, including collaborators with organzied crime.
Meloni’s right is also altering the 1995 Fiuggi [1]“turning point” led by the then party secretary Gianfranco Fini with the support of Silvio Berlusconi, to constitutionalize the Movimento Sociale Italiano (the predecessor of the Fratelli d’Italia party). Instead of acceptance, as happened at Fiuggi, of the legitimacy of the Constitution born from the Resistance, Meloni’s party aims to transform the foundations of the Italian Republic with a narrative minimalizing the relevance of the resistance and anti-fascism. And implementing an institutional architecture that hinges on a reform that would elect the President of the Council directly and (for opportunistic alliance reasons) on Northern League federalism. The Fratelli d’Italia party with 28.8% of the votes has progressed by 2% in percentage compared to the votes received in the 2022 elections but not in absolute terms. However, there is no doubt that the Meloni government has consolidated itself and, given that it is among the few successful governments, it is well positioned to become the linchpin of the political balance in Europe. Perhaps we will see the effects in the next appointments of European Commissioners. At the same time Fratelli also aims to federate the extreme right witness the rapprochement with Le Pen.
However, the party that experienced both percentage and absolute success was the Partito Democratico (PD) of the apparently “weak” leader Elly Schlein: with 24% of the votes obtained (up from 19% in 2022) It indicates a recovery of the party in all its traditional areas and in particular in large cities, where it conquered new capitals (administrative elections held together with the European elections), and in the south, where it benefited from the Cinque Stelle (5 Star) crisis and the reaction to the abolition of guaranteed citizenship income by the Meloni government and to Northern League federalism . It was surprising that with an electoral campaign based on a few watchwords, but with clear reference to social and labor rights[2], in just one year Schlein managed to get left-wing voters back on the move; especially since at the same time the mayors on the list for Europe also had personal success[3], representing the backbone of power within the PD.
The PD has now become the pivot power for every centre-left alliance, the so-called “wide field”, capable of competing with the right-wing alliance for the government of the country. It can contain the competition of the Cinque Stelle diminished to a modest 10% from the 17.1 in the previous European elections.
In Europe the Partido Socialista de Espana (PSE) , now part of Socialistas y Democratas(S&D), also held sway in elections in Spain and France. The Left list’s success was also moderate, in particular of the Green-Left Alliance with 6.7%. The image of the Italian citizen Ilaria Salis, in shackles and chains in Orban’s prisons in Hungary, not yet indicted, favored the unexpected electoral success of the party. Three days later Salis was released after being elected as a new member of the European Parliament for the Italian Green and Left Alliance . The 39-year-old activist was elected during her time under house arrest in Hungary, where she was on trial, charged for allegedly assaulting far-right demonstrators.
European Parliament lawmakers enjoy substantial legal immunity from prosecution, even if the allegations relate to crimes committed prior to their election.
More than 170,000 voters in Italy wrote Salis’ name onto the ballot in a successful bid to bring her home from Hungary, where she had been detained for more than a year.
In Italy it should be underlined that in contrast with the victory of the EPP, two personal parties – Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva[4], and Carlo Calenda’s Azione, failed. Both were allied with Macron’s Renew Europe grouping but made no contribution to his stability because they did not reach the 4% quorum needed to enter the European Parliament. They were counting on the dissolution of the Forza Italia (FI) party after the death of Berlusconi, but the voters preferred the safe use of the faithful and not very brilliant Antonio Tajani of FI to two characters who, after an attempted alliance, split due to power conflicts.
The hope is now that the moderate components of the center can find credible representation that looks unambiguously towards the left and can complete their political offering in a political atmosphere that appears increasingly bipolar.
[1] Fiuggi is a small city in the Region of Lazio where the MSI convention was held in 1995
[2] Such as minimum wage seen with suspicion by the trade unions, defense, refinancing of public healthcare, aid for the poorest, increase in wages, support for schools, etc.
[3] De Caro, former mayor of Bari, had half a million preferences!
[4] In these elections allied with Emma Bonino on the United States of Europe
…
This report on the EU elections was translated from the Italian by Peter Olney. Any unclarity or awkward phrasing is the responsibility of the translator.
June 2 – Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum President – Despite problems, many voted in Los Angeles
By Joel Ochoa
On June 2, 2024 for the first time Mexicans living abroad were allowed to vote in person; and as in past elections vote electronically, or by mail. The Mexican government intended to use embassies and consular sites to accomplish this endeavor and had put the Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) in charge of coordinating the procedural logistics. The Mexican diaspora is such that voting sites were established in the following cities in North America: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Fresno, Houston, Los Angeles, New Brunswick, New York, Oklahoma, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Ana, Seattle and Washington D.C. and in Montreal, Canada.
The stakes were high. Mexicans were ready to elect the first woman president, (only the second in North America[1]), in their history and enthusiastically responded. Both of the leading candidates were women: Claudia Sheinbaum of MORENA and Xochitl Galvez of the Fuerza y Corazon por Mexico coalition. Unfortunately the INE was not prepared and what was expected to be civil celebration, turned out to be a great despoilment.
Here in the United States previously registered Mexican voters went to different consulates, by the thousands, hoping to cast their votes and waited up to nine hours in line with no water, food or toilets. At the end of the day the great majority of them didn’t vote because of the ineptitude of either the Mexican government, or the INE, or both.
At the Los Angeles Mexican Consulate on West 6th Street there were only 1500 ballots available; woefully inadequate for the thousands who came out to vote. Riots were avoided thanks to the intervention of leaders who had the courage to face a highly volatile situation. These local leaders had to tell irate and frustrated people to learn the lesson of the day, go home and prepare for the future.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mayor of Mexico City and the MORENA party of incumbent President Andres Manuel Lopez Orbrador won a smashing victory garnering over 58% of the vote.
[1] Canadian PM Kim Campbell, June 25-November 4, 1993