The November election is quickly approaching. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance for the Republicans will face off against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for the Democrats. With all the issues facing us, and Trump’s 2020 attempt to overturn the election, many are pinning their hopes and fears for the future on the outcome.
Trump and his allies have put forward terrifying perspectives, promising mass deportations of immigrants, further restrictions on access to abortion, more attacks on LGBTQ+ people, police crackdowns on protests, restructuring the civil service to be politically obedient to Trump, and massive tax cuts for the rich. The environmental protections that supposedly exist will be further gutted by an administration that denies global warming. And last but not least, with the world only a hair-trigger event away from a major war in Eastern Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, Trump’s erratic, irrational behavior is risky to say the least. We can understand why some people would vote for Harris if only to stop him.
The Democrats, however, have brought us to this place. They have presided over massive inflation that has impacted the lives of most people, while the wealth accumulated by billionaires and their corporations has skyrocketed. In California and other states, they are using the recent Supreme Court decision to criminalize homelessness, harassing people with nowhere to go. They have governed the border with policies straight out of the Trump administration playbook, punishing migrants desperate to survive. Their environmental protections are insufficient to slow the global climate crisis. They have brought the world to the brink of war, supporting Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, and carried out military maneuvers in the South China Sea while continuing to arm Taiwan against China. Harris may pretend she is a little different, appearing to distance herself from Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But she was Biden’s vice president, and defended his policies in the Middle East.
As the Democrats try to win over more conservative voters, Harris continues to promise that the U.S. will never stop supporting and funding Israel. She has sworn to the big oil companies that she will never ban fracking. The Democratic convention featured speeches by prominent billionaires, while denying any Palestinians the right to speak. The Democrats have little to show for themselves, and are hoping that fear of Trump will be enough to get them elected.
We can understand why people might vote for Harris and Walz in order to try to stop Trump and Vance. We can also understand that some people might vote for Trump, attracted by how he seems to attack establishment politicians like Harris, and how he reminds people that the Democrats have been in office nearly 12 of the last 16 years, while people’s lives have not gotten any better or have gotten worse.
Whatever the outcome, there will be a crisis in November, especially as Trump and Vance promise not to accept the election results if they lose. But we don’t have to accept these choices.
If we count on elections, we can’t expect anything different than the downward spiral we’ve been living through. The Democrats promise to represent working families, while they openly defend the rich and powerful. And the Republicans use hate and fear of immigrants to try to weaken our forces by pitting us against each other.
Both parties represent the wealthy elite who fund them. Both parties manage a system that wrecks the planet, wages imperialist wars, and attacks immigrants and the poorest among us. With or without a second Trump administration, the far-right turn of the Republicans will continue, and the Democrats are powerless to stop it.
We can and must do better. We don’t have to wait for elections. Regardless of who wins this November, we can organize ourselves, at work and in our communities, to demand wage increases, funding for schools and other things we need, as well as opposing their wars and their destruction of the Earth’s environment.
