The Elections are a Shell Game

A anarchist critique of the elections from BD of the M1 Michigan Collective.

The elections are a shell game. I’ve seen it my whole life: from Eisenhower to Kennedy/Johnson to Nixon to Carter to Reagan and Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump. It’s a back and forth. It’s a death spiral. The whole process moves to the right. The reaction becomes more reactionary, more backward, more ignorant and more dangerous. The liberal response, the Democratic Party response is to move to the center/right. Their“opposition” is pre-existing conditions and trying to stay quiet on immigration. And running CIA fucking agents and bragging about it. The Democratic Party, defenders of the FBI and the CIA, and that’s what really matters.

And here’s what I learned coming of age in 1968, LBJ and the Democrats, were the party of the war on Vietnam. Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? It’s US imperialism we’re up against; it’s the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties support Israel and Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It’s the government we’re up against; it’s the Democrats and Republicans. The CIA installed Pinochet and the terror in Chile in 1973. The FBI engineered the attack on the Black Panthers and the Black liberation movement and the murders of Fred Hampton, George Jackson and many others. The Democrats and the Republicans are the CIA and the FBI. The murders continue today in Gaza, in Yemen, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia. The Democrats and the Republicans, the state, US imperialism, all responsible. The cops who do the killing in every city, brought to you by the Democrats and Republicans.

The Republicans and Democrats sometimes have strategy differences, but all are agreed on defending U.S. imperialism and the U.S. empire. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, support CIA actions to protect U.S. imperial interests. The Democrats and Republicans have collaborated to support U.S. imperialism and reaction and to oppose liberation and freedom and self determination, worldwide.

The point is the back and forth, the ability of the system in the U.S. to maintain itself and for the ruling classes which profit from the system to maintain their rule and their wealth and privileges. But the system is in crisis, and the U.S. is in decline. The pressure for constant investment for increasing profits and returns on investments hits limits. Economic crises, deindustrialization, chasing profits, speculation take a toll. The rulers seek to increase their wealth at the expense of people with disabilities, low-income families, students, teachers, seniors and the working classes. To deflect anger from themselves, the rulers seek scapegoats: immigrants, the Black community, Muslims, women, the trans community, the caravan, the media.

Trump represents a new level of reaction, a new level of open white supremacy and white nationalism. Racists and fascists are encouraged to attack our communities. What were dog whistles are loud, clear, open and direct. Men are encouraged to disregard women and to assert domination by violence and all methods. This is reaction. This is a failed Reality TV guy, a slumlord millionaire, in charge. This is a real estate developer, a dealmaker, a parasite, in charge. This is the decline of US imperialism in full view. This is the alliance of reaction and racists and semi-fascist governments and rulers in the U.S. and Europe and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Israel and beyond.

This is fascism and authoritarianism on the rise and capitalism in decline in the U.S. and worldwide. The Democrats support the alliance with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The centrists in Europe want more controls on immigrants and refugees and demand assimilation and securing the borders. The Democrats support detentions and deportations and ICE raids. Obama and the Democrats helped to fuel the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim bigotry, along with the Republicans. I’ve seen Democrats on TV saying the timing of the caravan from Honduras is suspect, implying the Republicans are somehow responsible for the caravan for the purpose of hurting Democrats.

Liberals, social democrats and “popular” governments worldwide have failed and have no answers to the crisis of capitalism, the crisis of the system. The government and the rulers point to immigrants and Muslims and the Black community and the other as the enemy. The liberals and Democrats and centrists have no answer, because the enemy is the system, is the capitalist class, is the ruling classes, is capitalism and imperialism. The Democrats, the liberals, the centrists, the social democrats all support the system, and they do not offer or provide any alternative to the system. They are a very important part of the system.

The job for anarchists and revolutionaries is not to build support for the Democrats or the system; our job is to build the opposition to the system and to organize to overthrow and end the system. This is the only answer to the reaction and to fascism and to the ruling classes. Our job is to work to develop class consciousness, working class consciousness and revolutionary consciousness. Our job is to be clear that the enemy is the system, the ruling class, the fascists, the cops, the government, the Democrats and Republicans. This is the work we need to be doing.

This doesn’t mean we should avoid reform struggles or defensive struggles in the working class. Far from it. As anarchists and revolutionaries, we need to be in the struggles against detentions and deportations and ICE raids. We need to be in the struggles against police attacks on the Black community and the police murdering Black people or any people. We need to oppose anti-Muslim bigotry and all attempts to demonize or criminalize communities or sections of the working class. We need to oppose violence against women, against the LGBTQ community, against the Trans community. And we need to be in the fight against white supremacy, male domination and fascism. We need to work to unite our forces to defend our communities and to oppose attacks on our communities and the working class,

And we need to defend the right to vote. White supremacists and fascists and Republicans are attempting to prevent Black people and Latinx people and others from voting. They attempt to use intimidation, violence, threats and making it difficult to find a place to vote or have the right “credentials” to vote. Most people who have a felony conviction are denied the right to vote. We oppose these attacks on a democratic right which has been fought for and should be defended.

Where white supremacists or conservatives or ordinary Republicans attempt to prevent Black people or Latinx people or anyone else from voting, we should be there to oppose the attack and to defend the right.

As a revolutionary anarchist, I won’t vote for Democrats or Republicans because I oppose this system and the ruling class and the government and the parties of the government and the fascists and police who attack our communities. I won’t vote, but I will defend your right to vote. All of us should defend against racist attacks and threats and attempts to intimidate.

Fascist attacks, racist attacks are on the rise and at an alarming rate. At a Louisville Kroger, a racist walks in the store and murders a 69 year old Black man who is in the store shopping with his grandson. The killer then walks into the parking lot and murders a 67 year old Black woman. A Trump supporter mails bombs to Democratic Party politicians, CNN and others. A killer saying “All Jews must die,” enters a Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning and murders eleven. The killers, the racists, the fascists all are white men. All are arrested and in custody.

And in thousands of incidents in stores, in apartments, in parks, on the street, at workplaces, at schools, in places of worship, white supremacists are emboldened and attacking and threatening. And it’s frightening, and it’s very hard to know what to do. We don’t have pat answers. We know that we cannot face these attacks alone. We must find ways to join together, to fight together. No one community, no one section of the working class can fight this alone. We need to unite our forces across Black communities, Latinx communities, immigrant communities, across churches and mosques and synagogues, across genders and identities, across the working class.

We have to do this ourselves, across borders, people from all countries together. No one is coming to save us. The government is the enemy as much as the fascists and the ruling classes. We are up against all of this. The Democrats will say all we can do is vote and support them. We must say all we can do is organize and fight. All we can do is to unite our forces to defend our communities and ourselves. All we can do is organize and join together to defeat the fascists and overthrow and destroy capitalism and white supremacy and patriarchy once and for all.

Our job is not to defend “democracy” or defend the government. Our job is not to defend the Democratic Party. Our job is overthrow the government, to overthrow the Democrats and the Republicans. The ruling classes cannot move society forward; the ruling classes are overseeing the decline and destruction, while they scramble to maintain and increase their wealth and privileges and power.

The only way to move society forward now is to end this system. The force capable of revolution and of ending this system is the international working class. Developing working class consciousness, revolutionary consciousness is our job. Participating in the struggles of our class, of our communities, of communities under attack is where we must be. Participating in and helping to build community self defense, united working class defense, of communities and people under attack should be our priority.