“How often in the world do you wake up knowing that a black woman kicked that bastard’s ass and sent him on the road?” Tim Walz, presumptive Democratic nominee for Vice President.

Kamala Harris’s selection of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate is a good sign for those who understand the necessity of keeping MAGA out of the White House. Harris’s selection indicates that she will be campaigning first and foremost to motivate her base rather than being careful not to offend white, middle class, suburban America.

Coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, Harris has a liberal bent. She chose Walz because he’s got the same inclination. That means that she will continue to speak and encourage that form of thinking. It will enthuse her base a little more. Had she chosen Shapiro or Kelly, in my opinion that would have meant she’d have to restrain herself a little more. So, this is a good sign.

To anticipate the ultra-revolutionary sectarians: No, the Democrats will not solve the crises of capitalism. No, they cannot actually stop MAGA. Yes we need an independent movement of the working class (which the Democrats will never build) and a mass working class party. But those who content themselves with hollow phrase mongering and refuse to recognize the difference between organizing under conditions of capitalist democracy vs. far right autocratic rule are really saying one thing: That they don’t intend to organize within the working class at all. They just intend to continue shouting amongst themselves in their own echo chambers.

Other potential candidates
On other potential candidates: Pete Buttiegeg never was a possibility. In racist, sexist and homophobic America, it’s bad enough to have a black woman run for president, but to have a gay man for vice president? Please, be serious. That’s why somebody like Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, or NJ senator Cory Booker never were possibilities either. Two women, or two black people? Please, the ticket has to be “balanced”. In the US, it’s okay to have two straight white males running. That’s not unbalanced. But two of anything other than that? No, no, no, no, no. Of course, the whole issue shows the superficiality of US politics, where image and “identity” is everything and class orientation is nothing.

As far as Shapiro, I always thought that picking a Jewish running mate would be unlikely for two reasons: First, in the United States you can hate, fear or despise black people, but they are quintessentially American. But Jews are not seen as such. Among most Americans, Jews are seen as slightly untrustworthy, as not really “American”. So that was a disadvantage for a black female candidate. Second is this: As far as Israel, there really is very little difference between Shapiro and the other possible picks. But because he’s a Jew, among the left, including the wider left, there is the assumption that he’s “worse” on Israel, most supportive of Israel. That doesn’t explain why the Catholic Biden is worst of all of them, but who need logical consistency when it comes to politics in the United States?

The general mood in the U.S.
In fact, it is doubtful that a genuinely pro Palestine candidate could get nominated never mind elected. That was shown by the primary defeat of sitting Representative Jamaal Bowman in New York in June. Bowman is decisively pro-Palestine. His opponent is pro Israel. Yes, his opponent had massive funding from the Israel lobby, but that’s exactly the point: All that funding goes for propaganda and that propaganda does have an effect. That was exactly why black Democrats, mainly black women, chose Biden over Bernie Sanders in 2020. It wasn’t that they opposed universal health care nor that they liked Biden’s pro-police policies; they simply figured that Biden had a better chance of defeating the main threat, which was Trump. In my opinion, they were right.

How the campaigns are shaping up

Is Trump getting demoralized?

An interesting dynamic seems to be developing. Harris, now Harris-Walz, have an extremely full schedule of campaign rallies planned for the next week. Harris-Walz plan seven in the next four days. Trump plans one. Meanwhile, he seems to be hiding out at Mar-a-Lago while his hand chosen running mate, JD Vance, is providing the quotes for the news. It’s not impossible that Trump is starting to become demoralized, and in any case, if “his” campaign continues like this he will start to resent Vance, just as he did Steve Bannon when Bannon was in his administration. Trump has to be at the center of everything.

Map of areas in Minnesota that voted for Walz vs. the Republican in last election. The red areas voted for Republican Jensen.

Much is made of Walz’s appeal to white rural America. That is highly exaggerated. As you can see from this map on the left, Walz won the governorship by running up the vote in urban Minnesota. He overwhelmingly lost the rural parts of the state. White, rural America will not be broken away from MAGA by political ideas or program. That is true for MAGA as a whole, including among those white workers who support it. Nor will the Democrats break them from MAGA. For that, a mobilization of workers and working class youth is necessary, just as it is necessary in order to defeat the Republicans’ plans to steal the election through voter suppression plus simple refusal to recognize the results if those results are not to their liking.

The ultra-revolutionaries take the position that “we can’t live in fear of MAGA”. That is no different from what the MAGA science deniers said when they objected to wearing masks and to social distancing. It’s no different from daring somebody to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge on the grounds that “we can’t life in fear of falling”. It is denial of reality. These same ultra-revolutionaries also say “we have to have faith in the working class.” Faith does not mean being blind to reality. A huge portion of the US working class supports Trump and MAGA. There are all kinds of historical reasons for this, but fact is fact. Refusing to recognize this means we cannot orient towards and help organize those sections of the US working class that oppose MAGA. Those who engage in this empty rhetoric are simply engaged in hollow tub thumping. For those socialists and others on the left who are serious, we have to keep close track of what is happening in U.S. politics as part of a serious effort to see how, through what channels, a working class movement against MAGA can develop and how we as socialists can participate in and help build it.