Harris and Biden at DNC: Out with the old and in with the new?

On Monday night the Democratic Party celebrated leaving the 20th century and entering the 21st. Symbolic of that was the “love” expressed for Joe Biden when he spoke. “We love you, Joe,” they chanted over and over while their breaths was the second part of the chant: “we’re glad to see you go”. They were simply expressing their appreciation for the fact that he’d finally accepted the inevitable, which is that he could either concede to another Democratic candidate before the DNC or concede to Trump in November. He chose the former. So it was that a younger, female, black and Asian candidate took his place, although, at 59 years old, Harris is only “young” when compared to the two alternatives (Biden and Trump).

light message beamed onto Trump tower, Chicago

The celebratory mood was due to the fact that the possibility has now arisen of defeating the fascist-connected Trump-Vance Christian nationalist Republicans. National polls show Harris-Walz now leading in the popular vote. Democrats are also goading Trump to climb further out on a limb. In Chicago, for example, they beamed light messages onto a tower building owned by Trump. “Trump-Vance: weird as hell” and “Project 2024 HQ” the messages read.

Democratic Party strategist David Axelrod cautions, however. He warned  that “everyone at the convention should be very much aware that this is a race that [Trump] can win.” Axelrod pointed out that 65% of Americans think the US is headed in the wrong direction and that “Trump’s message that the world is out of control continues to resonate.”

Sean Fain
On Monday night, UAW president Sean Fain, lit up the crowd, especially when he commented on Trump’s laughing along with Musk at the idea of firing striking workers. In a moment of brilliant theatrics, Fain complained that it was getting hot in here and ripped off his jacket to reveal a t-shirt emblazoned with “Trump is a scab”.

Sean Fain lights up crowd with his t-shirt

The delegates were delighted and chanted along with him “Trump is a scab”. But Fain used two words that, when used together, are generally taboo in the Democratic (or Republican) Party: “working class”. (In fact, it’s often taboo among union leaders!) The closest other speakers came was “working families”. Other speakers referred to “the middle class” (but never “the poor”, who along their most despised relatives – those living in the streets – are never mentioned.) Others referred to women, black people, Latino people, LGBTQ people, youth. In that sense, the transfer of the crown from an 81 year-old white male to a 59 year-old black and Asian woman doesn’t really turn a corner.

Israel Palestine
The DNC did peep around the corner – just barely – when they scheduled a “human rights panel” for Monday afternoon. This was a panel for DNC delegates who support Palestine. As Farah Stockman reported in the NY Times, the panel “didn’t feel like equal treatment. It wasn’t held on the main stage or during a prime time television slot, as the families of some of the hostages taken from Israel are expected to get.” The quandary these delegates face was expressed by several of the “uncommitted” DNC

Panel of “uncommitted” delegates on Palestine rights

delegates. “This is our fight for the soul of the Democratic Party,” said Layla Elabed, one of the founders of Uncommitted. Another founder expressed a similar sentiment. Stockman reports: ‘“They created a space for this discussion, and that’s never happened before,” [Abbas Alawieh, also a founder of the Uncommitted National Movement] told me, referring to the panel. The room was packed, and some of Ms. Harris’s advisers were there, he said. “There’s a sense that she wants to turn a corner. Does it happen tomorrow? I don’t think so. But it will happen.”’

Will it happen, though?

Israel is the only stable and reliable ally for US capitalism in that entire region. They thought they had such an ally in the Shah of Iran, and look what happened there. They would like to have such an ally in Muhammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. However, according to Juan Cole, Bin Salman fears assassination if he recognizes Israel without the existence of a Palestinian state. In other words, he could be gone in the bat of an eye and an even harsher Islamic nationalist regime could take over in Saudi Arabia.

The problem that the “new leadership” of the Democratic Party faces is that more Democrats sympathize with the Palestinians (49%) than with the Israelis (38%). This gap will increase as Israel increasingly moves to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Not only that, but as Israel’s moving further down that road damages US strategic interest in the region. It sharply reduces US influence, as the threat to the life of bin Salman indicates.

Harris in quandary
Harris is caught in a quandary. She must enable the voice of the opponents of Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing, partly to keep their loyalty and partly to apply pressure to the Israeli regime. But that voice is dangerous, because the more they reveal the extent of Israeli crimes against humanity, the more difficult it is to maintain general popular support for the US allying with Israel at all. And if the Israeli soldiers’ use of a pipe to rape of a Palestinian prisoner, and the riot to support those soldiers (as reported in Haaretz and elsewhere) is any indication, Israel will continue to move down that road.

So, what is the alternative for the Uncommitted movement? Neither Green Party’s Jill Stein nor Cornel West presents any alternative. Stein has a long history of picturing Trump as the lesser evil. In fact, on Monday they held a press conference where Stein said that it’s the Democratic Party rather than the Republicans which “is the cause of fascism”. As for West, he has happily accepted Republican operatives central role in putting him on the ballot in Arizona, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Add to that the fact that both of these candidates apologize for the equally criminal invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and what do you have but just an actual cover for the far right in “left” clothing.

Both parties base themselves on identity politics. For the Democrats it’s people of color, women, and LGBTQ people with a dose of “people, can’t we all just get along?” mixed in. For the Republicans it’s fundamentally ethno nationalism, with a dose of machismo, bullying and violence thrown in. In other words, it’s capitalist democracy vs. capitalist authoritarianism/far right populism. Any socialist, anybody who’s serious about trying to organize among the US working class will certainly favor the former, even if only as a stop-gap measure. But how long the latter can be held off is the question. Oaklandsocalist discussed the perspectives for Harris when she first took the reins. In that article, we compared her perspectives to those of her equivalents  in Europe. We pointed out that the British equivalent of the Republicans, Reform UK, was waiting in the wings and that the French equivalent, National Rally, was even better positioned.

Axelrod’s warning about “a world out of control” must be taken seriously. In our recent pamphlet The Nature of this Period, we discussed the global rise of counter revolution. This stems from the very dynamics of 21st century capitalism itself. The MAGA Republicans are part of that development. Another aspect of that development was actually revealed in the speech of Sean Fain at the DNC. He and the entire rest of the union leadership have tied the unions at the hip to the Democratic Party, throwing up every roadblock possible to any development towards labor independence and the rise of a mass working class party.

DNC security fence.

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters gathered in Chicago. How big the protests are is unclear from a distance. (I was unable to find accommodations in Chicago or else I would have gone there to report.) But it’s certain they will not be anywhere near as large as the 1968 protests about the Vietnam War, if for no other reason than that the body bags are not returning home, they remain in Gaza. In any case, the “security” fences around the DNC serve as a reminder of the distance the Democrats maintain from any mass political movement. On the other side, to what degree have the protesters distanced themselves from the campist policies of Stein and West?

So, while it is important to keep Trump/Vance out of the White House and minimize the presence of their party in congress, and only the Democrats can do so for the moment, it is also important to start building a working class alternative to both parties. An independent movement in the streets to stop MAGA, can be the starting point. Both Stein and West and the movement they represent have proven to have no interest in building such a movement. That is why it will have to be built from the ground up. It will have to originate from an elemental uprising against ethno/Christian nationalist bigotry and violence, which is what the Republican Party represents.

Harris and Biden at DNC: Out with the old and in with the new?