One of these two will be the next president. Many socialists argue in effect that it doesn’t matter which one it will be.

Somebody is going to occupy the White House in 2025, and that somebody will either be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. The question is: “does it matter which one?” Given the crisis of US and world capitalism, a serious socialist answer has never been needed more. Yet most socialists are falling down on the job. By arguing against a vote for Harris, they are saying “no, it doesn’t matter who wins”. These socialists are replacing a serious objective analysis with moralisms and misreadings of history. It’s important to understand that history and be able to counter their arguments. Here is a review of and an answer to the “never vote Democrat” arguments:

“But Gaza!”
It is natural to be repulsed by Harris’s support for Israel’s crimes against humanity. Many socialists say that is a reason not to vote for her. However, in the first place, the great majority of those socialists who say that they cannot vote for Harris because of her support for Israeli genocide, are using that as a fig leaf. Almost all of those same people were arguing against ever voting for any Democrat for years.

The national “Uncommitted” movement. Even they in effect argue for a vote for Harris.

Some will argue that the “Uncommitted” movement doesn’t support the Democratic nominee. This movement is composed mainly of Palestinian-Americans and others who are Democrats. What, actually, are they saying today? On Sept. 19, they issued a statement declining to endorse Harris, but also opposing a vote for any of the third party candidates. They wrote: “At this time, our movement 1) cannot endorse Vice President Harris; 2) opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing; and 3) is not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.” Clearly, as loyal Democrats, they are not calling for abstaining from voting. So there is only one way to make sense of this: They are calling for a vote for Harris, without directly saying so.

How about Palestinians in Gaza itself?

The Al Monitor reported that “Palestinians in Gaza warm to Kamala Harris, prefer ‘anyone over Trump.’”

They quoted Abdul Rahim al-Hayek, displaced from Gaza City to the town of Qarara. “‘I have lived through 14 US presidents, all of whom were blatantly pro-Israel, with the exception of President Bill Clinton, who visited Gaza in 1998 to push the peace process forward… I prefer anyone over Trump, who recognized our future capital, Jerusalem, as the capital of Israel,’” he said.

It’s not just a matter of Jerusalem. Trump has made his stance clear: Speaking at the Israeli-American Council on Sept. 19, Trump said “You have a big protector in me. You don’t have a protector on the other side…. Anybody who’s Jewish and loves being Jewish and loves Israel is a fool if they vote for a Democrat.” He told Jewish Harris supporters, “You should have your head examined.” According to NPR, “Trump also accused Harris of ‘pandering’ to Hamas supporters…”

Top: aftermath of Oct. 7 attack; bottom: result in Gaza City. It is repugnant to vote for those who faclitate these crimes, but are our emotions enough?

Biden and Harris support Israeli war crimes. they bear responsibility for them. And whereas Harris was quite critical of Netanyahu after having met with him, she has since fallen into line, for example having refused to allow a Palestinian DNC delegate to make even a one minute speech at the Democratic Party Convention. In her highly publicized debate with Trump, she had hardly a word of criticism of Netanyahu.

It may seem morally repugnant to vote for a candidate who supports Israel’s horrific war crimes, but since when did morality ever have anything to do with politics? And anyway, Trump will be significantly worse. So Gaza is not a justifiable reason to refuse to vote to keep Trump out of the White House, meaning voting for Harris.

The real basis of the socialist “don’t vote for Harris” position is the view that we should never advocate a vote for any Democrat, as if that were some sort of absolute principle, good for all times and situations. As if it were some sort of eternal socialist principle. Is it, really? Let’s look at some history:

Front: General Kornilov. He attempted a coup that would have led to a bloodbath.

Russian Revolution
In July of 1917, the Russian Revolution was in full swing. The tsar had been overthrown and in his place sat a capitalist reform government, the Provisional Government. That government refused to take Russia out of the imperialist WW I. It did nothing to carry out the critical change of distributing land to the peasants. It did nothing to further workers rights. In short, it was unwilling and unable to take any meaningful steps towards resolving the material problems that gave rise to the revolution in the first place. Because of that, chaos reigned. Into that chaos stepped the fascist-before-fascism-was-invented General Kornilov. He tried to institute a military coup. The working class organized to stop him. The Bolsheviks helped in that. In that particular situation, that could only mean organizing to keep the Provisional Government in power. Had they failed to stop him, the revolution would have been drowned in a sea of blood. It would have been crushed.

Spanish fascist general Francisco Franco. The entire socialist movement united to try to defeat him, even though the alternative was a liberal capitalist government.

Spanish Civil War
From 1936-39, a civil war was fought in Spain. A liberal capitalist government sat in power. The fascist general Franco organized to overthrow it. All working class and socialist forces advocated joining the war on the side of the government, which was known as the “Loyalist” or “Republican” side. That was despite the fact that the political program and strategy of the Republicans was severely defective and proved ultimately unable to defeat the fascists. There were some to the left of the Republicans, Trotsky included, who opposed the reformist program of the Republicans. But neither Trotsky nor nor any other socialists ever opposed actually joining the Republican army and fighting the fascists.

If it was okay to risk one’s life to fight fascism, even if the alternative is capitalist democracy then, why is it not okay to advocate voting to stop it if there is the same alternative today?

Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil

Recent elections
In January of 2023, Brazil held elections. On one side was Lula da Silva, a neoliberal capitalist politician. On the other was the sitting president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is very similar to Trump, if not worse. As Brazilian socialist Fabio Bosco explains in this interview,  practically the entire Brazilian socialist movement organized to vote for Lula in the second round of the vote, which was the vote that would determine the ultimate winner. They were advocating voting for capitalist democracy over a right wing dictatorship.

Marine Le Pen and her ethno nationalist “National Rally” party. The entire French socialist left united to keep her out of office.

More recently, in June of this year, France held national elections. In the runoff vote, the fascist connected Marine le Pen was pitted against the neoliberal Emmanuel Macron. The left organized to ensure that the anti-Le Pen vote was not divided. In other words, they in practice helped elect Macron. That after his victory Macron turned around and undercut the left is not the point. It would have been far harder to organize under a far-right Le Pen regime.

So, the idea that advocating voting for a capitalist is a complete break from socialist tradition is a fable.

“The Democrats won’t stop fascism”
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has said that the Democrats “are the cause of fascism” in the United States. She put concisely what many left opponents of voting for Harris think – that the Democrats are equally responsible neoliberal economic policies that created the conditions which gave rise to Trump and even fascism in the United States. Therefore, they conclude, there is no point in electing another Democrat who will recreate those same conditions.

We have seen this argument before.

Hitler’s Brownshirts. The position of the KPD was a historic disaster.

In the 1930s, the German Communist Party (KPD) adopted a similar logic. They reasoned that it was the crisis of capitalism itself that was creating the conditions for the rise of the Nazis. They pointed out that the other mass working class party in Germany, the Social Democrats, the SPD, based themselves on maintaining capitalist democracy. But since that goal was impossible, the SPD was helping the rise of fascism. They branded the SPD as “Social fascists”, and the KPD refused any form of cooperation with them. The KPD also claimed that things would get so bad under Hitler that it would create the conditions for the Communists to take power.

We know how well that argument worked.

“Aah, but there is a difference!” exclaim some of those who know a little history. “For all their failings, the SPD was a working class party, but the Democrats are a capitalist party.”

That is true, and we are not advocating tying ourselves to the Democrats (as opposed to what the “Uncommitted” propose). We are simply saying that even if it only postpones Trump or Vance or anybody like that occupying the White House for the next four years, those four years may give us more time to organize… if we are serious about organizing.

Voting for a Democrat is falling for “lesser evilism”
Ever since the end of WW II (1946), the union leadership and those who revolved around it argued that the unions must be linked to the Democrats. Many leaders at the local level agreed that the Democrats were unreliable at best, that they were the lesser evil. They used that as an excuse to oppose the unions leading the way in building a working class alternative to the Democrats. During all those decades, in fact, the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans were secondary. In 1971, for example, then-President Richard Nixon called for a health care plan that according to the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, “went far beyond what today’s Affordable Care Act includes.”

In general the Democrats were less opposed to the interests of the working class and the oppressed than were the Republicans. In other words, the Democrats were the lesser evil. However, those differences were minor compared to the need to oppose the position of the union leadership (and others). What was more important than a small and temporary advantage was making the point that the unions should break from the Democrats.

As a result of this history, engaging in “lesser evilism” became a taboo on the left. Those who did so were seen as betraying some absolute principle. But what was true yesterday regarding the differences between the two parties is no longer true today.

“We need a workers party”
“We should not call for a vote for the Democrats. We should call for a working class party,” say some of these socialists. The clear implication is that we cannot do both at the same time. I proved in action that that is untrue when I ran for Oakland mayor in 2022. As this video shows, I attacked the Democrats and called for a working class party in no uncertain terms. Yet I voted for Democrats in 2020 and will do so again in 2024. In fact, because Oakland elections are ranked choice, meaning a voter can vote for multiple candidates by “ranked choice”, I actually voted for some of the very candidates I attacked in this debate. I voted for them because there were two other candidates who were an Oakland equivalent of Donald Trump, and I wanted to help keep them out.

Echo chamber socialism
When children walk through a tunnel or under an overpass, often they like to shout to hear their voices and those of their friends echo back to them. That tunnel forms an echo chamber in which all they hear is each other’s voices. That is how the “never vote for the Democrats” socialists live – in an echo chamber of their own making. All they listen to is each other, trying to prove who is more “socialist” than the other. Meanwhile, the huge world of working class life passes on beyond their view. 

It is also ironic, because many of these same socialists who proclaim to the high heavens about never voting for a Democrat are silent on the issue when they confront some of the more prominent supporters of the “progressive” union bureaucrats who defend labor’s links to the Democrats.

Jill Stein speaking at Rage Against the War Machine rally with Russian flag in background. In practice, Stein supports Putin.

The “alternatives”
Jill Stein of the Green Party and Cornel West offer themselves as alternatives. As this article on Stein shows, she has longstanding ties to the fascist connected Putin and supports the fascist Assad. She is so bad that even the 2020 Green Party candidate for president, Howie Hawkins, won’t campaign for her. And as this article on West shows, he’s actually tied to the Republicans! Both candidates in effect support a Russian victory in its invasion of Ukraine. And both of them focus their attacks on Harris and say almost nothing about the main danger, which is Trump.

Conclusion
The outcome of this election is no small matter. Trump promises to round up, put in prison camps and deport “millions” of undocumented immigrants. This would include those who were brought here as infants and have no connection in any other country. In order to do so, he will have to put the U.S. military out onto the streets. Their role would not stop there.

• Trump will further encourage the war crimes of Israel, Putin and Assad. He will encourage far right dictators and would-be dictators all around the world.
• Trump has also promised to end all limitations on drilling for oil. As a global warming denier, he will vastly accelerate the already disastrous changes in the climate. He will also accelerate the elimination of different animal and plant species. Once gone, they can never come back.
• Trump and his party will further attack a woman’s right to abortion, ultimately outlawing it nationally.
• Trump’s promise to pardon the January 6 criminals will put hundreds of violent fascist organizers back onto the streets. It will further strengthen the feeling of empowerment of the fascists and other racists in the United States.
• Trump has promised to give free reign to the police to terrorize people in the black community.
• Trump’s support for January 6 and his party’s plans to disrupt and if necessary steal this year’s elections indicate his intent to establish one person authoritarian rule in the United States.

Whatever the outcome of this election, MAGA will not go away. A working class socialist movement is needed more than ever in my 78 years walking this planet. Those socialists who pretend the election outcome doesn’t matter forever disbar themselves from playing any serious role in combating what Trump/Vance and the MAGA cult represent, not just in the United States, but around the world.

One of these two will be the next president. Many socialists argue in effect that it doesn’t matter which one it will be.