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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 4/29/20

Joe or No?

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The basis of the VBNMW argument is that there is a decisive, dispositive, ethico-political difference in kind between the Democratic and Republican parties. In this line of thinking, the Democratic party as an institution, and/or its nominee personally is, or wants to be, a force for progressive change on behalf of working people, and the Republican party is the primary institution obstructing such change.

2020 has certainly left that argument in tatters.

We all know now what the Republican party stands for. Its purpose is to advance the interests of capital against the interests of the working class. Given the demographics of the country, it needs to be, and has become, quite adept at using issues of race and culture to divide the working class and lure sections of it to vote for them. Thus Donald Trump, who is, as expected, doing a bang-up job of exacerbating inequality and social division.

And the Democratic party? Does it, in contrast, advance the interests of working people against the predations of capital? This pretense has been barely breathing since the last crisis, when the Democratic tribune of the working middle-class, Barack Obama, bailed out the banks, allowed the 1% to soak up most of the wealth, and left the working class to rot in the social devastation of the cool new gig economy. Even the supposedly not "working-" but "middle-"class is now driving from their six-figure debt palaces in their five-figure debt chariots to queue up for bags of "welfare" food.

In that context, this primary season, the party--led from behind by President-emeritus Obama in his $12 million Great Pond community-organizing compound, and in coordination with its allied "progressive" media--launched a full-spectrum offensive against the softest of social-democratic campaigns, led by Bernie Sanders. With its coronation of Joe Biden as its nominee, and Bernie's own always-already-given capitulation, the party has dispelled any lingering aroma of an FDR-style soft welfare-state legacy that it had long-since snuffed out. The Democratic party has again--and finally, I hope--revealed itself to be an intractable enemy of the working class, the main obstacle of any serious program of the left, and a dedicated tool of the dictatorship of the ruling class. I mean, Joe Biden.

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Jim Kavanagh Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter Page       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Former college professor, native and denizen of New York City. Blogging at www.thepolemicist.net, from a left-socialist perspective. Also publishing on Counterpunch, The Greanville Post, Medium, Dandelion Salad, and other sites around the net. (more...)
 

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