Don't Be An Ass--Don't Vote Democrat--Louis Proyect

Tweet "It is not that difficult to understand the psychology of a William Greider, David Moberg, or Roger Toussaint [for saying "VOTE DEMOCRAT," like Stan Goff]. They are being "practical." Since the election will be won by either a Democrat or a Republican, one might as well vote for the candidate less hostile to your overall goals. If [Democrat Elliott] Spitzer would jail the TWU president 10 days rather than 30 days, this was grounds for the union to back him.

"This kind of slave mentality was ruthlessly exposed by Malcolm X, an opponent of both the jackass and the elephant. At a January 7, 1965 meeting billed as "Prospects for Freedom in 1965" (which I attended), the martyred black nationalist said:

'In 1964, 97 per cent of the black American voters supported Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and the Democratic Party. Ninety-seven per cent! No one minority group in the history of the world has ever given so much of its uncompromising support to one candidate and one party. No one people, no one group, has ever gone all the way to support a party and its candidate as did the black people in America in 1964 .... And the first act of the Democratic Party, Lyndon B. included, in 1965, when the representatives from the state of Mississippi who refused to support Johnson came to Washington, D.C., and the black people of Mississippi sent representatives there to challenge the legality of these people being seated -- what did Johnson say? Nothing! What did Humphrey say? Nothing! What did Robert Pretty-Boy Kennedy say? Nothing! Nothing! Not one thing! These are the people that black people have supported. This is the party that they have supported. Where were they when the black man needed them a couple days ago in Washington, D.C.? They were where they always are -- twiddling their thumbs someplace in the poolroom, or in the gallery.'

"His courageous leadership eventually got him killed. The ruling class in the USA was desperately afraid of any black leader, including Martin Luther King Jr. as well, who showed a capacity to rouse the masses into action. Malcolm was especially dangerous because he refused to accept the "lesser evil" logic. A black political party led by somebody like Malcolm X would have certainly posed a significant challenge to the hegemony enjoyed by the Democrats.

"With all proportions guarded, the Green Party represents the same kind of threat today. Any electoral formation that implicitly challenges the two-party system will soon run into all sorts of challenges no matter how tepid the leadership. In 1948, Henry Wallace ran as an independent favoring the continuation of the New Deal domestically and the wartime alliance with the USSR, while promoting desegregation -- something that FDR would never do as long as his party included the Dixiecrats. No matter how mild this program seemed, Wallace was subjected to fierce red-baiting attacks in the liberal press and outright violence in the South.

"No matter the missteps of Green candidates like Ralph Nader or the presence inside the Greens of elements that refuse to conduct a serious struggle against Democrats and Republicans alike, the party is the only organized electoral formation in the USA today that has any sort of independence.

"This remains as an irritant to the powers that be and, more importantly, a breach in the dike that is holding back a mighty torrent of discontent. If Bush is unpopular, the Congress fares little better in the eyes of the American voter. Last month the Zogby poll reported that only 19 percent give it a favorable rating, a number that cuts across geographical and party lines. The job of progressives would seem to be opening that breach in the dike rather than sticking one's thumb in it, like the Dutch boys of American liberalism.

From Swan's Commentary