A Review Of The U.S. Presidential Election in 2024

By: Zhaleh Sahand

In an undated poll conducted by the Gallup, Inc, “known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide” titled “In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?” we see its latest poll on the state of the voters in the U.S. performed between the July 1 and July 21 of 2024, shown below. [1]

 This poll, beside the overall circulation of the political sentiments of the country’s population, has shaped a part of my perspective in analyzing the political mood of the nation towards the 2024, presidential election, and what I think Marxists should position themselves for and against.

Throughout writing this piece, the writer does not make any references to the role of Trump’s presidency and the nature of his program, as his fascistic plan of action and the pattern of his thoughts, delegitimizes him from any serious discussions…. though this writer predicts his win in 2024, IF Kamala Harris, does not show a genuine interest in the fate of the real democracy and DOES NOT STOP co-partnering the GENOCIDAL WAR against the PALESTINIAN PEOPLE now.

A GLANCE AT THE POLLS
 

Every 4 years comes the opportunity for both the leftist organizations and unions, to tightly contemplate on what a Marxist or principled positions towards elections should be determined, and why or why not to participate in them.

As much as it is a norm for the supporters of both parties of the status quo, who simply know what they want and what they do not, to prepare themselves with no hesitations to vote for the parties of their own, for the independent layer of the society that includes a wide spectrum of the leftists, organizing or pulling themselves into or out of the election stream, becomes extremely challenging.

Should the left exercise a set of principles across the board that every 4 years can unwaveringly be put into practice, regardless of who is going to be nominated for the presidential elections, or that is going to be conditioned depends on who are going to be nominated? Or are the independent third parties and individuals morally permitted to participate in the elections in a system to the bone capitalistic and corrupt that it is motivated only by the imperialist agendas?

Socialists And The Electoral Participations

As part of a sheer tactical maneuver, only; educating, organizing, and building the workers' movements and raising their class consciousness, Marx and Engles as Lenin and Trotsky, pushed for the establishment of a principled and independent socialist alternative outside the bourgeois parties of their time.

For the founders of socialism, the task of Introducing a genuine socialist program to the wide range of masses, and exposing the incompetency of the bourgeois system in solving the systematic dysfunctionality of capitalism, were their only right and aim in convincing themselves to promote participations in the elections- in contrast to sitting aside and sublime a lively, humane, and promising program that will free the soul of the alienated majority in our alive capitalist system in the past and today.

To engage and mobilize the working class into a mass movement, a class for itself, and not in itself, elections and parliamentarism have become a school for the development of revolutionary class consciousness among the unorganized workers.

Let us remember some of the arguments that our founding fathers have made for the necessity of Electoralism, even though as they said it could bring some disadvantages.

Marx and Engles in their “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League” in March 1850, have said:

“the immediate result of the overthrow of the existing governments will be the election of a national representative body. Here the proletariat must take care: 1) that by sharp practices local authorities and government commissioners do not, under any pretext whatsoever, exclude any section of workers; 2) that workers’ candidates are nominated everywhere in opposition to bourgeois-democratic candidates. As far as possible they should be League members and their election should be pursued by all possible means. Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength, and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.” [2]

And in the ‘Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder, Lenin argues against the “Dutch-Left” who opposed the parliamentary forms of struggle, and believed that:

“When the capitalist system of production has broken down, and society is in a state of revolution, parliamentary action gradually loses importance as compared with the action of the masses themselves. When, in these conditions, parliament becomes the centre and organ of the counter-revolution, whilst, on the other hand, the labouring class builds up the instruments of its power in the Soviets, it may even prove necessary to abstain from all and any participation in parliamentary action.” [3]

The Lenin’s response to the “Dutch-Left” is a general statement that can take place even at the time of the revolutionary upheavals.

He says:   

“it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete” To ignore this experience, while at the same time claiming affiliation to the Communist International, which must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics), means committing a gross error and actually abandoning internationalism in deed, while recognising it in word.” [4]

The rationale used by Lenin to pinpoint his stance, is self-explanatory, when he says:

“Everything goes to show that this statement is far too sweeping and exaggerated. But the basic fact set forth here is incontrovertible, and its acknowledgment by the “Lefts” is particularly clear evidence of their mistake. How can one say that “parliamentarianism is politically obsolete,” when “millions” and “legions” of proletarians are not only still in favor of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright “counter-revolutionary”!?” [5]

Though he admits that:

“To agree, for instance, to participate in the Third and Fourth Dumas was a compromise, a temporary renunciation of revolutionary demands. But this was a compromise absolutely forced upon us, for the balance of forces made it impossible for us for the time being to conduct a mass revolutionary struggle, and in order to prepare this struggle over a long period we had to be able to work even from inside such a “pigsty.” History has proved that this approach to the question by the Bolsheviks as a party was perfectly correct.” [6]

Trotsky and Electoralism

The Trotsky’s stance on Electoralism, historically looks more tangible in relation to what we are experiencing in the U.S. today.

When Trotsky was in exile in Mexico, he met with C. L. R. James and some other Trotskyists in April 1939, just one year before his assassination, and “Plans for the Negro Organization” was the theme of their discussions. In their dialogue, C. L. R. James, presents his arguments under the Johnson’s penname. The dialogue starts with:

“Johnson: The Negro section wants to put up a Negro candidate. We tell them they must not stand just as Negroes, but they must have a program suitable to the masses of poor Negroes. They are not stupid and they can understand that and it is to be encouraged. The white workers put up a labor candidate in another section. Then we say to the Negroes in the white section, "Support that candidate, because his demands are good workers’ demands." And we say to the white workers in the Negro area, "You should support the Negro candidate, because although he is a Negro you will notice that his demands are good for the whole working class." This means that the Negroes have the satisfaction of having their own candidates in areas where they predominate and at the same time, we build labor solidarity. It fits into the labor party program.

Carlos: Isn’t that coming close to the People’s Front, to vote for a Negro just because he is a Negro?

Johnson: This organization has a program. When the Democrats put up a Negro candidate, we say, "Not at all. It must be a candidate with a program we can support."

Trotsky: It is a question of another organization for which we are not responsible, just as they are not responsible for us. If this organization puts up a certain candidate, and we find as a party that we must put up our own candidate in opposition, we have the full right to do so. If we are weak and cannot get the organization to choose a revolutionist, and they choose a Negro Democrat, we might even withdraw our candidate with a concrete declaration that we abstain from fighting, not the Democrat, but the Negro. We consider that the Negro’s candidacy as opposed to the white’s candidacy, even if both are of the same party, is an important factor in the struggle of the Negroes for their equality; and in this case we can critically support them. I believe that it can be done in certain instances.[7]

If we aim to extend this specific tactic and the Trotsky’s rationale to the presidential election in the U.S. today, that negro, for certain is not going to be the Kamala Harris, it could be the Cornel West, if the Democratic Party had the courage and a program of action in line with the socialist minimum program, to make him its candidate, or the Cornel West himself, could run as an independent mind…. but we saw him several days ago acting as an easy instrument possessed by the Republican Party, utilized as a catalyzer to vacuum the votes against Kamala Harris. All these ifs, turn out to be not the material options to be thought about at all.
 

The Third Parties And Independents In The U.S. Presidential Election

In the United States, it is not only the practice of the “Duverger’s law” [8] that makes it hard for the third parties and the independents to get a chance at representing themselves in the electoral system, it is their programs, progressive or non-progressive, alike that make them fail to land a winning place, as their programs stand against the minds of the average Americans who always choose the parties of their own; be it Democrats or Republicans.

 The decisive role of the fear factors for both the Progressive Democrats and the leftists who want to go for the better programs of the third parties and independents, always are going to be crushed in the drama of the presidential elections, by the pressure of the reality that reminding them again and again that at the end, there is always a Democrat or a Republican who wins the election, and why to instruct for the impossible?

The presence of third parties and independents in the electoral system in the U.S. has always been a symbolic and cautionary gesture, and till the arousal of the public ‘s class consciousness, as in many other countries around the world, will remain the same. It is a must for the health of democracy and multipolarity of the choices, and it is a podium for the leftists to disclose the incompetency of the bourgeoisie and its system in establishing a fair, just, and egalitarian system in our societies.