The Billionaires’ Duopoly Wins on Tuesday

Allegiance to the Democratic half of the duopoly – whether active or passive – is still allegiance to corporate rule, not a strategy for transformative change.

“The Republicans busy themselves emboldening racists, while the Democrats crush the left.”

For the second presidential election cycle in a row, the corporate Democrats face their ideal opponent -- a racist so brazen and personally repulsive that Blacks and progressives abandon their own historic agendas to make common cause with mass incarcerators, war mongers and job-destroying oligarchs. The formula failed to keep the White House “blue” in 2016, due primarily to the corporate Democrats’ refusal to prevent or punish the Republicans’ massive -- and totally successful -- suppression of Black votes (See Greg Palast .) Although Hillary Clinton was personally humiliated by Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory, her “big tent” strategy succeeded in pulling most of the ruling oligarchy, corporate media, and National Security State firmly into the Democratic camp. This year, by hook and crook, and with Trump as the terrifying Strawman-in-Chief, the corporate Democrats were once again enabled to crush Bernie Sanders, a challenger whose positions on core issues matched those of 70 to 85 percent of the Party’s base.

From the Lords of Capitals’ standpoint, Clinton’s “big tent” strategy has been a huge success. The only potential threats to Big Capital’s continued control of the national agenda emanates, not from Trump -- who gifted the ruling class with its wish-list of tax breaks, Supreme Court justices and capital deregulation without effective resistance from corporate Democrats -- but from the blue party’s electoral base, which has been totally eviscerated as a “resistance” to anything but Trump, and from the Black-led street movement, whose most high profile personalities became Democratic Party players during the Trump years. Even the 20 million-plus George Floyd protests of last June can be viewed largely as an anti-Trump phenomena that will not likely be replicated under a Democratic regime – despite the fact that most highly publicized police murders of Blacks (like this week’s 10-bullet shooting of a mentally-challenged man in Philadelphia)  occur in Democrat-led cities. 

Organized labor pretends the Democrats are a labor party, although it’s run by men like Bezos and Bloomberg, while a big chunk of their white members feel free to vote their race.

“Even the 20 million-plus George Floyd protests of last June can be viewed largely as an anti-Trump phenomena.”

The phony U.S. Left – judged by where they stand, not how they talk – swears they will “confront” a Joe Biden/Kamala Harris regime once the Orange Menace is swept into the dustbin. Bernie Sanders, the national health care advocate who slinked back into the corporate bosom of the Party at the very moment when Covid-19 was proving beyond doubt that the United State has no national health structure, vows to move “forward with an agenda that speaks to the needs of the working people of our country” when Trump is safely gone from the White House. But $50 billionaire Michael Bloomberg, acting on behalf of his fellow super-oligarchs, is now the Financier-in-Chief of the Democrats and, with Nancy Pelosi’s able assistance, will ensure that the Party remains a cemetery for progressive movements. 

After November 3, the Green Party will cease to be an alternative in more states, thanks mainly to Democratic machines that have made it impossible for Greens to remain on the ballot. The cutting edge of the dictatorship of capital is Democratic. The Republicans busy themselves emboldening racists, while the Democrats crush the left.  The young activists of the Movement for a Peoples Party , most of them former Bernie Sanders enthusiasts, can expect the same treatment if they attempt to escape the duopoly’s shackles.

The Democrats have always been equal partners in U.S. imperial wars, but under the Clinton-Biden “big tent” are now indisputably the more aggressive warmongers, chomping at the bit to contain and punish the Russians and Chinese and all nations that hesitate to join in the global offensive begun by Barack Obama in 2011, with his attack on Libya, and then Syria, and then the coup in Ukraine and the “pivot” against China. 

“The Democrats are now indisputably the more aggressive warmongers.”

With Democrats leading the charge, domestic opposition to U.S. imperialism is now equated with treason. Only weeks after the 2016 election, oligarch Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post put Black Agenda Report and twelve other left publications on a blacklist of “dupes” of Russia. The old McCarthyism has become Clintonism, Obamaism, Pelosism, and now Bidenism. (See “Fascism with a Democratic Party Face,” BAR, November 30, 2016,)

The political weakness of the Black street movement is most evident in the behavior of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has voted overwhelmingly to continue the militarization of local police (2014) and to make cops a “protected class,” assaults against whom are now a “hate crime” (2018). The Black Lives Matter movement has not altered the anti-Black, pro-police, pro-mass Black incarceration political behavior of the men and women that represent Black America in Congress, because BLM has failed to target Black Democratic politicians, even when they act en masse against Black interests. Black lives are apparently less important than Black faces in high Democratic places, who need only wear kente cloth on occasion to ward off the young Black legions. The spear is blunted.

Allegiance to the Democratic half of the duopoly – whether active or passive – is still allegiance to corporate rule, not a strategy for transformative change. Both Malcolm X and MLK rejected such a stance. 

“BLM has failed to target Black Democratic politicians, even when they act en mass against Black interests.”

A great sigh of relief will be heard across the land if Trump is ousted in November (or December or January, whenever the dust settles). The Democrats will treat an electoral victory as an endorsement of their policy of never-ending war and austerity (Race to the Bottom), and proof that Joe the Incarcerator and his Black prosecutor sidekick have been vindicated in their life-long predation against Black and poor people.

Since the first year of Obama’s presidency, the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations has marched on the White House to signal its permanent opposition to the rule of rich white men, no matter the complexion of the family in the White House, and eternal commitment to the principle of self-determination of all peoples, including Black people in the United States. In terms of relationships of power, there will be no change of regime as of result of the vote on November 3, and therefore no reason not to mount a “Black People’s March on the White House ” on November 7.

Power to the People! Dismantle the Duopoly!

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .

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