Today, all eyes are on the USA, the self-proclaimed ‘world’s policeman’, as millions of American voters head to the polls to elect their next president.
In the red corner is Donald Trump: a maverick Republican demagogue, seeking a second term on the basis of a programme of economic nationalism and ‘America First’ isolationism, combined with a repertoire of bombastic – but hollow – anti-establishment rhetoric.
In the blue corner is Kamala Harris, swapped in as the Democrat candidate at the last minute, after Joe Biden failed one too many times to string together a coherent sentence.
To learn more about the perspectives for class struggle in the USA following the election, come to Revolution Festival in London from 15-17 November, where Antonio Balmer of the Revolutionary Communists of America will be speaking on ‘Crisis in the USA: The next chapter’.
Harris has been lauded by liberal pundits as the dynamic ‘lesser evil’. Meanwhile, establishment figures – from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, to Republican grandees like Dick Cheney – have lined up behind her.
Currently, both candidates are neck and neck. But we can already predict the results of this election globally: whoever wins, we lose.
The USA is the world’s biggest imperialist power. It is the most reactionary force on the planet, responsible for leaving behind a trail of death and destruction in its wake, as it brutally secures and protects its markets and profits.
As with all elections in the belly of the beast, no matter what small, superficial differences exist in their policies or promises, neither candidate will provide for workers, in America or beyond.
The Democrats and Republicans are united in staunchly serving the interests of US capitalism, both at home and in terms of imperialist meddling abroad.
Whether it be Harris or Trump, the 47th President of the United States will oversee untold misery for billions worldwide.
Both will be warmongers, fuelling the conflict in the Middle East. Both will pursue protectionism, particularly against China, with workers everywhere shouldering the costs.
And both will implement attacks on the American working class, in order to reduce US capitalism’s staggering mountain of debt.
Should Trump reenter the White House, he is more than likely to back his old friend Netanyahu as he expands his war into Lebanon and Iran.
Likewise, Harris – for all that she has tried to ‘soften’ the Democrats’ tone over Palestine, in order to win back voters hemorrhaged by Genocide Joe over the last year – has said that she will continue her “unwavering commitment” to Israel should she come to power.
Maintaining its economic and military position is putting a colossal strain on the US. And growing instability in the global economy and in world relations is only adding to this pressure.
But it is the working class that will bear the burden, as the US ruling class looks to uphold its power and profits internationally.
Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, in possession of the keys to a staggering nuclear arsenal, the USA’s proposed military budget for 2025 rests at a minimum of $850 billion. For comparison, ending global hunger would cost a mere $40 billion annually.
The future for US and world capitalism is one of turmoil and crisis. And neither Donald Trump’s reactionary ‘populism’ nor Kamala Harris’ so-called ‘lesser-evil’ establishment politics offers any solution.
The only way forward for workers and youth – in America, Britain, and worldwide – is to fight for revolution: to wage a class war against all the imperialist warmongers, and overthrow this barbaric capitalist system once and for all.
Third parties blocked from the ballot
Katya Turchin, Reading
As a US citizen living in the UK, I was able to cast my vote in this election. When my ballot arrived however I found that only Harris’ and Trump’s names appeared.
63 percent of US adults think that a third major party is necessary. Yet New York’s Democrats shamefully passed a law barring independents from ballot access by tripling the number of voters’ signatures required.
Third parties in the US are already suppressed, but this has been especially pernicious this election, with independents and third-party candidates removed from multiple states’ ballots, including socialist candidate Claudia De la Cruz in Democrat-held Pennsylvania.
‘Progressive’ congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, used her platform to denounce Jill Stein and the Greens. Even the European Greens turned on Stein, calling on her to drop out and endorse Harris. With friends like these, eh?
De la Cruz, Stein, and independent Cornel West announced a coalition, encouraging supporters in states where they were blocked to vote for whomever made it onto the ballot.
But with record early voting turnout, and pressure to vote for the ‘lesser evil’, this move will have come too late to make any real difference.
That being said, it’s a positive sign that independents are prepared to form a united front against the two-party system.
Yet, third-party candidates face an uphill battle even if elected. Their proposed reforms cannot address the crisis of US capitalism.
Their most radical-sounding policies would be reduced to nothing by the time they make it through the cheese-grater of Congress with the influence of corporate and religious lobbyists.
And that’s not even mentioning the inevitable legal loopholes that can be exploited by the ruling class, by appealing to unelected-for-life Supreme Court judges.
The widely-unpopular overturning of Roe v. Wade – and the Democrats’ repeated refusal to codify reproductive rights for over 50 years – shows that the US legislative system does not reflect the interests of the majority, but only that of the propertied class.
Real change will not come through the ballot box or through writing reforms into the Constitution, but through the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois American state.
Choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea
Lubbna Iqbal, Stratford
Spare a thought for the 3.45 million Muslims living in the US who are faced with the unenviable task of choosing between Donald Trump, with his previous Muslim ban policy, and Kamala Harris, who has overseen genocide in Gaza and now Lebanon.
If ever they could give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, that time has long gone. Muslims voted overwhelmingly for Biden’s Democrats in 2020, as they were then seen as the ‘lesser evil’.
Their actions over the past year, where Muslim American family members in the Middle East have been killed in the genocidal war, have turned them into a greater evil, and are no longer trusted.
Kamala Harris – desperately appealing to the Michigan voters, a state with 240,000 registered Muslim voters – has said that she plans “to do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza.”
This is a war that she has supported from the very beginning. A war where she and Biden have lavished billions of dollars on Netanyahu’s war machine, which has declared open season on Gaza and Lebanon, and who knows where it will end?
To believe that Harris will now go against the policy of supporting Israel and ending the war in Gaza is believed by nobody! Remember, this is Kamala Harris, who at the Democratic National Convention, refused to have a single Palestinian or Muslim speaker.
Neither party is appealing for the average Muslim voter, who is thoroughly disillusioned. A sizable number are considering Trump as the lesser evil. Many are turning to a third party candidate Jill Stein, whilst others will just stay home.
