In this US presidential election, votes for ‘lesser-evil’ candidates can be a defense of democracy

I joined the US-based Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign in 2023 because there was no equivalent campaign in Canada, although I have not been actively involved in it.

The campaign’s statement on the 2024 U.S. Elections, reproduced below, corresponds to my own thinking on how socialist solidarity activists should approach the November 5 elections. Because the US election regime is so distorted and undemocratic, the voting formula the campaign advocates applies primarily in the half-dozen “swing” states, the decisive ones in this important election.

The US Left, including those who profess to be revolutionary socialists, are deeply divided in this election. There are some, like my old comrade Cliff Connor, who call for socialists not only to vote for Democrats but to actively campaign for that party’s candidates. Others advocate a boycott of the election and simply issue abstract calls for a non-existent “labor party.” These contrasting positions are illustrated here. And there are some like Kshama Sawant, a well-known West Coast socialist, who are now campaigning for the Greens in order to “punish” Kamala Harris and the Democrats for their support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – although a victory for Trump and the Republicans hardly expresses solidarity with the Palestinians.

The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign’s statement, below, is supplemented by an article by the campaign’s co-chair Cheryl Zuur, available here, outlining in further detail the reasoning behind its approach to the election. Footnotes below are mine. – Richard Fidler

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 Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign Statement on 2024 U.S. Elections

Millions of voters have been looking for a way to keep Trump and his MAGA horde[1] out of the White House. They want to stop Project 2025, male supremacy, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, ethno-nationalism, science denialism, Putin apologetics, and ridiculous conspiracist ideas that are the basis for MAGA. All socialists should welcome that. There is only one candidate that can keep Trump out of the White House this year - Kamala Harris. The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign (USSC) endorses the following points:

• The Republican Party of today is fundamentally different from what it was in the past. They are openly working to turn the United States from a multi-party bourgeois democracy into an authoritarian single-party regime. This makes the GOP qualitatively different from today’s Democratic Party, which is not advocating a single-party authoritarian regime but rather maintaining the status quo, as flawed, genocidal, and unjust as that is.
• The Republicans are openly taking aim at, and vastly stepping up repression, disabling, and death of, multiple oppressed groups/identities in ways far more dangerous than either party did in the past.
• The Trump/Vance team is politically connected and theoretically aligned with multiple far right authoritarians around the world.
• Socialists and the left in general on principle must defend all historic left political gains represented in democratic rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to vote. 
• Socialists and the left in general must play a central role in helping build a movement to stop the GOP, MAGA, and the Thiel/Silicon Valley neo-reactionary “NRx” New Right.[2]

Behind the MAGA base stand strategists like Mike Flynn and Stephen Bannon and behind them are the billionaire fascistic ideologues, first and foremost Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin (who are the sponsors of JD Vance). They openly advocate strong man and even fascistic rule. In their world, anybody who doesn’t “contribute” is simply done away with, and the government is under total one-person authoritarian control. They even advocate eugenics.[3]

Trump and his party do not hide their intention to steal this election so the Trump regime can take power. This amounts to an overthrow of a basic democratic right — the very right to vote in public elections. The MAGA base openly advocates violence and retribution if their candidate is not “elected”.

It is an insurmountable contradiction for the so-called left to first minimize the differences between today’s Democrats and the MAGA Republicans and then turn around and call for organizing to resist MAGA. That is why the “left” is doing nothing serious to build a resistance.

In addition to the Trump regime taking power, the MAGA base openly advocates violence and retribution if their candidate is not “elected”. No one knows what will happen at BIPOC[4] voting polls in November and after. 

Harris and the Democrats are not talking about it much, other than Biden’s too little too late proposed SCOTUS reforms, but they know that the MAGA campaign intends, through its manipulation of the state electors, to throw the electoral results to the SCOTUS [Supreme Court], who will appoint Trump as supreme leader.

To repeat: The only candidate who can keep Trump out of the White House is Kamala Harris. However, we must have no illusions in Harris and the Democrats:

1. Harris, like the rest of her party, is committed to arming and supporting Israel. This means participating in Israel’s genocidal crimes against humanity. Any support for Harris, if it is serious about liberation, must at the same time oppose her and her party’s support for Israel. At the same time, we should note that Trump would be far worse for the Palestinian cause.
2. The Biden/Harris administration has been extremely hesitant to arm Ukraine. That country should have been getting and should now get all the arms it needs, when it needs them, and with no strings attached. We should insist that Harris reject Biden’s unjustifiably cautious, go-slow approach to supporting Ukraine. Stop sending arms to Israel, send them to Ukraine instead!
3. Within the labor movement many union leaders argue that we must not go on strike during an election because that will harm the Democrats. We reject that idea, especially now. Any labor struggle increases the class consciousness of workers, tends to bring them together, and puts all capitalist politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, on the defensive.
4. The election of Democrats in 2024 will slow down but not stop MAGA. That movement arose out of the contradictions of capitalism itself. What is needed is an independent movement of the working class, a movement that mobilizes workers and the oppressed in the streets, the work places and even in the unions to oppose the MAGA movement, starting with the MAGA threats to overturn this year’s elections. Such a working class movement could and should ultimately lead to the development of a mass working class party.

Conclusion: The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign was the first Ukraine solidarity group in the world to support Palestine. We are the only Ukraine solidarity group that openly advocates uniting all struggles against oppression and far right authoritarianism. Such struggles should not stop at the borders to the United States. Our support includes stopping Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that Ukraine’s present government is led by the neoliberal Zelensky. It also includes when the defeat of authoritarianism means putting or keeping a capitalist politician in power, (such as Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma/Myanmar, despite the fact that she participated in the murderous repression of the Rohingya people) because we recognize it is better to live and organize under bourgeois democracy than authoritarian conditions.

Socialists and the left generally should support and join any movement to stop MAGA and the Silicon Valley-led New Right both during and after the 2024 elections. That is not limited to but does include keeping Trump out of the White House in 2024.

The only candidates who can stop the MAGA Republicans from gaining office are the Democrats, and the Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign advocates voting for them. That is especially so since the only two “left” candidates (Jill Stein and Cornel West) apologize for Putin and advocate establishing the conditions which will lead to the victory of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Such a victory will encourage a wave of reaction and authoritarianism around the world, including in the United States. It will be easier for the working class to build its own movement under capitalist democracy than under the right wing authoritarianism that Trump would install.

 

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[1] “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), the refrain of Trump’s Republican party.

[2] “NRx” New Right: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets.

[3] The Trump-Vance campaign’s content is illustrated here: “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism,” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/trump-msg-rally.html.

[4] BIPOC: Black, Indigenous and People of Color.