| Total number of voting age adults as of 7/1/2023, according to the Census Bureau | 262,083,034 |
| Total number of registered voters in 2022 per Statista | 161,420,000 (61.6% of voting age adults) |
| Total number of votes for Trump as of 7am 11/6/24 | 71,173,126 (27.2% of voting age adults, 44.1% of registered voters) |
| Total number of votes for Harris as of 7am 11/6/24 | 66,227,894 (25.3% of voting age adults, 41% of registered voters) |
There was no real choice for working-class people between the two capitalist parties, despite all the money and resources put into propaganda designed to get people to vote for them. The 2024 federal elections have been “… the most expensive in history, even when adjusting for inflation… The record-breaking spending… has been driven by super PACs allied with both major party candidates — and fueled by dark money from anonymous sources.” [Opensecrets.org]
“U.S. billionaires are playing a larger role than ever in the 2024 presidential election. … Between January 2023 and Oct. 30 of this year, the Harris campaign raised a total of $998 million, reported Forbes. That includes cash raised during the Biden campaign. In the same time period, the Trump campaign raised $392 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings. … At least 83 billionaires – two of them centibillionaires with a net worth of more than $100 billion each – are supporting Harris, while 52 billionaires, one a centibillionaire, back Trump. Of the three centibillionaires, Musk supports Trump. Bill Gates of Microsoft and businessman and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg back Kamala Harris.”https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/11/04/billionaires-backing-trump-harris-2024/75936100007/
The billionaire class would not be backing both candidates and their parties if they didn’t expect similar results in terms of basic economic, social, and military policies. But a majority of corporate owners seemed to prefer Harris as a more stable choice over Trump. However it is now brutally clear that Harris and the Democrats are not capable of defeating Trump, Trumpism, or the far right.
Democrats’ Losing Record Against Trumpism
The clear corporate nature of Harris and the Democrats is one major factor for the nearly 100 million registered voters who did not vote for her. Harris has often said “I’m a capitalist,” not only during this campaign but also earlier in her career while cementing her place within capitalist politics. In this election campaign, she took the money and ran, centering her campaign strategy mostly on “not being Trump”, with some tepid liberal populism thrown in. Harris’ campaign tried to portray Trump as the greater evil and exploit the court cases and rulings against him. Trump’s vicious attacks on immigrants, sexist actions and insults, thinly-veiled racism, as well as his personal attacks on Harris, were all used by the Democrats in their “lesser-evil” arsenal.
However, Harris offered few reasons for working people to vote for her. Though she’d previously campaigned in 2019 on ending fracking, she reiterated in speeches in 2024 that she wouldn’t ban fracking. Despite running with Biden in 2020 on closing border camps and the border wall, she spoke this election cycle of being tough on immigration. She promised to build up the military, and in the eleventh hour before election day, finally stated her support for an increase of the federal minimum wage but only to a meager $15/hr. Fundamentally, her campaign offered little different from Trump in terms of policies that would immediately address the crises in cost-of-living, housing, healthcare, childcare, and education that working people face. Beneath their speeches and spin, both Harris and Trump, along with their parties, are funded by corporate interests and have similar core policies in defense of capitalism and imperialism.
Harris welcomed the endorsement of former Republican Vice President and war criminal Dick Cheney. She campaigned with Liz Cheney who voted with Trump 93% of her time as a senator in Congress. Harris praised John McCain and enthusiastically accepted the endorsement of over 100 former Republican officials from previous presidential administrations including Reagan’s. Harris also promised to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if elected.
After Biden and Harris were elected in 2020, the new administration continued many of Trump’s presidential policies on immigration, tariffs, sanctions on Cuba, support for Saudi Arabia, record amounts of military spending, and most obviously, Trump’s support for the Israeli state and repression against Palestinians. After October 7th, 2023 the Biden/Harris regime doubled down on arming and defending the genocidal policies of the Israeli state, including the Israeli military invasion and occupation of Gaza which has killed at least 43,000 and wounded over 100,000 overwhelmingly civilians, many women and children. Threats of the Republicans’ worsening Israeli state policies in Gaza rang hollow when the casualties continued to mount in Gaza and the conflict continued to spread. The Democrats have also gone farther than Trump with some immigration policies, playing an active part in whipping up xenophobia against working-class immigrants as a scapegoat for the failures of capitalism.
The Clinton, Obama, and Biden/Harris administrations all had Democratic Party control of the Presidency and Congress and promised to pass a federal law guaranteeing abortion rights. All three broke their promises and deliberately refused to push for a nationwide abortion rights law.
The Working Class can Defeat the Trump Administration!
The right-wing politics of Trump and the Republican Party are well known, clearly demonstrated by their record in office from 2016-2020, and their rhetoric and actions before and since. Project 2025—the latest in the long line of conservative playbooks by right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation—outlines some of the attacks workers and youth are likely to face under the new administration.
If we get organized, we can put the new administration on the defensive and not only stop right-wing attacks but win reforms through mass protests and strike actions against the Trump administration. The recent support for and energy around the labor movement has the potential to go on the offensive with more union organizing drives, strikes, and union-led protests. The women’s movement, anti-racist movement, and others need to be reignited. Mass protests against the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza and its other neighbors can be reinvigorated. Locally and regionally, coordinating bodies should be set up to democratically organize action and mobilize members of left, progressive, and labor organizations, as well as the broader working class and youth.
We Can’t Wait, Build a Mass Movement To Fight for What Workers Need!
Consumer prices are up 21% on average compared to January 2020, with food, housing, and transportation seeing the largest price hikes. Meanwhile, “labor’s’ share of corporate profits” (i.e. wages) has continued to decline, reaching 55.8% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 64.1% in 2001. Capitalists try to paint small wage growth as the cause of inflation, but corporate profits drove 34% of inflation since 2019. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25/hr since 2009.
Many union workforces have seen massive cuts to wages and benefits over the last five decades—including the removal of pensions. Union density dipped in 2023 to 10%, the lowest in almost 100 years. Nearly 700,000 workers have been laid off in 2024 so far, the highest year-to date-total since 2020, when 2 million workers lost their jobs in the first 10 months. New jobs being added to the economy are mostly low paying, and many workers need multiple precarious jobs in order to scrape by.
Workers, meanwhile, increasingly rely on household debt to deal with the increased cost of living. 37% of Americans report paying a late fee over the last year. 10.93% of credit card accounts are delinquent by more than 90 days, the highest share since 2012. Student debt accounts for 9% of all household debt. Total student debt continues to set new records every year, reaching $1.75 trillion in 2024, up $517 billion since 2014. Private healthcare is literally killing people and mass medical debt in the U.S. is a chronic problem.
Real-estate speculation has driven the price of buying a new home up 47% since the beginning of the pandemic, requiring workers to take on even larger amounts of debt to “afford” a home. Rents have also been driven up 30% from pre-pandemic levels to an average of $1,988 per month. The percentage of cost-burdened renters—those who spend more than 30% of their income on rent—hit an all-time high of 50%. Predictably, homelessness has also hit an all-time high of at least 653,000 people.
The number of immigrants in detention centers has reached its highest level ever at almost 38,500, more than double the number when Biden took office. Police have killed over 1,000 people in 2024 so far. Violence against LGBTQ+ people continues. Abortion access for women continues to be attacked.
As working people in North Carolina and Appalachia attempt to rebuild and pick up the debris left by Hurricane Helene, it is clear that the state of the environment is dire and becoming more desperate every year. Last year, 2023, was the hottest on record since record keeping began in 1880. Trump and the right-wing will certainly attempt to worsen these conditions and the Democratic Party will accommodate to the Republicans in power, as they always do.
Workers have the power to fight for immediate action on all these fronts, regardless of which corporate party holds the majority in government or when the next elections are scheduled. The need for the labor movement and broader working class to go on the offensive for workers’ interests is clear. However, without a workers’ party and a strategy to challenge the Democrats and Republicans in future elections, we will be fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.
No Way Forward Voting For Democrats! Time For Something New: Build a Workers’ Party!
It’s high time for labor unions and the pro-Democrat “left” to abandon the clearly failed “strategy” of supporting the Democratic Party. Voting Democrat hasn’t stopped the decades-long decline of wages and union membership, reversed neoliberal attacks on public services, or prevented the growing crisis of the environment, debt, housing, and more, even when it resulted in a Democratic president, Congress, or both. Voting Democrat didn’t codify abortion rights or protect Roe v. Wade. Voting Democrat hasn’t defeated the right-wing either. Reagan and Bush Sr. followed Carter, Bush Jr. followed Clinton, and now Trump has followed both Obama and Biden. By all measures the “strategy” of voting for Democrats has failed.
In the coming months, the Democratic Party will undoubtedly try to influence and hijack any mass protest movements. It will attempt to limit protests, protect the capitalist political system, and channel working-class anger into a call to vote Democrat in 2026. The Democratic Party has twice been defeated by Trump, and during the Biden presidency it failed to address any of the conditions that Trump and the populist right exploit to try and build support. There will be no effective resistance to Trump and the right by the Democratic Party. There is no way forward for the working class and the left through the Democratic Party.
ISG calls on all left, progressive, and labor organizations to organize now to run and support independent candidates in 2026, and to immediately begin discussing with each other in order to form a democratic, membership-based labor or workers’ party to help lead protests and run against the Democrats and Republicans. The Independent Socialist Group is committed to continuing to work with left Greens, socialists, and anyone else interested in organizing independent political action and building an independent party for the working class and youth. The Trump regime and the right can be defeated in the workplaces, in the streets, and in electoral politics by building a workers’ party with a socialist program.
