Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Youth on the Streets and Workers on the Frontlines Need Their Own Party

In the face of a pandemic and an economic crisis, the protests are providing hope to people across the United States and the world. Yet who will speak for the protesters? The Democratic Party wants people to leave the streets and return to their homes. That is why we need a party of our own.

Nathaniel Flakin

June 4, 2020
Facebook Twitter Share

For more than a week, young people have been taking to the streets across the United States. They are facing down police tanks, military helicopters, and undemocratic curfews.  

Before that, frontline healthcare workers showed the same courage. While the government let the Covid-19 pandemic rage, they worked around the clock to save lives, and even confronted right-wing extremists.

Both the rebelling youth and the frontline healthcare workers are giving hope to poor and working people in the face of a pandemic and an historic economic crisis. Even though Donald Trump might have heavily armed troops at his command, these vanguard sectors are showing that people can fight back.

Yet the protests are largely spontaneous and without structures. So the question arises: how will this vanguard get organized to raise the movement to a new level?

Democrats Are Not Our Party

The Democratic Party would like to be seen as the voice of protests against racism. But what are Democratic politicians actually doing? It is largely politicians with a D behind their name who are imposing curfews and militarizing cities. Concretely: 

Some might remember the Obama presidency with fondness when compared with the daily racist outrage emanating from the White House today. Yet Obama did not only deport more people from the U.S. than all previous presidents combined — police killings actually went up during his presidency, which explains why the Ferguson protests and Black Lives Matter started on his watch. Biden has consistently stood by the legacy of Obama and refused to criticize the former president’s actions and policies. 

Power of Workers

The protests sweeping the U.S. are not yet massive — there are tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands on the streets. But they have the clear support of the majority of the U.S. population.

These protests have been enough to throw the ruling class into a panic. In the nation’s capital, the government deploys military helicopters in the same way it did against insurgents in occupied Iraq.  What would happen if all the people who supported the protests started taking the streets and, perhaps more importantly, withholding their labor power?

We have already seen small examples of the power of the working class, such as when bus drivers in Minneapolis and New York refused to work with the police. In an inspiring example, working people in Minneapolis turned a Sheraton hotel that was going to be evacuated into a home for the homeless.  

How can we turn this overwhelming energy into political power? The Democrats are saying we need to go home and wait for the elections — they will attempt to co-opt leaders of the movement and turn them into servile representatives of the existing system. In this way, a few individuals from oppressed groups might get high-paying seats in Congress, and from there will call on people to accept things the way they are.

A Party of Our Own

To make real changes, the working class needs its own political party, independent from both the Republican and the Democratic wings of the bourgeoisie. Decades of talk about “reforms” have only served to show that the police cannot be reformed. Police are a structurally racist institution created to protect the capitalists’ property and power. The only way to end police violence is to abolish the police and expropriate the capitalists.

For that, we need our own party, launched by the rebelling youth and frontline workers, especially the brave workers in the healthcare sector. This would not be a capitalist party that sits idly in Congress. It would be a socialist party on the front lines of every struggle. It would provide a democratic structure to organize and connect the different protests. Because ultimately, we do not just want to express our rage at the capitalist system — we want to win.

The party we need would not be about seeking reforms by compromising with the parties of the exploiters. Rather, it would be a party struggling against the entire system of exploitation and oppression. Such a party might run in elections and take seats in Congress. But the point of this would not be “reaching across the aisle” to craft legislation. Instead, it would mean using the platform of an office to denounce every racist injustice the capitalist system can offer, and joining those mobilizing in the streets.

For the last 50 years, the Democratic Party has been able to co-opt movements against racism, promising that change will be possible by working inside a bourgeois party. The result of the Democrats’ “reforms” speak for themselves — the racist nightmare of U.S. capitalism continues. If we want to change things today, we need to build a party of our own.

Facebook Twitter Share

Nathaniel Flakin

Nathaniel is a freelance journalist and historian from Berlin. He is on the editorial board of Left Voice and our German sister site Klasse Gegen Klasse. Nathaniel, also known by the nickname Wladek, has written a biography of Martin Monath, a Trotskyist resistance fighter in France during World War II, which has appeared in German, in English, and in French. He is on the autism spectrum.

Instagram

United States

Joe Biden Is Deporting Russians Who Escaped Putin’s Draft — Let Them All In!

The United States is deporting Russians who sought asylum following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is a heinous attack against war resisters and shows that the proxy war in Ukraine is about capitalist rivalry first and foremost.

Sam Carliner

March 26, 2023

20 Years Since the U.S. Invasion of Iraq: A Reflection from a Socialist in the Heart of Imperialism

A Left Voice member and anti-war activist reflects on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and how he learned to hate U.S. imperialism.

Sam Carliner

March 20, 2023

Train Derailment in Metro Detroit Illustrates That Capitalist Control of the Railroads Is Fundamentally Unsafe

With the capitalists in control of the railroads, they will destroy the environment and poison and kill workers. The catastrophe in East Palestine will not be the last if we don’t nationalize our railroads and put the safety of people and the environment over profit.

Emma Boyhtari

February 28, 2023
East Palestine, Ohio in the distance at night, smoke and fire springing up due to the train derailment.

The Ohio Train Disaster Is on Biden’s Hands

Just months after President Biden and Congress blocked railway workers from striking over dangerous working conditions, the exact type of disaster that workers predicted has come to pass. The fate of East Palestine must be a wake-up call for the labor and climate movements to fight for the nationalization of the railroads under workers’ control.

B.C. Daurelle

February 15, 2023

MOST RECENT

A group of protesters, in the front of whom are a line of protesters wearing red vests. In the front right corner, a white sign reds "vive la retraite," with a skeleton wearing a red hat in the middle of the sign on a black background with a text bubble on its left that reads, "oiv a bosse, c'est pas pour en crever!"

“French March”: The Right to Revolutionary Optimism

Evoking memories of '68, the students enter the fight against Macron. In our chaotic world, the future can only be built in the streets.

Eduardo Castillo

March 26, 2023

On Monday, Germany Will Experience a “Mega-Strike”

On March 27, German railway workers and public sector employees will shut down the whole country. All trains are being canceled. Airports, freeways, hospitals, and daycare centers will all be affected.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 25, 2023

France: On the Frontlines of the War Against Austerity

The French masses have raised the banner of class struggle in what is becoming the first major battle against austerity after the pandemic. Working people across the world should pay attention.

James Dennis Hoff

March 25, 2023

Despite Threats of Arrest, Refinery Workers in France Refuse to Break Strike

As energy strikes continue, France is faced with a kerosene shortage that’s creating an urgent situation at the country’s airports. With capitalist profits on the line, the government has attempted to force Normandy refinery workers back to work through an anti-strike legal weapon called requisitions. In their first victory, refinery workers forced the police to withdraw in an incredible demonstration of solidarity.

Nathan Erderof

March 24, 2023