Here we go again. Another U.S Presidential Election and new false dilemmas are presented before the American people. Following a fierce pre-election period in a polarized political environment, U.S voters are called to choose between the two contestants: Kamala Harris or Donald Trump?
The battle between Harris and Trump, like all previous electoral battles between presidential candidates, isn't a personal one. It's purely political. Trump and Harris represent sectors of the big capital and their fight reflects the aggravation of the intra-bourgeois competition in the United States. It is a competition that is taking place in a period of significant changes within the global imperialist system itself, when the U.S monopoly capital struggles to maintain its primacy against the rapidly growing economic influence of China.
A look at the top donors of the two presidential campaigns is indicative of the fierce rivalry that is taking place in the backstage between large monopoly groups. According to Forbes, 83 billionaires have endorsed Harris while 52 endorsed Trump.
It is once again clear that the confrontation between the Democrats and the Republicans, the two parties which have dominated the governmental power in the U.S for more than 150 years, has nothing to do, even remotely, with the contemporary needs of the people. Like their predecessors, Trump and Harris are engaged in a battle of who is going to serve better the interests of the capitalist establishment. Regardless of their rhetoric and existing particular differences, both candidates are strategically aligned in the major issues: Advancement of the U.S imperialist foreign policy despite the different recipes (e.g. War in Ukraine), new anti-worker policies and exploitation of the working masses in favor of the profitability of large corporations and business groups, deepening of social inequalities as a result of their determination to serve the capitalist development.
Writing about the 1912 U.S Presidential Election, Lenin was pointing out the diminishing distinction between the major political forces in the United States, namely the Democrats (Woodrow Wilson), the Progressives (Theodore Roosevelt) and the Republicans (William Howard Taft): “Their fight has not had any serious importance for the mass of the people. The people have been deceived and diverted from their vital interests by means of spectacular and meaningless duels between the two bourgeois parties”. Lenin's words could perfectly describe today's electoral battle between Trump and Harris, Republicans and Democrats.
According to Lenin, the bipartisan system which prevailed in both the U.S and Great Britain “has been one of the most powerful means of preventing the rise of an independent working class, i.e., genuine socialist party”. The flawed notion of the “lesser evil”, which unfortunately has been officially adopted by the Communist Party USA, leads to the entrapment of working class masses in this two-party system. The so-called “Forward Together” of CPUSA sets as a priority “the defeat of MAGA fascism and Republicans’ Project 2025 agenda as the primary task of its participation in the 2024 elections”. Once again, the necessity for the independent political struggle of the communists is subjugated in the name of the “lesser evil”, thus establishing the CPUSA as a political accessory of the Democratic Party.
Trump is certainly a repulsive, hate mongering and ultra-reactionary political figure who uses a far-right, populist rhetoric in order to arouse the most conservative instincts of U.S society. However, as his 2017-2021 term in the White House showed, he is just another bourgeois political leader whose fundamental aim is identical with the one of his Democratic counterparts: The stability of the capitalist system and the perpetuation of the monopoly capital's hegemony. Only when this hegemony trembles or faces an actual danger, the capital resorts to openly fascist, dictatorial modes of governance, such as the historical examples of Hitler, Franco and Pinochet.
Those who detest Trump and his right-wing populist rhetoric must not fall victims of Kamala Harris' outwardly progressive words. For example, Barack Obama's electoral victory in 2009 was accompanied by numerous hopes for a better, supposedly pro-worker and pro-peace, administration but ultimately led to huge disappointment for millions of people. Despite their progressive slogans and seductive rhetoric, Obama and Biden escalated anti-worker offensive and expanded U.S imperialist interventions throughout the world. They were considered the “lesser evil” which, however, led to new, extraordinary evils, like the imperialist wars in Syria, Libya and Ukraine.
The current political situation in the United States confirms the observation of journalist and historian Ferdinand Lundberg in his 1968 work “The Rich and the Super-Rich”: “The United States can be looked upon as having, in effect, a single party: the Property Party”, with its two subdivisions: The Republican Party and the Democratic Party”.
This “Property Party”, the party of the capitalists, must be rejected by the millions of U.S working class families. Because, we all know that neither Harris nor Trump will ever defend or promote the interests of the working men and women.
The highly anticipated “change” that millions of progressive Americans are seeking for, will not come from the ballot box of November 5th. There is only one actual hope for the working people in the United States and that hope lies in the organization of the struggle against the real opponent, that is the exploitative capitalist system. Who can lead and organize this struggle? Only a vanguard Communist Party, free from the shackles of "lesser evilism" and based on solid marxist-leninist principles. Until then, the words of William Z. Foster written in 1947 (American Trade Unionism, International Publishers, 1947) describe what must be done, here and now: “While seeking to build the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party the Communists have also tirelessly …urged the masses to organize a broad party, composed of the labor movement, farmers, the Negro people, professionals, small businessmen, and other democratic elements.”
It is once again clear that the confrontation between the Democrats and the Republicans, the two parties which have dominated the governmental power in the U.S for more than 150 years, has nothing to do, even remotely, with the contemporary needs of the people. Like their predecessors, Trump and Harris are engaged in a battle of who is going to serve better the interests of the capitalist establishment. Regardless of their rhetoric and existing particular differences, both candidates are strategically aligned in the major issues: Advancement of the U.S imperialist foreign policy despite the different recipes (e.g. War in Ukraine), new anti-worker policies and exploitation of the working masses in favor of the profitability of large corporations and business groups, deepening of social inequalities as a result of their determination to serve the capitalist development.
Writing about the 1912 U.S Presidential Election, Lenin was pointing out the diminishing distinction between the major political forces in the United States, namely the Democrats (Woodrow Wilson), the Progressives (Theodore Roosevelt) and the Republicans (William Howard Taft): “Their fight has not had any serious importance for the mass of the people. The people have been deceived and diverted from their vital interests by means of spectacular and meaningless duels between the two bourgeois parties”. Lenin's words could perfectly describe today's electoral battle between Trump and Harris, Republicans and Democrats.
According to Lenin, the bipartisan system which prevailed in both the U.S and Great Britain “has been one of the most powerful means of preventing the rise of an independent working class, i.e., genuine socialist party”. The flawed notion of the “lesser evil”, which unfortunately has been officially adopted by the Communist Party USA, leads to the entrapment of working class masses in this two-party system. The so-called “Forward Together” of CPUSA sets as a priority “the defeat of MAGA fascism and Republicans’ Project 2025 agenda as the primary task of its participation in the 2024 elections”. Once again, the necessity for the independent political struggle of the communists is subjugated in the name of the “lesser evil”, thus establishing the CPUSA as a political accessory of the Democratic Party.
Trump is certainly a repulsive, hate mongering and ultra-reactionary political figure who uses a far-right, populist rhetoric in order to arouse the most conservative instincts of U.S society. However, as his 2017-2021 term in the White House showed, he is just another bourgeois political leader whose fundamental aim is identical with the one of his Democratic counterparts: The stability of the capitalist system and the perpetuation of the monopoly capital's hegemony. Only when this hegemony trembles or faces an actual danger, the capital resorts to openly fascist, dictatorial modes of governance, such as the historical examples of Hitler, Franco and Pinochet.
Those who detest Trump and his right-wing populist rhetoric must not fall victims of Kamala Harris' outwardly progressive words. For example, Barack Obama's electoral victory in 2009 was accompanied by numerous hopes for a better, supposedly pro-worker and pro-peace, administration but ultimately led to huge disappointment for millions of people. Despite their progressive slogans and seductive rhetoric, Obama and Biden escalated anti-worker offensive and expanded U.S imperialist interventions throughout the world. They were considered the “lesser evil” which, however, led to new, extraordinary evils, like the imperialist wars in Syria, Libya and Ukraine.
The current political situation in the United States confirms the observation of journalist and historian Ferdinand Lundberg in his 1968 work “The Rich and the Super-Rich”: “The United States can be looked upon as having, in effect, a single party: the Property Party”, with its two subdivisions: The Republican Party and the Democratic Party”.
This “Property Party”, the party of the capitalists, must be rejected by the millions of U.S working class families. Because, we all know that neither Harris nor Trump will ever defend or promote the interests of the working men and women.
The highly anticipated “change” that millions of progressive Americans are seeking for, will not come from the ballot box of November 5th. There is only one actual hope for the working people in the United States and that hope lies in the organization of the struggle against the real opponent, that is the exploitative capitalist system. Who can lead and organize this struggle? Only a vanguard Communist Party, free from the shackles of "lesser evilism" and based on solid marxist-leninist principles. Until then, the words of William Z. Foster written in 1947 (American Trade Unionism, International Publishers, 1947) describe what must be done, here and now: “While seeking to build the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party the Communists have also tirelessly …urged the masses to organize a broad party, composed of the labor movement, farmers, the Negro people, professionals, small businessmen, and other democratic elements.”
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.
