Workers, oppressed peoples & the midterm elections

Most political pundits and leading corporate-oriented publications are predicting significant gains by right-wing Republican candidates across the United States in the midterm elections taking place Nov. 2. This possible shift in power within ruling-class politics is attributed to two main factors: the so-called conservative backlash as represented by the Tea Party and the lack of enthusiasm among key constituents within the African-American and Latino/a communities, as well as among working women, who voted overwhelming for the Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008.

A report issued Oct. 14 by the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which focuses on social research involving African Americans and other people of color, indicates that if the voters within these demographic groups come out in large numbers, the Democratic Party can maintain its majorities within both the House and the Senate.

Various media outlets have carried stories that reflect the widespread disenchantment with the Obama administration and the 111th Congress for their failure to enact policies that create jobs, keep working people in their homes, and provide universal health care and quality education to youth.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies report begins by noting: “There is widespread agreement that the Democrats — after major gains in 2006 and 2008 — are poised to lose a significant number of U.S. House and Senate seats in the 2010 election, largely because of high unemployment and a generally poor economy. It is also widely felt that the extent of those losses will have a major impact on the Obama administration’s ability to pursue its goals through 2012.”

In real terms the social conditions of African Americans have worsened over the last two years. U.S. Census data revealed that overall the poverty rate in the U.S. stands officially at 15 percent of the population, amounting to 44 million people. However, for African Americans the official poverty rate is 25.8 percent, which is approximately 10.5 million people out of a total of 42 million.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies report points to the strategic geographic locations where African Americans reside that make their participation key to the fortunes of the Democratic Party. “The Black population is not a nationally distributed one; rather, it is concentrated in less than half of the states and in about one-quarter of the U.S. congressional districts in the country.”

As a result of the relatively concentrated distribution of African Americans in the U.S., “There have been several midterm elections in the past 45 years (since the Voting Rights Act was passed) when there were few competitive elections in the states and districts where African Americans lived.”

The study recounts numerous elections, such as in 1986, 1998 and 2008, when the African-American vote was the determining factor in changing the political makeup of the U.S. Congress and the White House.

The current uncertainty over the degree of voter turnout among African Americans and other key constituents that put Barack Obama in the White House with a sizable majority, is clearly a reflection of the inability of the Democratic Party to address the concrete conditions emanating from the national and class oppression that has shaped the political and economic system in the U.S.

Other oppressed groups and women have also been targeted in the attempt to maintain Democratic Party control over the Congress. Obama visited the state of Washington on Oct. 21 in a last-minute effort to energize women voters.

The economic crisis that erupted in 2007 has rendered 8.4 million more people without jobs, serving to reinforce existing inequalities based on race, gender and social class. This loss of jobs, coupled with multitrillion-dollar bank and corporate bailouts, along with the ever rising Pentagon budget, have robbed the majority of people in the U.S. of a stable life and secure future.

Among the youth, who have the highest unemployment rate in the country, particularly among the oppressed nations, a recent CBS Knowledge Networks poll indicated that although 84 percent of those who voted for Obama who are under 30 approved of his job performance, only 44 percent said they would go to the polls. At the same time a Rock the Vote poll taken in September showed that only 34 percent of youth wanted the Democrats to stay in power while 36 percent expressed that it did not matter whether the Democrats or Republicans took control. (Huffington Post, Oct. 22)

Need for a party of the working class, oppressed

What these findings reveal is that African Americans, Latino/as, women and other oppressed segments of the population need a political party that places them at the center of decision making and the administration of effective power. Instead, politicians from both ruling-class parties mainly show no interest in the working class and the oppressed communities until election time.

With the crisis in capitalism deepening, workers and the oppressed of all nationalities and genders will look for meaningful answers to the worsening conditions involving job losses, foreclosures and evictions, the lack of health care, school closings and political repression.

A genuine left coalition of the nationally oppressed and the working class which is independent of the ruling class parties in both theory and political activity must be formed. It is only with such an alliance of the people that a real struggle can be waged to reverse the capitalist crisis and build a socialist society.