Don’t just mourn, organize
Nov. 9 — We’re as angry and shocked as our readers. The polls were wrong. We’re not the only ones who are horrified that a candidate could be elected who boasted of his misogyny and egged on the worst racists while talking trash against immigrants.
But this is no time just to mourn. It’s a time to reaffirm support and militant solidarity with all those who have been the main targets of Trump’s demagogy and hatred: women, people of color, immigrants. That’s the only path toward uniting the working class against its real enemies: the billionaire rulers of this country, including Trump.
The day after the election must become Day One of the resistance.
More information will come out as to who voted and why. Trump tapped into many grievances and used them to get elected, promising anything and everything and directing anger at the first African-American president. Yet both Trump and Clinton were unpopular, and both offered no real solutions to the problems of capitalist exploitation, racism, sexism and war.
Trump did NOT get as many popular votes as Clinton. That shows something about the attitude of the people. But the election system in this country isn’t based on the popular vote. Nor does it give third parties a chance to be heard. (The Moorehead/Lilly campaign of Workers World Party got its revolutionary socialist views heard by being in the streets with the movement including social media.) In addition, many of the most oppressed are prevented by poverty, threats and reactionary laws from voting.
Let’s not forget that earlier this year Bernie Sanders moved large crowds by angrily focusing on the economic problems facing the workers. When he was knocked out of the race, it’s possible that some of his supporters refused to support a grinning Clinton or even opted for an angry Trump.
The danger is not just Trump the person but the misogyny, racism and attacks on immigrants and the LGBTQ communities that his election victory can unleash. His main support comes from white men. Whether they realize it or not, when they voted for Trump they identified not with the working class, in which the majority are now women and/or people of color, but with the ruling establishment.
U.S. corporate culture dishes out fantasy — the fantasy of the strong, rich, white man who can fix everything, from “Batman” to Trump’s “reality” show. The “good” capitalists will provide good jobs for everyone. In this Fox-dominated atmosphere, which extends from films to radio and television to comic books, many bought into Trump’s outright fantasy.
But the promises of the Clinton neoliberals are fantasy, too. The fantasy is that U.S. capitalism can be strong and continue to grow under the right president, one carefully hand-picked by the establishment.
The next four years will bring a strong dose of real reality. The house of cards that is the world capitalist system is already reacting as stock markets tank. They could rebound for a while, and billions will be won and lost, but the capitalist system can never recover its early vigor — and the financiers know it.
It is precisely African Americans, Latinx, Indigenous nations, women, Arabs, Muslims and LGBTQ people who have been in the lead of so many struggles that challenge this system. Trump cannot meet the needs of the vast majority of people in this country. The struggle continues from the grassroots up, and the only answer is to forge the greatest unity of all the movements that fight capitalism and reaction.
