Independent Socialist Group executive committee
Working-class people in the US need an alternative to the two pro-corporate political parties. We have to build opposition to the Biden-Harris and Trump administrations’ support for the war in Gaza, the cost-of-living-crisis, and attacks on workers’ and immigrants’ rights. Despite claiming to be against the attacks on LGBTQ+ people and women by the Supreme Court and Trump administration, the Democratic Party has failed to deliver national protections for either group.
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats plan to reverse the massive, ever-increasing military budget or the invasion, occupation, and continued genocide in Gaza. Furthermore, the Republican and Democratic parties continue to pass cuts to social services that many workers rely on and fail to fight for a federal minimum wage increase, universal healthcare, debt forgiveness, or any real solutions to the housing crisis. Historic numbers of voters (63%) think that the Republican and Democratic parties do ‘such a poor job’ representing the American people that ‘a third major party is needed.’ (Gallup, Oct 2023)
The Independent Socialist Group believes it is necessary for working people to break free from the corporate duopoly. Uniting behind the strongest independent left candidate with a programme we can support, and the greatest potential visibility and likelihood for gathering a significant number of votes is a necessary first step. A strong independent left election result can be used as a launching pad to win immediate demands raised in the campaign platform, and for efforts to organise a workers’ party.
Jill Stein of the Green Party and Cornel West as an independent are running for president. They put forward strong platforms including opposing the invasion of Gaza, and ending military aid to Israel. Both campaigns call for a wide range of progressive demands. There are many similarities in their platforms which include standing for a higher federal minimum wage, nationalised healthcare, free childcare, national jobs programmes, and serious cuts in military spending. Stein and West have been active in protest movements for decades – Stein most notably for environmental justice and West for civil rights and racial justice.
The ballot access of the Green Party, built up over decades, is one of the main reasons that various left candidates have used its ballot line, including former Black Panthers. While it is a significant missed opportunity that West did not run on the Green Party ballot, we urge these two campaigns to find ways to practice tactical unity now and in the post-election period, including joint events and sharing of resources and information. A unified effort could help to bring together progressive and left activists and voters.
After a series of internal discussions and a formal vote, Independent Socialist Group is calling for critical support for the Jill Stein Green Party campaign and the Cornel West independent campaign for president.
Our critical support includes urging all working people to vote for the Stein and West campaigns. We call for a vote for Stein where her campaign is on the ballot. In states where the Stein campaign isn’t on the ballot but West’s is, we call for a vote for West. In states where neither is on the ballot, we call for a write-in for the Stein campaign.
Build a mass workers’ party
Crucially, we urge both campaigns, their supporters, and their voters to continue organising after election day with union activists, progressives, and left forces to build a movement for a mass left workers’ party in the US. We call for other left and workers’ organisations to take similar steps to support and get involved in these campaigns.
In calling for a vote for Stein, where both Stein and West are on the same state ballot, we recognise that the West campaign’s biggest political weakness is that it is not committed to the construction of any independent political party at all. Our critical support for West’s campaign is based on positive programme demands from his campaign, his role as a left activist in anti-racist and other struggles, and his self-identification as a socialist. It is excellent that West has broken from the Democratic Party to run independently. West has a history of supporting the Democratic Party, such as during Obama’s 2008 and 2012 runs, he also supported Bernie Sanders’ campaigns in 2016 and 2020. We hope that West has made a permanent break from the confines of supporting the Democrats. But this does leave in question whether he will be susceptible to lesser evil pressures and could possibly end his campaign prior to election day.
In contrast, Stein and the Green Party have a strong record in standing completely independent of the Democratic Party. The Green Party is an organised party with active members in state and local party groups which has a small but consistent presence in public political activity outside of electoral campaigns. For nationwide elections in recent decades, the Green Party has been on the ballot for far more voters than any other party or independent candidate to the left of the two corporate parties.
We also need to qualify our support as critical because neither campaign stands for organising a workers’ party. For the Green Party campaign or West’s campaign, that would mean explicitly stating they are in the process of supporting and helping to build a mass workers’ party that would go beyond the limitations of the Green Party and West’s individual efforts, both in terms of programme, organisation, and also activity beyond election day. Additionally, neither campaign has a strong connection to organised labour, which has the resources and membership to make any campaign much more of a serious challenge to the corporate duopoly. Neither campaign promotes a clear socialist programme or the need for socialism, although the Stein platform does mention “ecosocialism”.
Beyond the election
For most working-class people, elections and the question of ‘who should I vote for?’ is the entry point for political action. This is a necessary starting point, and requires an answer as to how to best use your vote. That answer should also raise the bigger question: “How can we organise, during the elections and afterwards, to build political power independent of the rich and corporations?”
The Democratic Party often taps into the understandable fear of – and hate for – the far right among large sections of the working class to convince them to ‘vote blue no matter who’. However, Biden-Harris’s 2020 presidential win has not eradicated Trump and Trumpism as the Democrats promised. Instead, it arguably increased the Trump campaign’s popularity.
We need to show an alternative by voting for independent left or progressive candidates or parties. While lesser-evilism is frequently thought of as a phenomenon of voting Democrat in opposition to Republicans, it also works the other way. The failure of Biden and the Democrats to meet the expectations of the working class can result in a backlash where Trump and the Republican Party are seen as the only alternative to four more years of the Democratic Party. The relentless corporate propaganda reinforcing the ‘two-party system’ inevitably results in a lot of back and forth ‘lesser evil’ voting for two parties that both represent the capitalist class.
The real conditions that working-class people experience won’t be fundamentally different under a Democratic or Republican administration unless there is mass struggle. An election of Harris as a continuation of the Biden administration will present opportunities for the far right to grow as an ‘alternative’ to liberal capitalism. A Trump re-election will likely embolden the far right to organise openly and test its strength. The only counter to the threat of the far right is to build the left, including a visible show of support for a left programme through a strong vote result and continued organising of supporters of left electoral campaigns even after election day.
In some races, a good enough vote result can qualify a progressive or left party for future ballot access, public funding, or other tangible benefits for future campaigns that could become part of a workers’ party effort. Vote results can be used as measurable evidence that left or progressive demands are popular and that working people are looking for a political alternative. While the capitalist parties are normally elected by a minority of eligible voters, if there is not a decent result for any visible independent left political alternatives the capitalists are able to claim an unchallenged ‘victory’ and a mandate for corporate politics-as-usual.
A better-than-expected vote for a left candidate becomes a problem for the ruling class to try to explain and lends credence to the ideas raised by that campaign. If an independent left or progressive campaign becomes known for a few key demands and draws a significant vote, it can put pressure on the capitalist class and its parties to make concessions. For example, the ‘New Democratic Party’ is a left party in Canada that campaigned for and won universal healthcare in 1964, despite never being the majority party. In the case of the 2024 elections, there is an opportunity to campaign for independent left, anti-war candidates to demonstrate our opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The lack of a mass workers’ party in the US is also a major factor in the lower rate of union membership and the much more limited scope of social benefits and workers’ rights in comparison to other wealthy countries. A workers’ party would be a huge step forward in terms of the level of organisation of the working class. Each election cycle presents the potential for unions to enormously increase workers’ power by helping to organise a political party for working people. The labour movement has the money and membership to make the foundation of a mass independent workers’ party an immediate reality.
The labour movement’s one-sided relationship with the Democratic Party has happened alongside a historic decline in union density over the last 60 years. Unions deliver money, volunteers, and legitimacy to Democrats in exchange for promises of pro-labour legislation. The Democrats never deliver on their promises due to their greater loyalty to the corporations. When labour does hedge its bets with occasional support for the Republicans, the capitalist class still wins.
The Independent Socialist Group calls on all working-class people, left groups, and unions to support and campaign for the Stein and West campaigns, as well as state and local independent left campaigns, as a step towards launching a real effort to build a workers’ party.
