[Militant International Review, No 60, February-March 1995, p. 24-25]
Last November’s US elections saw the Republicans win both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Did this mark a big shift to the right in US politics? The following is an edited statement by supporters of US Labor Militant.
The Republicans went from 44 to 53 seats in the Senate, 178 to 230 in the House of Representatives, and from 20 to 30 in state governors‘ offices. There was a 38.7% turnout, up 2.2% from 1990, the last mid-term election. Thus about 120 million eligible voters did not bother to vote, against 75 million who did.
Despite sweeping Republican gains in terms of seats, the vote was distributed almost equally – 50% for each party. The 1990 figure was 52% for the Democrats and 48% for the Republicans. From this it is obvious there was no Republican landslide. Only the vagaries of the first past the post electoral system ensured Republican dominance. Obviously a major aspect of the result was widespread disillusionment with the Clinton administration. Clinton came to power in 1992 as the ‚candidate of change‘. He promised a jobs programme, to cut defense spending by one-third, „adequate and affordable health care for every American“, to legislate to allow gays in the military, and that all those on welfare would have work within two years.
In addition to breaking all these promises, Clinton pushed through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which will involve major attacks on workers. The Crime Bill, with its emphasis on more cops and prisons, was seen as a betrayal by those most affected by street crime in poor neighbourhoods.
As a result of all these factors the core Democrat vote among labour and Afro-American workers was alienated. The turnout of registered Democrats fell in all but the mid-Atlantic states.
Clinton’s volte-face on the rights of gays in the military was seen as a betrayal of those who voted for him because of this issue. It also added however to the mobilisation of the Christian Coalition, who said Clinton’s initial policies on this were examples of the ‚moral decay‘ and ‚collapse of cultural values‘ in the US. The Christian Coalition, with its reactionary, anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-labour message, distributed 33 million pieces of literature; an estimated 27% of voters in exit polls identified themselves as born-again Christians.
Behind the swing against Clinton lies rising anger and a mood for change.
Behind the low voter turnout and the swing against Clinton lies rising anger and a mood for change. And what lies behind this is reduced living standards, permanent insecurity and unemployment for working people.
Rage about all this must express itself somehow. But the labour leaders offer no alternative – and especially no alternative at the ballot box – to the two main parties.
As economic and social conditions worsen for working people, the profits of the big corporations and the inequality between rich and poor are greater than at any time in the last 60 years. Against this background, the anti-government mood is not in essence a pro-profit, pro-free market mood. The Republican leadership, especially the Newt Gingrich wing, portrays the vote as support for their ‚Contract with America‘, which calls for tax cuts, an increase in military spending and a balanced budget. But the November 8 vote was for a change from these policies, not in favour of them.
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The Republican right is increasingly using the talk radio network which is dominated by right-wing demagogues to aim at more backward layers among the white workers. With no counterblast coming from labour leaders, all this has some success, especially in the western half of the country.
But the result of this election does not represent overall a shift to the right in society. Rather it represents a mood for change in the policies of the government, those which are dictated by the lobbyists for the country’s elites. But with no clear alternative provided by the labour leaders which could organise a fight for a better life for workers at the expense of the rich, there has been a tendency for some of the less advanced workers to stray temporarily down the road of making other sections of the working class pay.
Linda Di Vall, a Republican pollster, explained in the New York Times; „The results show no particular allegiance to any political party. In 1992 they punished a lot of Republicans. In 1994, a lot of Democrats. It seems the voters were looking for change“.
Those who are seeking a party in the US which stands for working people and to the left of the existing parties had no way to express themselves in this election. The opinion represented by Labor Party Advocates had no pole around which to gather at the ballot box. Because of the lack of such an alternative, the forms of political expression of workers who are fighting the bosses‘ attacks is inevitably volatile, contradictory and confused.
This has been a period of some important working class struggles. In Decatur, Illinois, the workers at Caterpillar and Firestone have been on strike for months and the Staley workers have been locked out for a year and a half. The Staley workers, having been blocked by their own union leadership, have now become leading supporters of Labor Party Advocates. This shows that when workers are blocked on the industrial front, they often seek a way out through building their own political voice.
One perceptive commentator on the election noted (Wall St. Journal 61/11/94) that ‚It was an election that marked a further stage in the deconstruction of the parties and the dealignment of American politics‘. The old two-party monopoly is showing a trend towards breaking up.
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There are important divisions in both major parties. Clinton is moving further to the right, already endorsing school prayer in the form of a ‚pause for reflection‘ each morning. Challenges to Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 1996 could come from the party’s left, but this would go down to defeat. This in turn could result in Jesse Jackson running as an independent candidate, since Afro-Americans will feel that they are being ignored by both parties. This could also strengthen black nationalism among some sections of Afro-Americans.
The Republicans also have important internal divisions. The Christian Coalition has been further strengthened. Its campaigning for school prayer and action against abortion will become more strident. But this will increase divisions between the Christian Coalition wing and that wing of the party which favours right-wing economic policies with less repressive social policies.
It brings closer the inevitable showdown between the big business rulers of the party and the petit-bourgeois strata which mainly make up the rank and file of the Christian Coalition. As these processes unfold, as the two major parties go further into crisis, the working class will be forced to rise to its feet, to extend its industrial organisation and builds its own mass political organisation. Strengthening these processes is among the key tasks for socialists in the US today.
The full Labor Militant statement on the elections is available, 50p per copy, from WSB, 3/13 Hepscott Rd., London E9 5HB.
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