US elections: Neither Harris nor Trump offer a pro-working class agenda
material from our sister org the Independent Socialist Group
Working-class people have every reason to despise and oppose the US Democratic Party and its capitalist agenda, but Trump and Vance are no alternative for us. Many working-class people are rightly disgusted by Trump, both personally and for his right-wing political views. However, there are also workers drawn towards the GOP (Republican party) ticket because of real pain and fears that Trump and Vance are trying to take advantage of and which Democratic Party policies have only made worse.
The Biden-Harris administration has continued some of the worst aspects of Trump’s xenophobic immigration and border policies, including expanding the wall (while overriding twenty or so environmental protections). They’ve brought fossil fuel production to record levels and sacrificed conservation land to do so. They’ve done nothing to improve social programs or protect education. They’ve done nothing to make child care more affordable. They allowed the massive poverty-reducing child tax credit expansion to expire, doubling childhood poverty in a single year. The life-saving Medicaid expansion during the pandemic was allowed to expire too. Biden made no attempt to reverse Trump’s slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. These tax breaks for the rich and the corporations remain, despite the Democratic Party’s complete control of Congress and the Presidency for the first two years of the Biden-Harris administration.
Despite the Republican Party’s long, consistent opposition to worker-friendly policies, labor unions, and protest movements, the Trump campaign continues to claim significant working-class support. Trump and Vance weaponize the failures of the Democratic Party’s corporate agenda, rooted in false promises cloaked in tokenistic identity politics. The GOP candidates have played on the basest forces in the US: racism, anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, and xenophobia are being deployed to try and divide and conquer the working class. All of this to paper over the longstanding Republican efforts to defend the worst excesses of corporations and the super rich.
Trump and Vance have proposed some superficial populist policies. They’ve promoted the idea of not taxing tips and not taxing Social Security payments. However, there is no reason working-class people should believe the Republicans will follow through on any of their campaign promises except the ones about more tax cuts for big business and the very wealthy. Both parties are funded and run by corporate interests, and neither is interested in actually being held accountable to the demands that they run on.
Trump’s campaign and Republican supporters have attacked Harris for being childless, her gender more generally, and her race–calling her a “DEI hire” (i.e., Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion–opposition to which has become a racist dog whistle for the far-right). While there are important socialist criticisms to be made against liberal identity politics, Trump’s right-wing attacks on identity politics are grossly misogynistic and racist. Even just on the basis of his racism and sexism, Trump should be opposed by all workers. Trump is also being supported by the far-right Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.” While Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, it’s backers include major corporations and wealthy mega donors who share his policy goals.
Project 2025 has been discussed widely in the mainstream media, but it is too often described as something new and terrible. In fact, the details of Project 2025 include a range of policy goals that have been staples of the conservative movement for decades, including defunding social welfare programs, cutting public education and health care spending, and a whole host of other forms of privatization. Project 2025 also includes the proposal to allow a much higher percentage of civil servants to be political appointees (they’d be able to be hired and fired for explicitly political reasons). Nothing in this far-right wish list is new nor will any of it be good for the working class. To make matters worse, there are many pieces of Project 2025 that have been supported by Democrats too.
So, how should working class people use our votes? While having some important differences, both corporate party campaigns represent a continuation of a status quo that has increased the power and wealth of corporations, continued to spread profit-making war around the world, and done little good for the vast majority of people. Endlessly voting for the Democratic “lesser evil” has allowed the Republican Party to push politics further and further rightward. We need an independent pro-worker campaign that earnestly pursues policies that actually benefit all of us–not just the very rich. Fortunately, there are two such options in Jill Stein’s Green Party campaign and Cornel West’s independent campaign. Their platforms are unabashedly pro-worker, good for the environment, and anti-war. Working people should support both of these campaigns as a step towards building an independent party of and for the working class.
We call for a vote for Stein in states where she is on the ballot, and a vote for West in states where Stein is not on the ballot but West is. In states with neither, we call for writing in Stein. This is the best way to win the strongest possible vote for an independent left campaign. These are not wasted votes. Voting for either the Stein or West campaigns is voting based on our values and interests. The real wasted vote is a vote for either the Republicans or Democrats while they continue to betray the needs of the vast majority of people. Voting for left independent politicians is an important part of helping to organize a mass working-class party.
In addition to voting, we need to remain active beyond the election regardless of which corporate party might take power. We should organize mass protests against Trump and the right wing, as well as opposition to the capitalist and imperialist agenda of Harris and the Democrats. The working class needs a mass socialist movement to fight for a genuine alternative to the corporate duopoly that plagues the US and working-class people everywhere.
Who are the independent and left candidates standing?
There are hundreds of independents, Greens, and left candidates running for office across the United States. Nick Wurst, Independent Socialist Group (ISG) and SMART-TD Local 1473 & Railroad Workers United (personal capacity), looks at a number of those campaigns.
Dan Osborn – Nebraska
In Nebraska, union steamfitter Dan Osborn continues his working-class bid for the US Senate, taking on Republican Party (RP) incumbent Deb Fischer. Uncompromisingly independent, Osborn has refused endorsements from the Democratic Party (DP) and taken no corporate money. Since our initial article in February, Osborn has secured endorsements from the state trade union federation AFL-CIO and out-fundraised his opponent, accepting donations from working-class people and unions. “Unlike Deb Fischer, I’m not taking corporate PAC money from Pfizer, Boeing, Facebook and JBS,” Osborn said in a statement. “No one’s going to own me when I get to Washington.”
His campaign has highlighted important working-class issues like increasing the minimum wage, making it easier to join unions, and stopping government handouts to “hugely profitable pharmaceutical corporations”. Osborn’s campaign demonstrates once again that it’s possible to avoid the trap of the corporate Democratic Party. The Osborn campaign is the most exciting development in the current elections with a serious chance to win and is the only independent campaign with major union support. If Osborn wins in Nebraska, it lends credibility to the idea of running as an independent.
One key idea that ISG would raise is for the Osborn campaign to help launch an effort for a new party for working people, one which would identify and run more candidates on a similar platform to the Osborn campaign, with the same no-corporate-money pledge, and with internal democracy. If Osborn gets to the Senate, he will face tremendous pressure to ‘play ball’ and compromise with the corporate parties in the spirit of ‘getting things done’. A party which can mobilise supporters to rally public pressure will help him break deadlocks and stay true to the working-class people who elected him.
Green 13 slate – New Jersey
The Green Party has firmly maintained political independence from the capitalist class and its two parties. Many on the left are drawn to it and run campaigns on its ballot line, using it as a vehicle to get on ballots where doing so as an independent is difficult. Not all Green Party candidates or state Green Parties are left or run on strong progressive programmes and this is why the ISG does not endorse the Green Party as a whole.
The New Jersey Green Party, demonstrating the importance of maintaining a ballot line and the opportunity for leftists to use its ballot line, is fielding candidates for a US Senate seat and all 12 House of Representative seats. The candidates’ platforms highlight a wide range of issues, including calling for universal healthcare, ending the housing crisis, and establishing a federal jobs guarantee. For example, the Christina Khalil for US Senate campaign “supports a myriad of solutions including access to public banking, increasing the minimum wage…and the expansion of public housing.”
Jason Call – Washington
Jason Call is a Green Party candidate for US Congress in Washington state’s 2nd district. Call got involved in the Democratic Party in 2016 because of Bernie Sanders’s support for the party, getting elected to the Democratic Party State Central Committee. He campaigned for the 2nd congressional seat in 2020 and 2022 as a ‘progressive’ democrat, following the failed strategy to try and reform the Democrats championed by Sanders etc. He left the Democrats in 2023, realising “the sad truth is that the Democratic Party, like the Republicans, is owned and controlled by Wall Street and the war machine”.
He was recently arrested on the campaign trail with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein when they attended a protest at Washington University against the ongoing war in Gaza. His campaign programme highlights “Medicare for all, tuition-free college, climate emergency, strengthening labour, and ending endless war.”
Eduardo Quintana – Arizona
Quintana is a Green Party candidate for Senate, running on a pro-worker, pro-climate, anti-war platform. However, in an example of the dirty tricks used by the corporate parties, as well as the problems with the primary system, the Democrats and Republicans both planted candidates in the Green Party primary to run against Quintana. The Arizona Secretary of State, a Democrat, even declared the Democrat plant as the winner of the primary, until the Greens managed to correct the record.
Joshua Bradley – Raleigh, North Carolina
In North Carolina, Joshua Bradley is a joint Green Party and Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) candidate for the Raleigh City Council. Bradley was heavily involved in the Occupy movement in Raleigh and is involved in both the Green Party and the SPUSA .
His campaign has five main themes in its programme: “Housing justice, racial justice and equity, workers’ rights, environmental justice, non-discrimination and community inclusion.” The joint effort is reminiscent of the 2020 Hawkins/Walker Green Party campaign for president. Hawkins and Walker won the candidacy of both the Greens and the SPUSA and were supported by several other left groups, including the ISG.
