Joe Biden and other Democrat politicians portray the 2024 Presidential election as a choice between fascism and democracy. Many avowed “socialists” echo that assertion. Are they correct; or, are they misguided (given that the Party, which they back, is dominated by politicians who primarily serve capital and monstrous empire)?
Palestine. Biden and most Congress people of both parties evade the facts of Israeli persecution of Palestinians. For them: Israeli lives (seen as worthy) matter, Palestinian lives (seen as other) don’t. In fact, the Zionist colonial-settler state (which Biden and nearly all of Congress supports) entitles Jewish Israelis to liberal civil rights such that they generally cannot be imprisoned without a fair hearing in a court of law. Meanwhile, although Biden et al will not acknowledge it, any Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza can be imprisoned and routinely tortured by Israel: for any, or no, reason with no court hearing whatsoever; or, if they do receive a hearing, it is in a kangaroo-style military court where the conviction rate is over 99%. In fact, Palestinians imprisoned by Israel numbered nearly 10,000 at last report. Israelis elect their government; Palestinians are not permitted to do likewise. Moreover, the Palestinian Presidential governing regime in the occupied West Bank (which actually governs only a fifth of that territory, the remainder being under mainly or exclusively Israeli military rule) has not stood for election since 2005 and has become largely a subservient client regime (agent) of the Zionist state. Gaza has been under an increasingly suffocating Israeli economic siege ever since Hamas (defining itself as a Palestinian resistance organization) became its governing authority after fairly winning the last-permitted Palestinian legislative election in 2006. Israel has periodically subjected Gaza to murderous bombardments (sometimes with huge death tolls: 1,400 in 2008 and 2,300 in 2012) in response to rocket attacks which were provoked by preceding ceasefire-breaking Israeli violence (including assassinations of Palestinian resistance leaders). Zionist Israelis can and do rob Palestinians of their homes and properties and/or murder them with impunity. Previously, the Zionist state had used terrorist violence (in 1947—49) to expel 60% of the Palestinian population, bar their return, and confiscate their property.
The US and allied governments have consistently evaded the foregoing reality; and the US has consistently vetoed UN Security Council resolutions seeking to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinian humanity. It is only the massive public outrage over the current genocidal Israeli mass murder of the overwhelmingly unarmed population of Gaza (only about 2% [40,000] being armed resistance fighters) which has compelled Biden and other liberal Israel-apologists to respond. That response: lip-service concern for the suffering Gazans and token action to provide grossly inadequate humanitarian relief for Gazans dying from lack of food, clean water, proper sanitation, medical supplies, and other essentials for life. While Israel deliberately deprives Gazans of those necessities, the US (President and Congress) and its imperial allies abet the mass killing by providing billions in military aid to Israel. As a staunch defender of the Jewish-supremacist state, Biden (along with most Congress people of both Parties) obviously believes that democracy and rule of law are good for some people and that fascist-like apartheid and genocidal mass murder (until abetting it becomes an electoral liability) are acceptable for others. Biden and most Congressional Democrats, like most Congressional Republicans, operate with an unadmitted racist mindset. (For relevant background facts regarding Zionism, Hamas, and the current war in Gaza, see here!)
Immigration. Whereas Trump panders to xenophobic racism, Biden pretends to oppose it.
- But Biden summarily deported some 20,000 Haitiansin his first year despite the horrific conditions in Haiti and his authority to grant “temporary protective status”. That 20,000 is more than Trump and his 2 predecessors deported in their cumulative 20 years.
- Despite his campaign promises to rescind Trump’s racist border policies, Biden largely continued them: first by continuing Trump’s deceitful “title 42” rule, and subsequently by imposing comparable obstructions. Moreover, he backed a bipartisan Senate proposal with immigration and asylum restrictions nearly as onerous as those demanded by MAGA Republicans. Those restrictions would violate international humanitarian law, notwithstanding that the migrants are fleeing the economic and political havoc wreaked by Western imperialism upon the countries from which they come (havoc wreaked thru: invasions, coups, electoral interference, inequitable trade and investment impositions, et cetera). Now Biden has issued an executive order to largely close off entry and effectively deprive migrants of their legal right to apply for asylum.
- Biden also continues Trump’s economic sieges which are designed to starve and otherwise punish the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela, actions which also violate international humanitarian law (as well as driving even more international migration).
Evidently, Biden’s humanitarian sympathies are no more than minimally, if at all, better than Trump’s when it comes to Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, and desperate immigrant people of color.
Biden’s antiracism? Let us not forget:
- that Biden, pandering to racist white constituents, joined with segregationists in opposition to court ordered bussingfor school desegregation; and
- that he, finding that Reagan’s tough-on-crime policies were popular with many of his white voters, spent a decade pressing for legislation culminating in the 1994 crime billwhich has given the US the world’s largest per capita prison population (which is disproportionately racial minority).
Voting rights. Red-state Republicans impose restrictions to discourage voter participation by Democrat-favoring segments of the electorate, to marginal effect. Far more consequential, both Democrats and Republicans act to rig elections for partisan advantage: gerrymanders to obtain disproportionate representation in legislative elections, and ballot access rules to exclude third parties and independent candidates from the ballot. Most politicians in both establishment parties rely heavily upon big-money campaign funding, the result (which neither Trump nor Biden will change) being policy largely dictated by capital.
Human rights. Trump panders to bigoted reaction. In red states, Republicans respond by abrogating some human rights: abortion access, LGBTQ+ equality, secular government, diversity-equity-inclusion policies, et cetera. Blue states have responded by enacting laws to protect those rights (which capital often supports as so doing curries favor with much of its workforce and customer base and does not adversely impact its profits). Biden and Congressional Democrats, when they had both houses of Congress, could have precluded most of those bigoted reactionary red-state measures. However, they lacked the will to take decisive action on crucial rights legislation: police accountability, gun regulation, abortion rights, voting rights, removal of rogue Supreme Court Justices, et cetera.
Labor rights.
- When Democrats (in 2009) had a 60-vote majority in the Senate, they failed to enact the very minimal Employee Free Choice Act to make it a little easier for workers to obtain collective bargaining. Most Congressional Democrats will vote for pro-union legislation; but for many, such votes (which they know will not actually win enactment), are more pretense than real commitment.
- As for Biden, he pretends to be pro-labor, but he stopped the rail workers from exercising their right to strikeover oppressive attendance requirements and safety violations. Trump would have done no worse.
Environment. Biden pretends to be pro-environment; but he prioritizes those projects (renewable energy projects, electric vehicles) from which capitalists can profit, and he avoids actions to which powerful capitalists object. Moreover, Biden defied the environmental community by acquiesced to pressure from the fossil fuel industry with his approvals of:
- drilling on the Willow Projectin Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve,
- the Sea Port Oil Terminal (in Texas) for export of crude oil,
- the Mountain Valley fracked-gas pipeline,
- US government financing of multiple foreign fossil fuel development projects.
Biden also demands massive military spending plus weapons deliveries to fuel ongoing US-backed wars, both of which add considerably to global warming as well as being extremely wasteful and destructive. Trump’s record and rhetoric are obstructive of calls for transition to climate-friendly energy; but he is opposed: to continued fueling of the Ukraine War, and to US financing of foreign development projects. One must question whether Biden is actually much, if at all, better for the climate than Trump.
Abuse of power. Trump, odious demagogue that he is, nevertheless surprised the Democrats by fairly winning the 2016 Presidential election. Disappointed Democrat leaders then acted to discredit Trump’s victory with grossly overblown claims of Russian meddling.
Moreover, in a scheme to discredit his Presidency, Congressional Democrats followed with a purely partisan (and failed) impeachment. They alleged that Trump’s temporary holdup of military aid to Ukraine in order to obtain Ukraine’s investigation of possible corruption involving Hunter Biden (son of the then-VP during the Obama Presidency) was a violation of national security. In fact, temporary holds on Congressionally budgeted military aid had occurred in that prior (Democrat) administration, without anyone calling it criminal. Moreover, Hunter Biden had no special qualification for being on the Board of the Ukrainian Burisma Gas Company, and his appointment thereto was obviously intended to shield said company from being investigated for its corrupt acts. Even though Trump evidently acted from partisan motivations, and even though no evidence of criminality by either Biden was ever discovered; Trump’s request for said investigation was entirely legitimate, and only partisan Democrats would say otherwise.
That abuse by Congressional Democrats provoked Trump (already habituated to violating inconvenient laws as long as he thinks his elite status will grant impunity) to respond in kind. He did so by attempting to subvert the 2020 Presidential election with a scheme to falsify the electoral count, ultimately backed by a seditious riot. [For that act, Trump incurred a second and justified impeachment plus a number of criminal indictments.] Nevertheless, the Democrats, having forgotten the adage “as you sow, so shall you reap”, set the example with their own abuse of power.
Repression. Trump has advocated repression of peaceful Black-lives-matter and other leftist protest. But now liberal power-holders have joined those on the right in using police repression to suppress pro-Palestine campus protests. Politicians of both parties support legislation to criminalize boycott of the Zionist state. They enact laws defining advocacy, of replacing that racist genocidal apartheid state, as “antisemitic” and cause for punitive action. Biden et al, while purporting to defend the right to free speech and peaceful protest, vilify speech and peaceful protest in defense of Palestinian humanity as “disruptive” and “threatening” and therefore criminal. Biden, like Trump, is hardly a real defender of civil liberties when used for causes with which he disagrees.
Dictatorship? Trump evidently wishes that he could be an autocrat; but, narcissist and opportunist demagogue that he is, Trump is no Hitlerian fanatic. In pursuit of votes, he panders to Zionist Jews and also to Judeophobe racists. He makes campaign appeals to Black or Hispanic audiences one day and to white supremacists the next. He panders to bigotry for political gain, not to create a thousand-year Reich. Trump wants another 4 years in the Presidency so that he can: personally profit from it, boost his ego, and escape accountability for his past and future business and political crimes. It is not his proclivity for abuse of office, but the shameless blatancy with which he does so, which sets him apart.
Despite Trump’s extreme campaign talk, there is no basis for concluding that he would be able to abrogate elections or disband the Congress or abolish the courts, in order to rule by decree. He and his doctrinaire reactionary allies (Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation with its Project 2025 wish list) are seeking control of the 3 branches of the federal government in order, in the name of “freedom”, to “legally” effectuate:
- their reactionary culture-war policies to rescind protections for the rights of women and vulnerable minorities (all in deference to a voter base upon which they rely, one which is under the influence of theocrats and bigots); and
- their primary objective which is antisocial policy, including capital-friendly tax and regulatory policy (to eliminate constraints upon capitalist freedoms).
They seek to reinterpret the Constitution in accordance with a corruptly inconsistent and reactionary so-called “originalism”, not to abrogate it.
Fascism? Centrist Democrats are asserting that a 2nd Trump Presidency would result in a fascist autocracy with: extraordinary nullification of Americans’ civil and human rights, and/or all-out repression of the progressive left. In support of this prediction: they erroneously equate MAGA populist reaction to a Hitlerite fascist movement, and they assert that Trump will have learned from the fiasco of his failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden and be able to seize absolute power. However, for reasons as follows, the factual evidence does not support said prediction.
- Definitions, which said liberals neglect to provide, are essential to this analysis. Bigoted populist reaction in control of the state power has occurred historically in 3 forms: (1) anti-liberal fascist autocracy, (2) semi-fascist regime, (3) liberal “democracy” in the grip of regressive reaction.
- Under pluralist liberal bourgeois “democracy” (whether under welfare-state social-liberal, centrist, or neoliberal administration); capital rules while multiparty competition provides the illusion of popularly-chosen government. [Note. Marxists, including this author, hold that the abusive rule of capital and the resulting social evils of capitalism cannot be ended thru serial piecemeal reforms but only thru revolutionary conquest and holding of state power by the people (working class and its allies) led by their revolutionary socialist party.]
- Populist reactionary regimes (all 3 forms) always serve the capitalist class and depend upon its support or acquiescence for their continuation.
- Political conditions, which resulted in the coming to power of fascist autocracies in the 1920s and 1930s, do not now exist in developed Western “democracies”. In the cases of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and Pinochet, a dominant section of the capitalist class chose to cede control of the state power to the fascist autocracy; because it regarded that as necessary in order to suppress the threat of impending anti-capitalist revolution. No such revolutionary threat exists now; and, absent such threat, most capitalists prefer the liberal pluralist pseudo-democracy, because, with a fascist autocracy, they give over to the unaccountable autocrat their power to largely dictate public policy. After the threat of anti-capitalist revolution has passed; the dominant factions in the capitalist class support the repressed liberals in demanding and obtaining a restoration of the pluralist liberal “democratic” regime (as occurred in Greece [1974], in post-Franco Spain [1975—78], and in Pinochet’s Chile [1990]).
- In recent years, parties of regressive reaction (pandering to bigotry and taking advantage of popular discontent with economic and/or other personal-security conditions under government by traditional liberal-democratic parties) have obtained (thru election) governing power in several countries. These include: Orban in Hungary (2010), Law and Justice Party in Poland (2015—23), Bolsonaro in Brazil (2019—23), Meloni in Italy (2022), Milei in Argentina (2023). None of those regimes have abolished elections, although one has tilted the field in favor of the ruling party (a longstanding routine practice in much of the liberal “democratic” US). Opposition parties and media continued to operate freely. Mass popular antigovernment protest rallies could still occur (and did in Hungary, Poland, Brazil, and Argentina). In 2 of those (Brazil and Poland), the reactionary party has lost power in the most recent election.
- In political-assassination-riven India, where Modi’s semi-fascist regime has severely persecuted religious minorities, periodic elections are held while opposition parties and media continue to operate normally.
- It is in politically unstable countries (such as Erdogan’s coup-prone Turkey) that fascistic leaders have been able: to seize autocratic power, to eviscerate the liberal-democratic civil liberties and freedom for dissent, and to impose exceptionally repressive fascistic regimes. The potential, for any such regime in the US or most of Europe, is currently close to nil.
Centrist Democrats and their liberal “socialist” apologists are promoting a grossly exaggerated fear (fantasizing fascist autocracy and extraordinary repression) as a scare tactic to seduce progressive voters into voting for Biden (or his substitute).
Imperialism.
- Trump and his isolationist MAGA Republicans opposed more billions for Biden’s proxy war (using Ukrainians as cannon fodder) against Russia. Trump lacks any firm commitment to the imperial NATO alliance, whereas Biden acts to consolidate its hold upon Europe and to expand its purview to the Asia-Pacific.
- But for overwhelming opposition within the bipartisan US foreign policy establishment, then-President Trump may well have negotiated a long overdue peace treaty with North Korea. Biden clearly would never do so.
- Trump initiated a trade war with China for purported America-first economic advantage. Biden has continued Trump’s anti-China trade policies; but he also (despite the longstanding US commitment to the one-China principle) threatens a real war, if the independence faction in Taiwan secedes (which Biden and many Congressional Democrats are actually encouraging), and if China then responds with military action to stop it. Trump could be expected to do no worse.
- Biden backed the 2003 US regime-change invasion of Iraq and defended the US-NATO military intervention to oust the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Both actions produced failed states and immense suffering (with hundreds of thousands killed) for the peoples of those countries.
- In service to the politically powerful war-profiteering arms industry, Biden (and bipartisan majorities in Congress) insist that the US, with a 38% share of all of the world’s military spending compared to Russia’s 3.1%, needs to spend ever more.
- Biden backs every US regime-change intervention and aggressive military move in pursuit of US “full-spectrum dominance” of the world. Isolationist Trump does not really care about imperial US alliances; he pursues foreign interventions selectively (where it panders to voter groups whose support he seeks).
- Biden and most Congressional Democrats have committed the US to new cold wars against both Russia and China. They worship imperial domination and refuse to accept the need for peaceful coexistence and international cooperation to address the major threats to humanity (threats of: impending climate catastrophe, wars involving states with nuclear weapons, pandemics, famines, et cetera).
[For a comprehensive analysis of contemporary imperialism, see: Charles Pierce: Conflicting “left” views of capitalist imperialism.]
Credit where due.
- There are some issues wherewith Biden has actually made some relatively progressive difference: many (not all) of his appointments to regulatory bodies, most of his judicial appointments, and some actions on culture-war issues (which are important to progressive voters whose votes Biden needs). From a social justice standpoint, his spending choices are mixed: domestically some beneficial, but overwhelmingly bad in foreign relations.
- Trump’s domestic policies were largely detrimental, and his jobs promises were/are mostly illusory. However, isolationist America-first Trump, to his credit, is less thoroughly imperialist than Biden and the centrist Democrats; though Trump may be somewhat more reckless (as exhibited by his decision to assassinate an Iranian General).
Centrist Biden and demagogue Trump may tell themselves, as well as their prospective voters, that their beneficial actions and proposals are out of concern for the public welfare. We should not be deceived. In fact, such actions and promises (increasingly as election nears) are to win votes, without unduly offending capitalist campaign funders.
America first leftism. The regress which Americans would experience under another 4 years of Trump in the Oval Office is nowhere near the total deprivation of civil and human rights which Israel and the US (continuing under Biden) have imposed upon the Palestinians. And there are hundreds of millions of other victims whose lives have been taken or ruined by the Biden-backed imperial US foreign policy. Meanwhile, Trump has opposed continued US funding for the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Although Trump and his isolationist America-first MAGA Republicans are certainly not consistently anti-imperialist; they, unlike Biden and his centrist Democrats, take some positions which are objectively antiwar and anti-imperialist. Sadly, with avowed “socialists” shelving anti-imperialism to back Biden for the sake of purely domestic political concerns; said “socialists” thereby embrace an “America-first” policy of their own, one which is objectively racist and imperialist. Moreover, the abusive rule of capital cannot be ended in a major power as long as it rules a belligerent empire, oppressing vulnerable other states and their peoples, and striving to subjugate insubordinate states.
Bigoted reaction. After decades of center-left parties (Labour in Britain, Socialist in France, Social-democrat in Germany, Democrat in US, et cetera) embracing antisocial neoliberal policy; economic conditions for most working people have stagnated or worsened (housing unaffordability and increased homelessness, employment precarity and persistence of poverty, inflation exceeding wage increases, et cetera). Said parties have effectively abandoned their previous popular constituencies. Consequently, antisocial reactionary parties, led by demagogues pandering to latent bigoted prejudices and scapegoating immigrants and othered minorities, have increasingly seduced much of the now discontented populace. Meanwhile, instead of demanding return to popular Keynesian policies which actually served working people to some extent (at some tolerable cost to capital), centrist politicians cry “fascist” and assert that they will save “democracy” from an alleged threat of impending autocracy. As that anti-fascist appeal increasingly loses traction, they defensively embrace some of the inhumane policy demands of the reaction, especially against politically powerless victim groups such as immigrants.
Lesser-evil-ism. Liberal “socialists” are habituated to giving electoral allegiance to the thoroughly imperialist center-left party in hopes of saving domestic reforms, previously extracted (by popular pressure) from capital. They embrace a policy of electoral lesser-evil-ism. As a means for stopping the rise of bigoted reaction, this policy has been an absolute failure. It results in the center-left becoming ever weaker while antisocial bigoted reaction grows ever more potent, and progressive reforms previously conceded by capital are increasingly nullified. As the adage goes: repeating the same failed action, and expecting a different outcome, is an insanity. With avowed “socialists” and avowed “anti-imperialists” having backed capital-serving imperialist center-left parties for decades, their “left” has sunk ever deeper into the sinkhole of lesser-evil-ism. And in every succeeding election, it becomes yet more painful, and more urgent, for the progressive left to climb out of that sinkhole.
What to do. Whether Trump again or another 4 years of Biden, neither is an acceptable choice. Reliance upon centrist Democrat politicians is a recipe for failure. It enables said Democrats to mislead and cynically use social-justice voters while persisting with their policies of militarism, imperialism, supremacy of capital, and political perfidy, and yet remain largely ineffective against MAGA-Republican abuses and obstructions.
The popular front against fascism (then the most vicious oppressor and most dangerous threat against the left) was appropriate in the 1930s. Replicating it in the very different current conditions would be allying with the world’s current principal enemy of social justice, namely US-led Western imperialism. Our real need is not for a “broad popular front against MAGA fascism” (which would mean campaigning for “Genocide Joe” and US imperialism). Our real need is to build our indivisible social-justice activist movement for: economic justice, environmental justice, human rights, civil rights, and international justice. Said movement must be one which is truly independent of both major US Parties:
- one which does not give its allegiance to the Democratic Party;
- one which allies with Democrat politicians only when and insofar as they actually act for social justice;
- one which backs their election only selectively and for sound tactical reasons (such as to deny Trump a Congressional Republican majority in the House);
- one which backs actual pro-social-justice challengers, beginning in primary elections, and an actual progressive (such as Jill Stein) for commander-in-chief;
- one which does not abandon anti-imperialism and international solidarity with the victims of Western imperialism in order to pursue limited domestic reforms (often to be unenforced or otherwise later nullified);
- one demanding people-power reforms (in preference to the limited ameliorative measures favored by left liberals), people-power capable of seriously challenging the abuses perpetrated by capital and its agents (whether business firms, neoliberal ideologues, reactionary demagogues, MAGA Republicans, or perfidious and unreliable Democrats).
Biden, at least as much as Trump, is a racist promoter of mass murder. Neither is capable of actually earning the votes of people seeking comprehensive social justice. Unless we (like Biden and most Congressional Democrats) devalue the humanity and lives of Palestinians, Haitians, Venezuelans, et cetera; how can we accept liberal “left” assertions, that Biden (or his substitute) is any savior of humanity and democracy and must therefore be reelected?