Kirsten West Savila wrote: “Angela Davis—scholar, freedom fighter, former political prisoner, icon
and my personal hero—told attendees at the “Black Matters: The Futures of
Black Scholarship and Activism” conference at the
University of Texas at Austin, that she is not so “narcissistic” to say that
she won’t vote for Hillary Clinton,” in The Root, September
30, 2016. www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2016/09/angela-davis-hillary
Harry Targ
The Dickens opening to The Tale of Two Cities—it
was the best of times and the worst of times-- continues to be relevant again and again. That is what dialectics
is all about. 2016 gave us an exciting and inspirational presidential campaign led
by Bernie Sanders: an older, Jewish socialist. Best of all was the enormous
enthusiasm he generated among millennials, who were excited by his political
vision and not deterred by his age.
On the other hand, the Republican pool of
presidential candidates were among the most reactionary, racist, sexist, and
homophobic collection of politicians ever assembled in national political life.
This characterization was not always true of past Republican leaders who
occasionally stood up for social and economic justice and against war. However,
Republicans since 2008 have sought to rekindle the deep structures of racism
for their own political gain.
The long-time presumptive Democratic Party nominee,
at least from the standpoint of the mainstream media, offered a program of
national policy that more or less supported finance capitalism at home and
“humanitarian interventionism” overseas.
But the Democratic contest energized the passions of
the young, expanded political discourse to include visions of a more just
future, and buried the virulent anti-communism that undergirded the political
rhetoric of American politics since the onset of the Cold War. The vibrant
support for the Sanders candidacy shifted domestic political discourse to the
left and led to the construction of a Democratic Party platform that spoke to
the needs for achieving a single payer health care system, raising the minimum
wage to a living wage, providing free
tuition to students entering public universities, creating real banking reform, passing
meaningful immigration policies, reforming the criminal justice system, and
addressing climate change, the most fundamental threat to humankind. Although
platforms are just words, they articulate guides for policy advocacy and social
movement mobilization.
Finally, the Sanders campaign has stimulated the
continuation of grassroots mobilizations to support progressive candidates for
local, state, and national office. At this stage at least, the Sanders “Our
Revolution” organizing efforts promise to continue the democratic socialist
upsurge between elections as well as during them.
The “best of times” leaves much undone and gives
pause to the most excited Sanders activists but the seeds have been planted for
a new politics among the progressive majority and inspiration for older and younger sectors of the left to
participate in mass movements in the years ahead.
As to the November, 2016 election, the contest
between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is close enough to be frightening. The
Trump/Pence candidacy has mobilized white supremacists, religious
fundamentalists, citizens virulently hostile to immigrants, second amendment
dogmatists and others who stand for returning to a past that can only be
recreated with even greater state violence.The complicated election season raises questions
about where progressives, particularly Sanders activists, should channel their
political energies.
First, the Trump/Pence candidacy must be defeated.
Trump has mobilized reactionary sectors of American society who support
reversing gains made by women, people of color, and workers. The long march for
economic and social justice of workers, women, African Americans, Latinos, and
religious minorities has taken too long and required too many sacrifices, to be
reversed.
Second, the centrists Democrats who support
candidate Clinton might blame the new progressive majority if the Democratic
candidate wins only by a narrow victory or loses. In fact, a Clinton victory
will clearly depend upon the support of the masses of people, young and old,
black and white, many of whom worked with passion for Bernie Sanders. A Clinton
victory will be a Sanders victory.
And in the 2016 context, the progressive majority
will be in a position to demand that the Democratic Platform be supported in
policy. The new administration will be obliged to put its full resources behind
significant reform in health care, wages, the criminal justice system,
immigration, and bank regulation. And, in addition, the new progressive
majority will be in a position (even beyond former candidate Sanders) to challenge
the military-industrial complex and demand a withdrawal from the expanding US
empire in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
In fact, a Hillary Clinton electoral victory will be
a defeat for the legitimation of racism and reaction and a demonstration that it was the progressive majority that
insured it. The new progressive majority will have the right to “sit at the
table.” If not it will be fully justified in hitting the streets.
