******************************************************************************************* Re: Trump doubles down on his plan to steal the November election; where is the opposition? *******************************************************************************************
John Reimann’s article (Oakland Socialist, July 18) names the danger but draws the wrong conclusion. The error is not accidental. The two are connected. Reimann is right about the setup. The SAVE Act is designed to purge millions from voter rolls under the cover of citizenship checks. State election boards Deniers have taken over state election boards, as evidenced by their control of three of the five seats in Georgia. State election boards Deniers have taken over state election boards, as seen in Georgia, where they now control three of the five seats. The National Guard is now an option. In December 2020, the plan to seize voting machines failed because officials refused. Barr rejected the draft order for the defense secretary to send the National Guard after Dominion machines, and it was never signed. Esper was not the obstacle; he was fired a month earlier. The resistance came from Barr, White House lawyers, and acting Pentagon chief Chris Miller. The point is simple: who holds these positions matters. Today, those roles are filled by people chosen to ensure the system will not refuse again. Hegseth is on the defense. Todd Blanche has been acting attorney general since Bondi was fired in April and is now up for the permanent job. When Senator Kennedy asked if he and Trump are friends, Blanche initially responded, “I’m his lawyer,” but then corrected himself to say, “I was his lawyer.” The slip reveals the real relationship. The correction is for show. This arrangement is how the state works now. Official roles are reduced to personal loyalty. Appointments are favors. The legal system is a cover for a personal network. This is not a metaphor. It is the actual form of government. The election system is next. Reimann is also right to push back against the idea on the left that dismisses attacks on democratic rights just because those rights are "bourgeois." This attitude is a long-standing and harmful mistake in the movement. The democratic republic is the context in which the worryman is correct to reject the left’s tendency to dismiss attacks on democratic rights as merely "bourgeois." This mistake is old and damaging. The democratic republic is the ground on which the working class can organize. If it is destroyed, workers lose the means to organize themselves. Marx did not ignore Bonaparte. Trotsky did not ignore Brüning. Third-camp politics is not neutrality between democracy and dictatorship. It represents independence from both capitalist parties while fighting for the democratic space that the working class needs, using our methods and under our own banner. Distrust in elections can result in chaos, which negatively impacts business. That’s exactly right. This is one part of the business class defending the stable, predictable legal environment they need to make money against the political insiders around the White House, who profit from connections and favors. The latest example, announced Thursday: Trump Media will sell trading firms early access to posts from top accounts, just milliseconds before the public sees them. Presidential announcements, which used to be public information, are now being sold as a commodity. This is a clear example of the shift. The WSJ isn’t defending democracy itself—it’s defending its class’s way of making a profit against a rival approach. The business class's division on this issue creates an opening for independent working-class action, making such action necessary. Reimann’s conclusion is that, since the Democrats will sleepwalk, the union leadership is silent, and DSA acts as if the republic is not in question, the only hope is a spontaneous renewal of the working-class movement. This is not a perspective. This absence is disguised as a strategy. Invoking spontaneity is how a generation of militants avoids saying what they will do next. Draper’s answer to the missing center was not to wait. Draper’s answer to the missing center was not to wait; instead, it was to act as tribunes of the people within every organization of the class, forcing the political question onto groups that would prefer to avoid it. The tasks are concrete. Inside DSA: pass branch resolutions demanding that the national organization convene open, democratic emergency meetings on election defense, with real debate rather than top-down webinars. Every DSA electoral campaign, including the Oakland council race, should name the danger and build ward-level defense committees, not run liberal campaigns with redder literature. Inside the unions: please request the same from the internationals and the CLCs and begin preparing for the strike question now. If the count Only the power to stop production can respond if the count is seized. If the count is seized, only the power to stop production can respond. That power is not improvised in November. It is organized in July. The self-emancipation of the working class is not a prediction. It is the principle that only the class’s own movement matters. That means building the instruments of that movement within the existing organizations, however miserable, rather than standing outside them and prophesying renewal. Reimann has diagnosed the vacuum. We must fill it. -- Tony -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42535): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42535 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/120334411/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
