Ocasio-Cortez’s defense of the right wing of the Democratic Party
against socialist opposition reveals her role in preempting the
development of a movement of the working class independent of the
two-party system. She is the latest iteration of a strategy, developed
by the Democratic Party over 200 years of political experience, to
present a “left” face in order to trap social opposition, prop up the
capitalist order and carry out ruthless attacks on the working class in
the US and internationally. Fundamental lessons must be drawn from this
experience.
The historical role of the Democratic Party
The
origins of Ocasio-Cortez and her attacks against the socialist left
must be understood in the political and historical context of the
historical role of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party has a
vast experience in diverting social opposition by trapping social
discontent within its reach, where it is crushed. It has at its disposal
billions of dollars, mass media channels and thousands of people whose
singular responsibility is to stop social opposition from breaking out
of its control.
This has been its political role since its
inception in 1828, when Andrew Jackson trapped the embryonic
anti-capitalism of “workingmen” in the northern cities behind a
reactionary alliance with the southern slave-owning class. The emergence
of the working class in the post-Civil War period inaugurated decades
of violent class struggle, which the Democratic Party attempted to
control through subsuming strains of populist, agrarian politics,
culminating in the elevation of the demagogue William Jennings Bryan as
repeated Democratic presidential candidate at the turn of the 20th
century. Despite the insurrectionary character of the class struggle,
the Democratic Party fought to prevent these struggles from developing
to a point of a political break and the formation of an independent
political party in the European model of labor or social democratic
parties. This, alongside the extraordinary wealth of American
capitalism, explains why there has never been a labor party in the
United States.
This reached a new stage in the period following
the Great Depression, when a wave of semi-insurrectionary strikes and
social struggles broke out under the leadership of socialists. The
administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, aware of the example of the
Russian Revolution of 1917, introduced New Deal social reforms to
prevent the workers’ movement from developing in opposition to the
capitalist system. This was critical for preparing American
imperialism’s entry into World War II, opening up a period of
imperialist domination worldwide. John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier and
Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society portrayed the Democratic Party as “left”
in order to temper social discontent at home and facilitate a massive
expansion of imperialist plunder abroad.
The financial crisis of
2008-09 produced a new wave of social radicalization, leading the
Democratic Party to present Barack Obama as the candidate of “hope and
change,” a former “community organizer” whose race supposedly made him a
natural ally of the oppressed.
As opposition to the right-wing
character of Obama’s presidency grew, Bernie Sanders then emerged from
30 years on the Democratic congressional backbench as a “socialist”
candidate in the party primary who promised “political revolution.” In
2016, he became a lightning rod for social discontent, winning over 10
million votes, mostly from workers and youth. His sudden rise to
popularity shocked the Democratic Party and served as a warning that the
population was moving rapidly to the left and was attracted to
socialism. Sanders, who had criticized Hillary Clinton as the stooge of
Wall Street, endorsed her campaign, leading to the disillusionment of
many of his supporters.
-- Eric London, "The Democratic Party and the political origins of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez" (WSWS).
