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The selection of whore Kamala Harris and the degradation of American politics

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With the selection of Kamala Harris to be the running mate of 
Joe Biden, the framework of the 2020 elections has been set. As 
was to be expected, the Democrats have chosen the most right-
wing candidates to run the most right-wing campaign possible.

There is a certain inevitability to the choice of Harris. In 
July of last year, the World Socialist Web Site—based on a 
survey of who would be the worst, most reactionary and at the 
same time most suitable choice for second spot on the Democratic 
Party ticket—predicted that Harris would most likely be named 
the vice presidential candidate if she failed to win the 
nomination. She had all the ruthlessness, narcissism and 
careerism requisite for the job, plus the ethnic background to 
suit the Democrats’ obsession with racial and gender identity.

Kamala Harris is a dyed-in-the wool political reactionary.

This year has seen mass demonstrations throughout the country in 
response to the police murder of George Floyd. As a direct 
result of the policies of the ruling class, nearly 170,000 
people have died to date in the coronavirus pandemic, with the 
daily death toll now at more than 1,000. There is growing anger 
in workplaces over the homicidal back-to-work campaign and broad 
opposition among teachers to the efforts to reopen the schools. 
Tens of millions of people are unemployed, and they have been 
cut off from federal benefits and face being evicted from their 
homes.

In the midst of this monumental political, economic and social 
crisis, and against the backdrop of so much suffering, the 
American people are to be offered the “choice” between the 
fascistic Trump, the conman from New York, and a Democratic 
Party ticket headed by a corporate shill from Delaware and an ex-
prosecutor from California. This says everything about the 
degraded state of American politics.

Following the announcement by Biden on Tuesday, the media leapt 
into action with its nauseating effusion of state propaganda. 
The selection of Harris has been universally proclaimed to be 
“historic,” a watershed moment.

In terms of her politics, there is clearly nothing “historic” 
about Harris. As district attorney in San Francisco (2004-2011), 
attorney general in California (2011-2017), and, finally, US 
senator (2017 to the present), Harris has compiled a track 
record of backing the police, locking up workers and immigrants, 
covering up for the banks and supporting militarism and war.

Wall Street is certainly happy with the choice. “A VP pick that 
big business can back,” ran a headline on the inside pages of 
the New York Times. As for the military, its main concern is 
what will happen if the aging Biden doesn’t make it through a 
full term. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, 
opposition from the Democratic Party has been focused on issues 
of foreign policy. Harris, who has no other agenda than her own 
self-promotion, will be silly putty in the hands of the military-
intelligence apparatus.

The “historic” character of the Harris nomination is premised 
entirely on her race and gender. She would be the “first African-
American vice president,” the “first Asian-American vice 
president” and the “first female vice president.” She already is 
the “first Black woman on the national ticket of the Democrats 
or Republicans.” Everything is about the symbolism involved in 
the choice of Harris, with not a word about the program of a 
Democratic Party administration.

As if any of this makes a bit of difference for workers, 
whatever their race, gender or ethnicity. As if, moreover, the 
world has not already had the example of Obama, not to mention 
Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton 
and many others.

The selection of Harris exposes the utterly reactionary 
character of politics that bases itself on race, gender and 
other forms of identity—anything but class. In response to the 
eruption of protests against police violence, the Democrats did 
everything they could to obscure the class issues, promote 
racial divisions and propagate the lie that the violence of the 
police is an expression of the oppression of “black America” by 
“white America.” The outcome of this racialist campaign is the 
selection as their vice-presidential candidate of a right-wing 
ex-prosecutor who once covered up evidence to keep an innocent 
man on death row and worked to tear immigrant children from 
their parents.

Those invested in the racialist campaign have jumped on the 
bandwagon to declare the selection of Harris “historic.” Ibram 
Kendi, author of How to Be An Antiracist and one of the chief 
inspirers of the New York Times’ 1619 Project, wrote on Twitter 
that “the Democrats now have a presidential ticket that reflects 
the American people better than the GOP ticket and every 
presidential ticket in US history.”

According to Kendi, politicians “reflect” the American people 
not because of the socioeconomic forces they represent, but 
solely by their racial and ethnic background and their gender. 
Interests are determined by race. This is not progressive 
politics, but right-wing and racialist politics, which shares 
much in common with the fascistic politics of Donald Trump.

Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King wrote that he was 
“incredibly proud to see a brilliant Black woman, and HBCU 
[historically black colleges and universities] grad, chosen as a 
vice presidential nominee.” This was, he added, the stuff 
“dreams are made of.”

Commenters on Twitter quickly pointed to the contrast between 
this statement and his declaration in November 2018 that he 
would never support Biden or Harris because “they both helped 
build & advance mass incarceration.”

Political principles have never been a strong suit of Democratic 
Party hacks. They look forward to positions within the Biden 
administration and other opportunities that will reap financial 
rewards.

Then there is Bernie Sanders. In the Democratic Party primaries, 
Sanders won widespread support for his attacks on social 
inequality and his calls for a “political revolution” against 
the establishment. On this basis, he emerged as the main 
contender against Biden for the Democratic Party nomination. In 
the end, however, the “Sanders wing” of the Democratic Party got 
nothing.

This has not, however, stopped Sanders from praising the 
outcome. Sanders tweeted that Harris “will make history as our 
next vice president.”

Since packing in his campaign in mid-March, Sanders has assumed 
his assigned role as principal cheerleader for the Biden 
campaign, along with Elizabeth Warren, et. al. The more that 
social anger grows, and the more the Democrats are exposed, the 
more determined is his support for the Democratic Party.

What an exposure of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), 
Jacobin magazine and other political agents of the Democratic 
Party who claimed that Sanders was the path to the 
transformation of American politics and even the realization of 
socialism! They make fools of themselves every election. They 
will tag along with the Democratic Party in one form or another, 
no doubt accompanied by talk about how they are building a 
“progressive movement” inside that party of American 
imperialism, along with other varieties of political fraud. 
Every four years, the same play is performed.

There is something incredibly degrading and shameful about the 
whole process, testifying to the intellectual and cultural 
collapse of American politics.

Certain conclusions must be drawn from this experience, not only 
about Sanders, but about an entire type of pragmatic politics 
that hopes for easy answers to the crisis confronting the 
working class without a direct challenge to capitalism and its 
state apparatus.

The politics of the working class must begin with a serious 
theoretical understanding, rooted in a Marxist and class 
analysis. The Democratic Party is a party of Wall Street and the 
military-intelligence apparatus. The politics of race and gender 
identity, which it relentlessly promotes, gives expression to 
the interests of layers of the upper-middle class, which employ 
this right-wing ideology in their fight for positions of power 
and privilege in the state, academia and corporate boardrooms. 
The pseudo-left, including the DSA and associated organizations, 
represent this social layer.

All of this is directed against the working class and the 
development of a genuine movement for socialism. Objective 
conditions, however, have created the conditions for a powerful 
eruption of class struggle, in the United States and 
internationally. The coronavirus pandemic, as the Socialist 
Equality Party has explained, is a “trigger event in world 
history that is accelerating the already far-advanced economic, 
social, and political crisis of the world capitalist system.”

Nothing progressive will emerge except through the 
intervention—the interference—of the working class. The 
Socialist Equality Party and our election campaign are oriented 
to the development of a socialist leadership in the working 
class. Our campaign is the only campaign that raises critical 
questions of perspective, exposing the reactionary promoters of 
racial conflict and the cheerleaders of Sanders’ “political 
revolution.”

The SEP is spearheading the organization of workers against the 
homicidal policy of the ruling elite, in opposition to all 
factions of the ruling class, on the basis of a revolutionary 
program to put an end to inequality, war, dictatorship and the 
capitalist system. This is the way forward.

To support our election campaign and join the SEP, visit 
socialism2020.org.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/13/pers-a13.html
      

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The selection of whore Kamala Harris and the degradation of American politics Lickspittle Trump Propagandist Sean Hannity <jthomq@gmail.com> - 2021-04-20 11:29 +0200

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