Early in the morning, after hours of watching poll results roll across our screens and waiting for information about mail-in ballots, Trump announced a “big WIN” on twitter, and stated definitively in his 2AM speech that “we did win this election”. As expected, he and his supporters are claiming that the mail-in ballots, particularly those coming from majority Democrat states and cities (such as Philadelphia) are fraudulent, and that an election that does not result in his victory must be fallacious.
Regardless of who wins the Presidency, the capitalist machine continues to churn. People in the global south, Black and Indigenous people in the United States, immigrants, queer folks and impoverished communities will still struggle under the corruption, greed and grift of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Within our own Democratic city, we’ve seen municipal leadership decline to stop the shuttering of a centralized hospital building in the middle of a global pandemic, while simultaneously increasing the Philadelphia Police budget. Absurdly, our (Democrat-led) City Council even suggested budgetary increases for cops as a solution to police violence, essentially rewarding PPD with more weapons in exchange for the assassination and brutalization of Philadelphia residents. Larry Krasner, our so-called “progressive” District Attorney, has yet to charge either of the officers involved in the police murder of Walter Wallace, Jr. in West Philadelphia, but has been quick to process and charge hundreds of protesters over the past several months.
But, this doesn’t mean that Trump’s attempt to dissolve whatever semblance of democracy we have in this country is not significant. In fact, we understand that if Trump does ignore the election results and move forward with an attempted coup, it will not be the Democrats who save us. The leadership of the Democratic Party is not and never was “on our side” - they will gladly choose fascist rule over even a modicum of social democracy. Power in a fascist state is still power to those who hold it.
We know that regardless of what happens, liberal media and government leadership will almost certainly put up a small public fight while cowering behind closed doors. So it’s not the Democrats we turn to in order to stop Trump, it’s our comrades, our friends, our neighbors, our communities. Democracy, freedom, the pursuit of happiness - under capitalism these are all doomed. There can be no true democracy in a society that rewards the oppression and exploitation of the working class in favor of the ruling class. The only road to democracy and freedom is through fighting for socialism.
“If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what’s that? The freedom to starve? Or if the candidates on the ballot are yoked to unjust power structures, what’s that? The freedom to vote?” - Angela Davis