Useless election (1988)

From the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

However lurid the phrases used to describe how the Democratic and Republican parties select, and advise the American people to vote for, their presidential candidates, it is clear that they are inadequate to the event itself. This applies even to 1988, when the fact that both parties knew in advance who they were going to nominate deprived the conventions of much of the tension and what might be called their interest. Of course master self-publicist Jesse Jackson made a show of contesting the Democratic nomination but his attention is actually on presidential elections of the future; what he did at the Democratic convention was no more than a gesture. a threat to be mildly disruptive unless he was accepted into the party leadership — a tactic sometimes adopted by some of Thatcher's sacked ministers.

So this time there were none of the traditional smoke-filled rooms crammed with wheedling, bullying, bargaining political pros while out on the convention floor the party faithful were taking their regular fixes of blind hysteria which motivates them to go out and campaign for policies which only a deranged myopic could see any merit in. There were, as usual, plenty of distractions. The Democrats' keynote speaker's scornful tirade against George Bush went down so well that she felt emboldened to produce her baby granddaughter to give the audience something else to cheer about. Continuing with the theme of the political message of the close-knit family, a senator dragged out his nephews and nieces and Jesse Jackson always had his wife and kids at the ready to stage ecstatic, congratulatory embraces at the end of his speeches. And of course there was the inevitable Kennedy offspring, without whom no Democratic convention can feel that its hunger for emotional guzzling has been satisfied.

The Republicans, whose 100,000 gathering was a record for the New Orleans Superdome (bigger than the Rolling Stones, bigger than the Pope) kept releasing great clouds of balloons from the ceiling, which may have diverted too close attention from the gaseous rubbish coming from the podium below. One victim of assault by descending balloon was Ronald Reagan, bringing the curtain down on his greatest, longest-running role yet. His was — as Reagan may well have intended — a hard act to follow but George Bush managed it with surprising success, proving that he has little to learn in the matter of delivering those sly deceptions which are known as politicians' speeches. Bush is said to be a nice, quiet family man. ever loyal to his country, his party, his president (“I’m for Mr Reagan — blindly") has never found any inconsistency between being devoted to his family and taking decisions which will have appallingly destructive consequences for human beings — for other families. If he wins the election, he will sit easily, guiltlessly, in the hot seat in the White House.

The style and flavour of the campaign could be sampled from some of the convention speeches:

— keep America strong, make America better, red and yellow, brown black and white.

everyone is precious in god's sight;

— we're going to win because we are the party that believes in the American dream;

— I believe that god put this land between the two great oceans to be found by special people from every comer of the world who had an extra love for freedom;

—we're on a new journey into a new country . . .

Those were the words of (although since they are basically the same kind of interchangeable rubbish the identity of the speaker does not matter) Jackson, Dukakis. Reagan and Bush in that order. We can gauge the relevance of those speeches by the case of Reagan, who has cheerfully accepted his reputation as a president with a sharply restricted understanding of what is going on around him but who has survived and prospered through his talents as a communicator — or, to be more accurate, an actor. He spoke his lines perfectly in a speech fashioned on the well-tested theory that in organisations like the Republican party delusions are more comfortable than reality. Reagan provoked roars of laughter, swells of emotion and geysers of tears, yet what he said meant exactly nothing.

On one issue both parties were agreed: their candidates would be extremely rich. The ethnic roots of which Dukakis said he is so proud (in politics it always seems to mean a lot if your ancestors were poor — unless, that is, they were rich which also seems to mean a lot) have sprouted a multi-million dollar fortune; his running-mate. Lloyd Bentsen, comes from a family who amassed considerable wealth through farming and land deals. George Bush's father made it big on Wall Street as an investment banker and let George have enough of the proceeds to enable him to make his millions in the oil business (no wonder he loves his family); his vice-presidential candidate. Dan Quayle, was cushioned from the sort of rigours of life which workers know only too well — not just being in the firing line in Vietnam — by his family's investments in the newspaper business (before this unfortunate matter of his joining the Indiana National Guard was brought up. Quayle rejoiced in a reputation as a hawk — someone who is keen about other people going to war). Bush has a cousin who is a psychoanalyst, who has asked:

Does anyone from the family understand what it is to be poor? No. And the bigger question is: Do they understand their own ignorance?

Bush might respond that a rich president is not something unknown in America: consider Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Johnson, Reagan . . He might also (although he probably won't) go on to point to the many examples of leaders who have come from a background of extreme poverty and that there is no evidence that they have run capitalism any differently from those who come to power with their mouths crammed with silver cutlery. The capitalist class — people like Reagan. Bush and Bentsen — hold political power because the majority — the working class — allows them to and from that standpoint we can approach the real issues of the American election and the actual consequences of it for the American workers.

For a while, the bitter struggle within the parties has subsided into a spurious unity behind their chosen candidates. Robert Dole has forgotten how he called George Bush a liar, the Democrats are forgetting the hatchet jobs done on the likes of Gary Hart and Joe Biden. Both presidential candidates have chosen running-mates whose ideas they are in theory opposed to; when votes are at stake political principles are of little importance. Conservative Lloyd Bentsen is on the Democratic ticket of "liberal" Michael Dukakis because it is hoped that he will ensure the electoral college votes of his home state of Texas (no Democrat has ever won without Texas' votes) as well, perhaps, as Oklahoma. Louisiana and even part of the Old South. where it is no longer true that they would vote for a lamp post provided it wore a Democratic label. Bush chose Quayle for similar reasons, he seems to have overlooked or ignored the many inconvenient aspects of Quayle's past which provided such a sumptuous feat for the media vultures The 1988 vice presidential candidates were chosen, then, for the customary cynical reasons — to cobble up a "balanced" ticket, which means one which will encourage people who are opposed to the presidential candidate nevertheless to vote for him because they support his running-mate. This is known as political democracy in a free country.

Since they have been in government for the past eight years, the Republicans have to assert that these were great times, when Reagan wrought a miraculous recovery from Jimmy Carter's undermining of all that is best in America. But Bush, apparently, is not satisfied; he has spoken about his "dreams" for America's future. Every self-respecting politician must modestly confess to dreaming dreams about a glorious future which, by a strange coincidence, can be assured by voting them into power. It is another way of glossing over the endless, and endlessly futile, efforts to do something with this social system so that it makes sense in terms of human interests. The Democrats' case is summarised in the title of their — unusually hesitant — manifesto — The Restoration of Competence and the Revival of Hope. They must argue that Reagan was an incompetent president, who bungled the American economy into chaos and who condoned scandals like Irangate. It is commonplace for political parties to accuse their opponents of causing economic chaos and to assert that they have a simple remedy which will restore order. This often proves an appealing propaganda line among voters who have forgotten, or who don't care, that the party making the accusation has itself presided over a fair amount of chaos in its time. This is known as the cut-and-thrust of open political debate.

Whoever wins, their election will be greeted as one of the most significant events in human history and we shall hear, in numerous speeches, about the dawn of a new era when the problems of the past and the present will be no more. Plenty of people, especially those who voted for the winner and who are reluctant to think that they have been duped or have wasted their vote, will believe in these golden prospects. But history is not on their side, for there have been numerous examples of presidents who have come to power on just such a surge of enthusiasm and who began their term of office with high hopes and promises but who have been exposed and discredited by the inexorable nature of capitalism as an uncontrollable, problem-producing social system.

The most recent example of this was Lyndon Johnson. In 1964 the Democrats were carried along to victory by. among other things, a popular surge of emotion originating in the myths nurtured by the assassination of John Kennedy. As Kennedy's vice president. Johnson, could claim to have had experience of the top job at an unusually difficult time while also associating himself with the more attractive bits of the Kennedy mythology. Johnson had. over many years, honed his skills as a political fixer to a razor edge (which had not. however, prevented him misjudging the situation badly when he was contesting the nomination with Kennedy). And, as if all that were not enough the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater. whose ideas were so out of tune with the times (although this would not be true were he to be a candidate today) that the mere mention of his name would provoke contemptuous laughter. Goldwater campaigned like a political dinosaur and all over America the votes poured in for the man they liked to call Elbeejay. Johnson received a record total of over 43 million [votes] and his electoral college votes — 485 — were the highest since the sweep of his idol Roosevelt. Only the South, where his switch from a supporter of segregation to an opponent was not forgotten by the racist whites, held out against the tide. “It seems to me tonight". said Johnson on election eve. waiting for this triumph to be formally acknowledged, "that 1 have spent my whole life getting ready for this moment".

Following on Kennedy's clutch of reforms which went under the grandiose name of the New Frontier, Johnson launched his programme. with the even more confident title of the Great Society. Conditions in the early sixties were such as to allow politicians to base their appeal on the false argument that comprehensive schemes of social welfare could be financed through a big surge in productivity. In this country. Harold Wilson was thriving on more or less the same propaganda. Those who read the omens for Johnson, considering all the advantages which he apparently had, could foresee only unbroken, unqualified success for him followed by a grateful nation triumphantly reelecting him with an even bigger majority.

Well of course it did not turn out that way, for Johnson was exposed and, as opinion turned against him, it was focused in particular on the increasingly cruel and senseless bloodshed in Vietnam. It was said by those who knew him well that Johnson, in spite of his overbearing manners, desperately wanted to be loved by the American people — if possible all 200-odd million of them. In November 1964 he could expect that this would happen but by 1968. when it was time to consider his re-nomination, millions of American workers hated him. At the end of the White House lawn the demonstrators persistently chanted "Hey, hey, LBJ. how many kids have you killed today?" in protest at the ruthless, indiscriminate bombing and other attacks on the North Vietnamese people. Johnson confided to one of his aides:

I felt that I was being chased on all sides by a giant stampede coming at me from all directions. On one side, the American people were stampeding me to do something about Vietnam. On another side, the inflationary economy was booming out of control. Up ahead were dozens of danger signs pointing to another summit of riots in the cities. (Doris Kearns. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream)

It did not seem to occur to Johnson that he was complaining about people expecting him to solve problems which he had claimed to be able to solve — and that, therefore, it was not unreasonable of them to "stampede'' when he was exposed as a failure. A mental wreck, he was unable to face another election and the end came when his successor was nominated and outside the convention the demonstrators were being dispersed with terrible violence by the Chicago police.

Unsurprisingly, the Democrats did not win the next election. Richard Nixon came back from the electorally dead to such effect that his re-election in 1972 was greeted with ecstatic chants of “Four More Years" but of course he disappointed his supporters by failing to last that long. Then came Jimmy Carter, the religious peanut farmer from the South, who marked his first Christmas as president by inviting a lot of people to a reception at which neither food nor drink was provided and where neither the president nor his wife put in an appearance. This was a foretaste of the administrative chaos for which the Carter presidency became notorious — which gave the commentators the excuse to blame his impotence in face of some typical capitalist crises on to the way he ran the White House office. Proving that time heals everything. Nixon and Carter are now respected elder statesmen, handing down to their parties advice and analyses, as if neither of them is thoroughly discredited.

The institution of the American president then, does not inspire or deserve any respect or admiration. The entire edifice is kept in place, not through any merit but by a massive scaffolding of working-class self-delusion. For example. Reagan hands over the White House after being re-elected in 1984 with a crushing majority and in the glow of a successful president who claims to have personally ensured that America is a better, more secure country. What that really means has recently been spelled out by some American doctors, who see Reagan's country through the health of its people. The Physician Task Force on Hunger in America found in a recent study that, using the official definition, 14 per cent of the population are classifiable as poor. In the golden state of California — homeland of Nixon and Reagan — there are 3.6 million who come into that category, half of them children, one out of ten rely on monthly food hand-outs from charities. For the first time in 20 years infant morality in California is on the increase, which is probably not unconnected with the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are too poor to see a doctor when they are ill. Apart from the doctors, the US Census Bureau reported in early September that "overall" poverty is experienced by 32.4 million Americans and — as another indicator of how blissful it is to be alive in that country now — in Los Angeles the murder rate has gone up some 40 per cent over last year.

That kind of bitter reality is not confined to America. It is found all over the world, regardless of who is in power or of any superficial differences in their methods of running capitalism. Any rational view of what is about to happen in America must reach the conclusion that whichever party wins it will make no real difference to the lives of the majority of people there. So what is it all about? Why all the hype, the ballyhoo, the razzmataz? Well a Republican strategist blurted out at their convention, when he was discussing campaign tactics. “Beside, we like being in power" and for the American workers the implications of that bald statement should be a good place to begin their understanding.

Ivan

Running Commentary: Silver spoon (1983)

The Running Commentary column from the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Silver spoon
Clean-cut prefect type that he is, the thought could never have entered the Brylcreemed head of Cecil Parkinson that he would one day be the subject of nationwide salacious jokes. As usually happens, there was much misunderstanding about the affair between Parkinson and Sarah Keays and the lucky child who as a result will find itself born into the British ruling class.

Parkinson's extra-marital activities were denounced as inconsistent with the Tories’ well-advertised concern for what they called Victorian values, particularly with the sanctity of the monogamous, nuclear family. Should he, repentant, leave the government? The party? The country? All of this on the assumption that politicians operate on consistent, absolute principles.

But of course the Thatcher concern with the capitalist family was designed as a vote-winner and in any case applied only to that class in society (which does not include Parkinson) which has a subservient role and must be disciplined into it, by one method or another. Now this is perfectly in line with the values of capitalism, whoever is on the throne. It was so in Victorian times and it is so today. Capitalism now, as then, is a society of two conflicting classes, one of them socially superior and privileged and the other socially inferior and disadvantaged.

Parkinson and Keays enjoy a life-style, and assumptions about their futures which result from the exploitation of the working class. It is instructive to compare the treatment of Keays with that of a working-class female who conceives a child without being married. Keays negotiated through her solicitors — which means with a lot of legal protection and comfort — for what Parkinson assured us would be an adequate financial arrangement for her and the child. A spacious cottage near the home of her rich family in the lush Cotswold countryside was renovated for her.

Meanwhile, in magistrates courts throughout the land unmarried female workers apply for maintenance orders against similarly impoverished fathers of their children. In most cases, the courts award them a few pounds a week — which is all the father can afford — which is promptly deducted from their Social Security "benefit”. The working class should attend to the repression and the indignity represented by that rather than to the personal peccadillos of their arrogant masters.


A black hope
Jesse Jackson is tall, handsome, energetic and he believes in the American Way, so nobody should be surprised that he is a possible candidate in the next Presidential election.

In fact, the mere possibility is driving thousands of American workers into a frenzy of enthusiasm because Jesse Jackson is not only tall, energetic, etc. etc, but also black. Even more; he says he was there on the balcony when Martin Luther King was shot and that King died in his arms; he kept on a bloodstained T-shirt for a highly-charged TV appearance soon after the assassination. American blacks love him; “Run, Jesse, run" they urge him onwards to the nominating conventions.

Jackson is being lauded, not just as the new hope of American blacks; he is said to have something to offer whites as well — an unprecedented insight into their problems and a unique ability to come up with the answers. “In America,” he said during a recent visit to Brixton, "our struggle has shifted from a focus on freedom to the drive for real equality”.

It would be most remarkable if a politician who aspires to power did not try to arouse passion and enthusiasm by claims to have a novel solution to the problems which have been troubling the enthusiasts for such a long time. It is only when the power is won and the reality of trying to run capitalism strikes home that the ardour dies and the hero wilts, sometimes into obscurity.

Even before he gets near the convention there are questions hanging over Jackson. In particular, his claim to have been with King when he was shot is denied by fellow black Andrew Young, who undoubtedly was on the balcony. But it is important to consider more than questions. It is time the workers, in America and all over the world, refused to be misled into hysteria by the promises, the deceits and the charisma of leaders. Real experience shows that capitalism cannot be other than a divided, repressive social system of impoverishment and fear. No leader can change that.

Run Jesse run? Where to?


Method unimportant
After their defeat in 1979 the Labour Party went through a Benn-inspired reassessment of their constitution which was supposed to make them a more democratic and more effective organisation. This was as agonising for them as a bad illness and after the treatment they decided, among other changes, on a new method of electing their leader. No longer would this be through the preferences of only Labour MPs; now the whole party, affiliated trade unions and all, would have a vote on the issue.

Triumphant left wing Labourites claimed that they now had a serenely democratic party, better fitted to take power and. in some unexplained way, to force socialism on us. Some of their leaders, on the grounds that too much democracy was a bad thing, left the party to take their place at what they hoped would be the foot of Labour’s death-bed. And out of this marvellous new method has emerged Neil Kinnock, who has not so far been justified on the grounds that he is the fruit of a more democratic method of election but because his party hopes that he has the formula to win them back into power.

Whatever system the Labour Party used, the leader who emerged would have carried the same hopes. Kinnock, for his youth and his carefully constructed reputation, would always have been a very strong candidate for the succession. Labour's new constitution, born amid so much pain and dispute, has really changed nothing.

Labour's elected leader is expected to be enough of a crafty opportunist to play the electoral game of deceiving the working class to such effect that it results in a Labour win. As long as the workers — who vote for Labour and Tory governments over British capitalism — continue to acquiesce in this cynicism the problems of modern society will remain. The method through which leaders emerge is unimportant; what matters is the social system which they serve and which they try to control — and the urgent need to abolish it.

God returns to the White House (1984)

From the December 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 1984 US Presidential Election campaign, which seemed to have been going on for ever, is at last over. For some of the hopefuls who fell by the wayside, such as Gary Hart, the run up to 1988 has already begun. (The BBC 9 o'clock News on October 29 called this Life after Mondale — where was the life with Mondale you may ask!) The overwhelming victory of Ronald Reagan had appeared inevitable all through and there is little evidence that the alternative strategics suggested for the Democrats (Jesse Jackson’s “rainbow coalition" being the front runner) would have produced a better result.

Reagan’s victory clearly owed nothing to the brainpower of the candidate; he was clearly reluctant to engage in even the two so-called debates with his opponent. Indeed his performance, stripped of its multi-million dollar showbiz trappings, was more akin to "The President’s Brain Is Missing", that brilliant lampoon from Central TV’s Spitting Image, than the wise pontifications we are taught to expect from those "born to rule”.

Equally it could not be put down to the promises made in the Republican election platform, at least not the sort that appear to offer immediate benefits to workers, such as increased welfare spending or "fair fares" on public transport. Such apparent concern for the workers' plight was noticeably lacking, and any promises made were to increase rather than make good the cuts already made in this area. The charity soup-kitchen and in a few places even the parish workhouse have reappeared as features of American working class life. How can a party with such a record and campaigning on such a platform win such an overwhelming victory? A glance at the areas of the country which voted Republican tells us that very few of those workers who are dependent on the "welfare" programme did vote for Reagan, either in 1980 or this year. A strategy which writes these votes off is certainly brutally cynical, but a winner none the less.

A radio commentator at the Republican convention in Dallas in August put this particular brand of cynicism down to what he termed “compassion fatigue". His viewpoint was that capitalists (not only American ones, of course) have been getting so fed up with the welfare handouts they have been forced to give that they are now flatly refusing to finance any more. Despite all these apparent handouts, however, the queue of the needy is longer than ever. It is very difficult for any party trying to run capitalism, even on a "radical" reformist basis, to counteract this without being wide open to counter-attacks alleging "profligacy”.

Having seen on TV excerpts from the Democrats’ convention in San Francisco in July, it was natural to speculate on how much worse the Republicans could be when their turn came. In the event they comfortably exceeded the grimmest expectations with a degrading display of sycophancy and puerile hero-worship that beggared belief. An especially disturbing thought was that if Reagan’s campaign managers had thought that votes would have been lost by all the ballyhoo they could easily have toned it down. They didn't and their judgement has been proved right. The Times (29 October 1984) referred to his luck with the present trends in the American economy (and luck it is, as capitalism cannot be "managed”) and said: "The other thing most Americans clearly like about Reagan is his unashamed patriotism". Sad as we are that so many workers think this way, this figures. Indeed it parallels the Falklands campaign of two years ago and the way Thatcher used it to improve her poll ratings. That it is Reagan rather than the party he leads that projects this image is shown by the election results viewed as a whole. The other Republican candidates for office had at best only moderate success in clinging to Reagan's coat tails.

Another feature of Ronald Reagan is his tendency to treat really serious issues in a light-hearted vein. This was highlighted by his "joke", cracked during a radio microphone test, about ordering the bombing of Russia. The following extract from The Times says: In a letter due to appear in the September 24 issue of Forbes magazine, Mr Reagan writes: "Granted. I shouldn’t have said it, even though I was sure I was saying it only to the several people who know me well and with whom 1 work. The damage, if any, was due to the worldwide press dissemination."

We should not forget either the union bashing tactics of his administration, typified by the smashing of the air traffic controllers strike. Union membership is now only 18 per cent of the total labour force. Even this does not appear to have lost him votes in the present political climate.

Cartoon by George Meddemmen.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the Dallas convention was the light it shed on the activities and influence of the movement known as Moral Majority. This body is one of a number of overlapping forces consisting of politically-minded fundamentalists (Protestants who claim to believe in the literal truth of the Bible). Part of their aims is revealed by a new one of the brood, the American Coalition for Traditional Values. The Times comments: “The title says it all: ‘The coalition parades a strong ‘pro-family' line, is vehemently anti-abortion. wants prayer in school, an emphasis on strong defence and stricter welfare policies. It is opposed to homosexual rights and is against the Equal Rights Amendment that would cement equal rights for women into the constitution.’” (21 August 1984)

Moral Majority, the best financed and most visible of the interlocking groups, is led by Jerry Falwell, a Baptist minister from Lynchbury, Virginia. After a short period of gathering momentum they surfaced in 1980 at two pre-election rallies. In April a “Washington for Jesus" event had overt political overtones. In the late summer a rally in Texas was attended by Ronald Reagan in person, to endorse the aims of the movement. The day after the 1980 election Moral Majority claimed credit for supporting Reagan and backing some extreme right wing candidates who won election to Congress. They argued that in the two previous presidencies there had been a moral decline which had seen "liberals, humanists and leftists conspire to take God out of public life”. (“The New Christian Right"—article in Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year 1981 by Martin E. Marty.) Although a religious man himself, Marty easily disposes of Majority’s claim to speak for any silent majority which they may say exists, and mentions highly personalised scandals in which some of its prominent members have been associated.

Between elections the efforts of Majority and their allies carried on at a more local level. The Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year 1982 reported "an alarming increase in demands for the removal of books and material from schools and libraries. Many of the books being questioned dealt with American history, feminism and racial attitudes." The Majority also claimed to be monitoring television programmes allegedly for “sexual, profane and violent content”.

The election campaign of 1984 found Moral Majority in the Republican party’s machinery and working hard to register "Christian" voters. Jerry Falwell delivered the benediction at Reagan's formal nomination, his “coronation” as some dubbed it. Support for Majority’s views has been expressed during the campaign by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, through the Archbishop of New York’s intervention against Geraldine Ferraro on the abortion issue, and the Mormon Church. At Dallas, The Times (21 August 1984) reported, “some observers are concerned at what they regard as a mix of politics and religion that is growing uglier”. Four days later the same newspaper was clearly disturbed at the surfacing of “a style of anti-communism that the Republicans have not worn since 1964". The Republican Party may not have been responsible for dubbing Russia as "socialist”, but they have certainly taken advantage of the seeds of confusion sowed by the Bolsheviks to commit some monstrous crimes of their own. We need only recall the activities of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Un- American Activities Committee. It appears all too likely that another attack of this deadly disease is imminent.

All this suggests that there is a considerable danger of something akin to the Fascism of the 1930s emerging in the USA. It is to be hoped that American workers will not make the mistake of thinking that things could have been much different had Mondale been elected president. The same forces would have exerted the same pressures at local and national levels as at present. The hope lies in a greater participation by the American working class in the democratic process, to establish socialism.

E.C. Edge

Will Jesse run? (1988)

From the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone who expected the 1988 American presidential election to be refreshing for the high level of its political debate will have found the primaries ominously disturbing. Such was the level of tedious cant from the candidates that it was almost a relief to turn to the bigoted ravings of Pat Robertson, whose manic religion at least offered something other than endless grins flashing through exhausted platitudes.

Another candidate who tried to be different was Jesse Jackson, who gathered an unexpected success based largely on a mould-breaking appeal to bring a single-minded resolve to tackling the problems of poverty, housing, health, racism and the rest. Jackson has a past which is dubious enough to cast strong doubts on the endurance of his pledges. His place as an aide of the late Martin Luther King was not based on his entirely selfless devotion to the work of racial integration. His claim to have cradled the dying civil rights leader through the last moments of his life were not echoed by other witnesses of the assassination. There is some question about whose blood it was and how it got on the shirt which Jackson wore when he apppeared in public after the killing.

Whatever the truth, it has not held Jackson back in his ambition to be the first black president of the United States. His success in the primaries was such as to have the pros in the Democratic Party fussing about the awful consequences of their convention foisting on them a candidate who. because of his colour, would be unlikely to be elected. Of course the pros were equally worried in 1960. about the prospects of electing a catholic to the White House, except that the Kennedy machine rolled on its ruthless way to show them how wrong they were.

It is votes that worry the pros - not the fact that Jackson makes a blatantly cynical appeal to the people whose despair and frustration at American capitalism in 1988 makes them vulnerable to any charismatic trickster. Nothing is easier in politics and nothing happens more often - than mouthing seductive promises that a candidate has the ability to cure social ailments which has eluded everyone and every administration in the past.

That is why, when a president takes the oath, we hear a speech full of assurances about a new age, a new departure from outmoded ways of tackling problems, a new zeal to build a better world. That kind of speech was made by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan . . . In each case it was followed by the inevitable disillusionment and an equally inevitable despair until a new candidate came along, to make the same promises, the same speech.

So if the possibly unelectable Jackson is nominated and then elected, the American people will be on course for an experience they have had many times before. After the hysteria of the inauguration the reality will set in - that capitalism takes no account of politicians' promises.

Ivan

Making of a candidate (1984)

From the May 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) is widely credited with having democratised American politics. Reforms initiated about this time led to party conventions taking over as the vehicle for the selection of presidential candidates. Each state sends delegates, mostly pledged to vote for a particular candidate although some are uncommitted. In fact this was not as successful as had been hoped. Control of state delegates fell into the hands of party bosses, the most notorious of whom were those who ran Tammany Hall, the headquarters of the Democrats in New York. This put into a key position another class of professional politicians who expected and received patronage from political hopefuls whose path to power they smoothed. A major reason for the advance of the primary system was that it struck a blow at these state bosses.

The primary system varies from state to state, with a number still mandating their delegates through a party caucus. Others hold closed primaries where the voter is required to register as a member of the party before voting. Some have open primaries where the voter selects the primary ballot for and then can choose candidates from that list only. In a few, however, the names of all candidates from all parties are printed on the ballot and the voter can cross party lines. This gives the process the trappings of democracy. However the graft, corruption and scandals of the heyday of the party bosses are still remembered.

Very little has been heard this year of Republican primaries, as Ronald Reagan has finally decided to stand for re-election. Not since 1912, when William Howard Taft dispensed patronage ad lib to beat off a challenge from Theodore Roosevelt, only to be beaten out of sight when Roosevelt stood as a third party candidate, has an incumbent president had any real difficulty in securing the nomination of his party. While recent opinion polls have shown Gary Hart running ahead of Reagan, these are still early days. Comparison with the British election last June shows what a difficult task the Democratic hopefuls face this year. It has even been suggested that this is the reason that Edward Kennedy has opted out this time. While the upturn in the American economy is extremely modest it is a weapon that Reagan will use for all he is worth. Although in earlier times relative unknowns arriving at the convention with little support sometimes were chosen as compromise candidates when deadlock between the main contenders could not be resolved, this again hasn’t happened for some time. Now that they no longer follow an isolationist policy, American capitalists are much more concerned with their image abroad. They do not want a repeat of the Teapot Dome scandal which finished Warren Gamaliel Harding, the last of the old-style compromise candidates to reach the White House. Their recent "bad luck” with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew is still fresh in their memory.

The Democrats’ choice to face the president in November thus appears to boil down to three, one of whom is already looking like an outsider. He is the demagogue Jesse Jackson, who draws attention to the disadvantages which negro workers suffer even in comparison with their oppressed white fellow wage slaves. Jackson claims that the election of a black president can fundamentally alter this situation. This is dangerous nonsense. The special problems of the negroes arise from their being an easily distinguished minority within the oppressed class of the capitalist system. Ignorant workers pick on them as scapegoats for the evils they experience which are in fact an integral part of the system itself. Jackson in directing his appeal to such a degree to negro prejudices, however understandable these may be, risks inflaming these passions, thus doing the class a considerable disservice. The votes he has collected thus far have come almost entirely from black areas and his appeal seems too narrow to give him a real chance. He might just acquire some bargaining power if it is a close call in the San Francisco convention this summer.

Walter Mondale is the candidate most favoured by party workers and those city bosses still with influence, such as those who control the famous Cook County in Chicago. This in itself is no guarantee of selection. The darlings of the faithful are not necessarily the best winners of uncommitted votes. One of the reasons for the existence of the more open type of primary is to gain some indication of the winning potential of the candidates. The system is not fool proof in this respect, as was shown by the candidacy of the backwoodsman Barry Goldwater for the Republicans in 1964. However it would be incorrect to class Mondale as the Democrats’ 1984 equivalent of Goldwater. Mondale's association with the Carter administration has led to insinuations that he is a “yesterday's man”, and he has made no real attempt to dissociate himself from the former president. While the Democrats have never claimed to be a socialist party, since the era of Franklin Roosevelt they have performed many of the functions the Labour Party carries out in Britain. Like Labour, the Democratic Party has relied to a large extent for its vote on the less well off sections of the working class, and most American cities vote Democrat just as they usually vote Labour here. Mondale realises the need to hold on to this traditional support. As The Times reports (22 March 1984):

Mr Mondale won the Illinois primary the old fashioned way by piling up a big margin in white working class areas of Chicago, and then performing better than expected in the suburbs and down state. He also won a majority of the Hispanic vote and held on to those blacks who were not mesmerized by Mr Jackson’s vision of a "rainbow coalition”.

Mondale has also widespread support inside the trade unions. It is of little importance whether in achieving this working class support he has acted as a conscious deceiver or as an honest but rather ignorant individual. Either way it is the stuff of which presidents are made.

Gary Hart burst onto the scene a few weeks ago, apparently from nowhere, promising sweeping new' deals both inside the Democratic Party and in the USA at large. When this “new" approach is examined much of the cosmetic glitter fades. The Times (10 March 1984) had a feature article on “What Makes The Maverick Hart Tick". In this we read:

   Arguing that "the pragmatism of the new deal has become doctrine”. Mr Hart says the US must find a way to move from the economy of the past to the economy of the future, an economy not only expanding but which can meet the challenges of increased international competition and rapid technological change.
  He is an advocate of an "industrial policy" in which the Government would take the lead in bringing business and labour together to work out the nation's industrial strategy.

and later:

   He believes that the burgeoning cost of social entitlement programmes, such as Medicare and Medicaid, must be restrained, not simply through cuts but by putting more emphasis on preventive medicine and home care.
   On most economic issues Mr Hart has tried to emphasize the need to examine how government money is spent rather than how much. He believes the economic debate between Republicans and Democrats has become bogged down between those who favour fiscal generosity and those on the side of frugality.

This is just a sample of what Professor Samuel Beer of Harvard calls Hart’s "ideological mishmash". This is the confused groping of the politically ignorant, distinguished only by the inevitable concern for capitalism’s welfare. Hart fails to distinguish the old from the new in politics. Indeed we have now reached the stage when there are no new options for capitalism to try, only regurgitations of old, and Hart scarcely seems the best equipped to find the least sickly mixture. No wonder Hart’s star is now emitting a much dimmer light.

Nevertheless, barring real surprises, either Hart or Mondale will win through to oppose Reagan in the autumn. Certain Reagan is far from invincible. His track record on welfare, the US term for social services, is callous even by capitalist standards. The soup kitchen and the church mission, both of which many though had gone for good, have made a big comeback in the wake of the cuts imposed by the Reagan government. But could the Democrats take advantage of this? It would scarcely suffice merely to promise redress, as everyone knows that increased "public expenditure” (actually taxation on the capitalists) would be required. In the present climate few dare to advocate this. Still fewer will advocate a serious reduction in the US arms arsenal. No wonder voting in American elections is so low, particularly in deprived inner city areas. While many have fallen prey to apathy and despair a sizeable number are through with voting for capitalist parties, period.

E. C. Edge