PATRICIA BAKER: Voting imperative as democracies become more fragile

The right to vote brings with it the responsibility to protect freedom and never take it for granted

Author of the article: Patricia Baker
Published Nov 18, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 8 minute read

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As a Canadian and dedicated voter, I have become more and more concerned about the political landscape of this country. When I reached the age of majority many years ago, this milestone gave me the constitutional right to vote, and I have taken this right seriously.

I have submitted my ballot in every federal and provincial election ever since.

The right to vote brings with it the responsibility to protect freedom and never take it for granted. But we must remember that even if we vote, we may not get what we want. We may have to live with what most voters have chosen, even if we don’t agree.

This may be why some do not bother to vote. The adage we hear, “My party isn’t going to get in anyway, so why should I bother to vote?”

When you look at countries in the world that are controlled by dictators, communists or fascists, voting is in a realm of its own. Even if this privilege exists, which is questionable, the authentic will of the people can’t evolve or exist either.

Democracies have become more and more vulnerable to outside interference, so the urgency to stand and protect us from regimes that have intentions to infiltrate our security, and integrity should have the electorate on high alert.

It has come to be a very serious and insidious under current, especially when we are going about our everyday lives, and everything seems to be as we know it.

We quite often take our freedoms and constitutional rights for granted as we get on with our lives, but it should always be a little voice in the back of our heads that we should be wary that we could be on the hit list for foreign political infiltration.

We the electorate also have a responsibility to pay attention to the directions our elected Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) wish to embark upon and what their mandates and platforms for re-election are.

We may want change because we tire of the leaders and parties which have been in power for too long. But we also should be thinking about what we are changing to. In simple terms, prospective leaders may be telling us they will maintain social programs already in place or introduce new ones that are awaiting approval which will help with everyday living costs. They may also endorse funneling more funds into public health care or doing what it takes to address climate change by reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

The introduction of more liberal ideas for the curriculums in public schools while supporting dental or pharmacare for Canadians who are not financial able to access these health benefits are being put before us.

On the other side of the political spectrum, a more conservative approach to managing this country’s spending and programs may be presented as legitimate alternatives to moving this country too far to the left of centre.

Programs may be delayed, curtailed or abandoned altogether to become what is believed to be a more fiscally responsible approach to spending. The reduction of the deficit by spending more cost effectively on social programs, immigration and climate change initiatives for instance, could be presented as in a more cost-effective manner to eventually rail it in

Although the centre and left of centre political parties seem to have been more open than the right about their plans for Canadians if they are elected, voters may have to resort to reading between the lines until such time a more open dialogue is presented.

Having said that, it may be helpful to reflect on the federal parties and their past promises and performances in governments they formed after being elected. Look back at the relationships the federal and provincial governments have had with each other during their respective mandates.

Were you happy with what you got in any of the past respective governments, and did they fulfill those promises that were attainable and responsible? Did they present themselves on the world stage in a stately manner? Were they open to constructive dialogue? Did they present Canada’s value as a democracy and protect it?

Social programs such as dental, pharmacare and reproductive/abortion services are expensive to initiate and operate, but they are considered to promote healthier outcomes for those who do not have access to or cannot afford them.

The argument for acceptance is that many low even middle-income Canadians will be healthier in the long run. Ultimately these programs will save government
coffers money by reducing visits and admissions to hospitals. Poor dental hygiene and limited or no access to prescription drugs for diabetes and heart disease for example, have been correctly identified as very costly expenditures for the public health care system to sustain.

This is preventative medicine, and it has been proven over time that a healthy population is able to be much more productive and relies on health care much less than an ailing population with chronic diseases that they cannot afford to prevent in the first place.

Access and affordability are everything and yes fiscal responsibility is also required for a healthy prosperous economy to be able to grow into a stable asset. Being beleaguered under massive debt is very counterproductive.

On the other hand, if we are being promised balanced budgets, with cuts to climate change initiatives or social programs, will this in the long run balance the budget?

Will resisting calls for our reliance on fossil fuels to be harnessed and eventually over time replaced with clean energy eventually balance the budget and eliminate the deficit?

Can the effects of climate change destroy communities, flood and burn valuable land and resources while debts for restoration are handed down from one generation to the next?

Will social programs help those in need? What will happen if they are not enough?

If abortion rights are maintained at status quo, will this help women be safe and maintain their right to choose what they do with their own body?

Having said all of this, voters cannot be expected to abandon their own needs and struggles either. The economy, housing, health care, cost of living and immigration are the major issues facing Canadians.

The upcoming election could be coming sooner than later, it has not been determined, but all the parties in their unmitigated quest to govern this country are going to encourage the electorate to vote in their favour.

Promises will be made across the board, and voters will then be inundated with all sorts of information which may require serious thought and reflection. On the other hand, some voters and non-voters alike may just choose to tune it all out and change the channel.

Social media is an integral part of our lives, how we communicate, access information on a multitude of various levels and make decisions on the important aspects that affect our lives.

But social media may also provide misleading or inaccurate messaging to voters depending on which area of the political spectrum they support. The electorate has the right to base their affiliations with the parties and leaders who appeal to them on a personal level as well as those who try to address and alleviate their personal struggles.

Unfortunately, some politicians may have inclinations to bring us closer to mandates that are designed to minimize or curtail some of the rights and freedoms which citizens already possess. They may hinder the passage of laws that uphold these rights to strengthen these mandates.

Should these aspirations begin to evolve towards the erosion of the rights and freedoms of the people, this should be of great concern to the electorate. A slow but planned transition towards a government using their power to infringe and eventually eliminate the rights of their citizens can be elusive and go unaddressed until it may be too late to go back.

An example that could affect potentially half the population of Canada, would be access to abortion and reproductive services. Can these services continue to be viable and protected across Canada? Can they survive the pushback from those who believe that abortion should not be a viable choice for women?

We have seen how Roe Versus Wade, in law for over fifty years in the United States, has been challenged and overruled as each state sets its agenda. The question that still begs an answer on this side of the border is whether this could happen here.

Up until 1988, inducing an abortion in Canada was a crime and, in that year, the Supreme Court struck this ruling down calling it unconstitutional and therefore abortion was decriminalized.
It remains a publicly funded and registered medical procedure under the Canada Health Act. Women do have the Charter right to choose what happens to their bodies.

But there could also be increasing pressures on women to reconsider their decision to have an abortion based on information shared with them which they may not understand or is contrary to their wishes.

Women will seek to undergo an abortion for various reasons, many if not all have arisen from some very dark and unconscionable events. It cannot go without saying that if they are asking for the pregnancy to be terminated, it remains to be a very private matter.

There is always the possibility this choice could be influenced by some who feel she should proceed with the pregnancy, producing confusion and guilt for her even contemplating abortion.

The opioid and mental health crisis are very serious health care issues and solutions on how to treat them in a humane, yet effective program has formed a huge divide with politicians, health care providers and the electorate.

Wherever a voter’s support lies on such crisis or the political party they endorse, looking beyond personal affiliations is key to having enough science-based information available to look beyond political electoral promises.

From a left of centre approach, supervised consumption sites are promoted for homelessness and addiction. Right of centre believe Hart Hubs, which provide safety, treatment and recovery and possible mandatory admission without consent, are the way to treat this crisis.

But voters on both sides of these issues may also share support for both. There is so much to think about. But every vote counts and ultimately the electorate will decide. `

Patricia Baker is a Sault Star district correspondent, columnist and retired Sault Area Hospital nurse

 

A toolkit for unraveling the links between intimate partner violence, trauma and substance misuse

Despite increased attention to the opioid crisis, trauma and intimate partner violence continue to be neglected as contributors to opioid use disorder. A new digital toolkit aims to change that.

Medical University of South Carolina

 

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Dr. Tanya Saraiya (left) and Dr. Amber Jarnecke (right) of the Medical University of South Carolina were awarded grant funds from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study the link between opioid use, post-traumatic stress disorder, and intimate partner violence.

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Credit: Medical University of South Carolina. Photograph by Julie Taylor.

The opioid crisis has left an estimated 2.5 million people 18 and older in the U.S. with opioid use disorder, or OUD. Despite increased attention to the heavy toll taken by OUD, key risk factors such as intimate partner violence (IPV) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are often overlooked. Both increase the risk of OUD and complicate recovery efforts.

A team of MUSC researchers led by clinical psychologists Amber Jarnecke, Ph.D., and Tanya Saraiya, Ph.D., both of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, secured critical funding of up to $5 million expected over six years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to address the overlooked link between IPV, PTSD and OUD, which is known to contribute to higher treatment dropout rates and poorer outcomes for OUD treatment.

“People who experience PTSD may use substances like opioids to cope, and similarly, people who experience IPV may numb the pain with opioids,” said Saraiya. “In some cases, partners use opioids together, and one may encourage – or even force – the other to participate. This dynamic can quickly create a complex and overwhelming storm of IPV, opioid use and PTSD.”

Jarnecke and Saraiya are developing and implementing a digital toolkit to screen patients being treated for OUD for IPV and PTSD and point them to the necessary resources and support for long-lasting recovery.

Such a toolkit is badly needed in South Carolina, which has a very high rate of IPV.

“The state has consistently ranked in the top 10 states for intimate partner violence for the past 20 years,” noted Saraiya.

In 2021, there were 68 IPV-related homicides in South Carolina, 69% of which were committed using a firearm, according to the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

As the researchers develop the toolkit, they are assembling a community advisory board of IPV survivors, family members and clinicians from across South Carolina to guide them and ensure that they meet the needs of all stakeholders. The toolkit will prioritize patient safety, providing clinicians guidance on creating a safety plan for patients, when needed, which identifies their personal safety network and connects them with local domestic violence centers and shelters. As part of the plan, patients are asked to identify “safe spaces” away from where firearms are stored and are advised to move to those safe areas before violence escalates. Patients are also encouraged to lock away knives and guns if at all possible. In addition to protecting patients, the toolkit must also be simple enough to fit into regular screenings without overwhelming clinicians.

When finished, the digital toolkit will include a series of questionnaires to identify co-occurring PTSD and other mental health conditions as well as IPV risk and its severity. It will also provide clinicians with recommended ways to follow up with their patients based on their screening results, including providing suggestions for evidence-based treatments. Finally, it will provide a list of local resources to facilitate referrals. Before being rolled out, the toolkit will be beta-tested by clinicians and patients.

After beta testing, the toolkit will be tested in a large randomized clinical trial in three substance use treatment centers across South Carolina, including the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at MUSC in Charleston, Behavioral Health Services of Pickens County and Shoreline Behavioral Health Services in Conway.

Patients receiving treatment for OUD will be asked to enroll in the study and will be screened for IPV, PTSD and other mental health conditions through measures in the digital toolkit. Clinicians will discuss which treatment options are best for patients based on their screening results and available local resources. After the initial screening, enrolled patients will complete toolkit questionnaires regularly to track whether they have followed up on the treatment recommendations for PTSD and IPV and if doing so has made them more likely to stick to their OUD treatments.

Once the trial is completed, Jarnecke and Saraiya plan to make the toolkit available to other states and to tailor it to address other substance use disorders. They also intend to adapt it for use in other countries and raise awareness about IPV to promote advocacy and policy reform.

“We’re hoping that the sheer number of positive screens for IPV and PTSD in patients with OUD detected through our toolkit might help to inform more policy and advocacy work,” said Jarnecke. “If we want to make headway against the opioid crisis, it is important that we provide adequate resources for family and relationship health.”

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Research reported in this press release is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under award number R61DA061371. The content in the underlying article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. 

Right’s lesson from US election is ‘culture wars work’

By dividing and confusing the left, culture wars enable the wealthy to pose as anti‑establishment despite benefitting from the system



By Judy Cox
Saturday 09 November 2024 

SOCIALIST WORKER

The far right in Britain celebrated Trump’s victory. Tommy Robinson claimed he had turned cartwheels in his prison cell. Nigel Farage cheered at Trump’s watch party in Pennsylvania.

The Conservative Party too shared this delight. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch could not wait to nail her colours to Trump’s mast. She demanded that Labour foreign secretary David Lammy apologise for having once called Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

Keir Starmer and David Lammy offer no challenge to this right wing juggernaut. Their only strategy is to make concessions, to promise action on illegal immigration and to ramp up state racism. This will only feed the beast.

Others on the left see the election as a reason to stay away from “identity politics” and concentrate instead on economics. But the right will seize on Trump’s election success to stir up ever nastier culture wars.

It believes that Trump has established a new model of success with his vicious attacks on migrants and women and his posing as an insurgent outsider boldly standing up to the “elite”.

Culture wars are about forging new alliances between groups of people with different aims. They have the potential to unite racists and Islamophobes, sexists and anti-abortionists, transphobes, climate change deniers, anti-vaxers and apologists for the British Empire into one movement.

Those drawn to the right get a purpose and a sense of importance. The right tells them they are defending their families, their country and Western civilisation from “enemies within”.

Culture wars also create a bridge between the far right and the mainstream right.

The Great Replacement Theory, for example, promotes the idea that global elites are replacing white people with black and brown immigrants. The theory was spawned by Nazi ideologues but is now regularly trotted out by conservative politicians.

Tory former home secretary Suella Braverman speaks about “cultural Marxism”, a revival of a Nazi conspiracy theory. It suggests Jewish intellectuals are attacking the West.

Kemi Badenoch gushed over US billionaire conspiracy theorist Elon Musk, saying, “I think Elon Musk has been a fantastic thing for freedom of speech. I will hold my hand up and say, I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk.”

This was after Musk fed Britain’s racist riots by repeating claims of police collusion with the Palestine movement.

Culture warriors claim that the left has captured all the key institutions in society—universities, the media, the civil service, public services and even the cops. And, if the establishment is run by the left, only the right wing can be anti-establishment.

Badenoch argues that Western civilisation is in decline, strangled by the “liberal elite”. This bureaucratic elite dominates society, stifles entrepreneurial spirit and risk‑taking, she says.

“In every country,” Badenoch asserts, “the rise of ‘safety‑ism’, stifling of risk, and a bureaucratic class to regulate and control us and protect the marginalised is rising steadily.

“The result of this has been a collapse in average advanced economy growth rates, from 2.7 percent in the 1980s to 2.1 percent in the 1990s and just 1 percent in the 2000s and 2010s.”

This is the height of economic illiteracy, but it makes for easy‑sounding solutions. Just tear up the red tape, drive out the lily-livered civil servants and free the bosses to conjure up economic growth.

The aim of culture wars is to divide and confuse. They demobilise opposition to slashing the welfare state, to tax cuts for the rich and to enriching the very elite they claim to stand up to.

They allow the super-rich to pose as insurgent outsiders. And they have the danger of becoming far more than a debate among politicians and commentators.

Some among the culture warriors know that, sooner or later, these “battles of ideas” will have to be settled with fists and boots.

Trump and the American Nightmare

Tomáš Tengely-Evans explores why Trump’s lies proved so persuasive in the election

Friday 08 November 2024 

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

The Rust Belt a damning indictment of the US governments’ failures (Photo: Wikimedia commons)

When Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, he dismissed Donald Trump as an “aberrant moment” in United States history. Trump’s landslide victory this week showed he is anything but.

Its scale was a shattering confirmation of a society in advanced stages of decay. Out of that decay and the Democrats’ failures, Trump and the far right are growing and pulling it rightwards.

More than 40 years of ­neoliberalism have built a traumatised, fearful and ­violent society. The US presents itself as a leader of the “free world”, but it’s a world leader in ­suicide rates, locking people up in prisons, gun violence and drug deaths.

Free market policies, pushed by Republicans and Democrats, depressed ­working class people’s wages, destroyed decent jobs and fuelled inequality.

The US is now one of the most unequal societies in the world. Some 20 percent of wealth flows to the top 1 ­percent—and the top 0.1 ­percent holds roughly the same share of wealth as the bottom 90 percent.

Human suffering and pain lie behind those economic statistics. In 2022, a record 49,500 people killed themselves and the suicide rate was as 14.3 per 100,000 people. That was the highest rate since 1941—until the following year when it rose to 14.7.

Addiction rates are on a ­similar trajectory. The US death rate from drug misuse is the highest in the world at 18.75 per 100,000 people. The world average is 2.08 per 100,000. An epidemic of opioid addiction—flowing from Big Pharma drug-pushing—claimed the lives of over 100,300 Americans in the year ending in April 2021.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania, is a city that knows the toll of drug deaths all too well. For decades its ­skylines were dominated by the vast plants of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, once an icon of US capitalist prowess.

They shut in 1992 and very few of the thousands of steel jobs are left today. Vape stores, fast food ­franchises and boarded-up shops dominate Main Street.

Johnstown is one of many towns and cities that symbolise US decline and form the ­heartlands of “Trump country”. Trump has successfully fed off the accumulated anger and grievances at the effects of neoliberalism.

“Career politicians like Joe Biden lied to you,” Trump told people in Johnstown. “He abused you. He crushed you, your dreams and ­outsourced your jobs to China and distant lands all over the world.”

But Trump, a billionaire backed by a substantial section of big business, offers ­nothing for working class people whether white, black or Latino. So why has the far right, not the left, benefited from the crisis of the neoliberal centre?

First, Trump simultaneously feeds off the crisis caused by the neoliberal centre and builds on its ideas. Politicians justified those neoliberal policies with a liberal ideology that market competition and dog-eat-dog individualism were the basis of human flourishing.

In Neoliberalism’s Demons, US writer Adam Kotsko argues it “confronted us with forced choices that served to redirect the blame for social problems onto the ostensible poor ­decision making of individuals”. So, the response to the deep social crisis in the US can be more right wing solutions, rather than looking to a collective class response.

Mainstream politicians ­pushing racism to deflect blame for their own failures gives the likes of Trump fertile ground. For example, Kamala Harris celebrated the Democrats ­presiding over “lower undocumented immigrants and illegal immigration than Trump when he left office”. She criticised Trump for only building “about 2 percent” of the US-Mexico border wall.

Second, Trump and the far right play on nostalgia for the “American Dream”, a period most associated in the decades that followed the Second World War. It was an era of full ­employment, rising living ­standards and economic boom—the apex of US power in the world. But it was always a nightmare for black people, women and LGBT+ people.

The 1950s was the era of the racist Jim Crow laws in the Southern states, segregation and lynchings. It was the era that ­idealised the “nuclear family” with strict gender roles for women in particular. The ideology of the American Dream presented prosperity as a “birthright” for white Americans.

Many working class people did win the higher living ­standards they had in the 50s off the back of struggles. Workers’ militancy, such as the General Motors sit-down strike in 1936-37 in Flint, Michigan, had forced the US ruling class to make concessions.

Fear of greater revolt pushed the US government and sections of big business to come to an accommodation with trade union leaders. At the same time, they smashed the left for a generation in the “anti-Communist” witch-hunts of the 1940s and 50s. The idea of prosperity as a “birthright” chimed in the popular consciousness.

Trump’s infamous Madison Square Garden’s speech in New York this month dripped with racism and sexism and revealed the far right play book. He tapped into the social crisis facing millions of people, slamming Harris for ­“shattering our middle class” in “less than four years”. He latched onto that deep pain and twisted it against migrants.

“I will protect our workers. I will protect our jobs,” he said. In the next breath he said, “I will protect our borders. I will protect our great families.

“I will protect the ­birthright of our children to live in the ­richest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth.” The American Dream’s notions of birthright were ­interlaced with the deep racism of US society used to divide workers and the poor.

In 1965 Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King said the “Southern aristocracy gave the poor white man Jim Crow”. “When his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not ­provide, he ate Jim Crow, a ­psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man,” he said.

That too is part of Trump’s strategy. He has channelled a lot of people’s anger through whipping up racism, scapegoating migrants and deflecting it onto ­“liberal elites”. It diverts anger and ­attention away from the real elite—­billionaires, bosses and ­bankers—that Trump belongs to.

Four years ago, he promised a Johnstown rally, “We’re going to bring in tremendous numbers of factories.” That was a lie he didn’t deliver on, but he hasn’t lost support.

He promises to restore ­people’s worth and sense of status by going after criminals, drug dealers, migrants and the “woke left”.

This US crisis doesn’t have to benefit the right. Powerful social movements have rocked US society—for example, Palestine on the campuses, Black Lives Matter and the mass opposition during Trump’s first term as president.

Millions of people looked to Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and the “Squad” who call themselves democratic socialists.

They promised a Green New Deal that would invest billions into decent, well-paid jobs for working class people. That became Biden’s Build Back Better programme that curtailed those promises.

Then, Bidenomics effectively turned into an armaments programme with very few green jobs attached. But Sanders, AOC and Co. all defended Biden and the politics of working through the Democratic Party. They lined up behind an administration that deepened the crisis and did little for workers.

In the election, Trump’s message was “Make America Great Again”. The Democrats claimed that “America” was already great. People saw this lie—and the Democrats’ vote collapsed from 2020.

Instead, to combat Trump’s racist agenda, we need a left that doesn’t line up behind the Democrats and looks to struggle on the streets and workplaces.

We saw a glimpse of that with the recent Boeing and dockers’ strikes and there are big class battles ahead with Trump’s agenda. Alongside fighting the far right and racism, the left needs to pose a genuine alternative to capitalism.

In the 1930s Langston Hughes, the great black American poet, poked at those who used nostalgia for an imagined American past. “America was never America to me,” he said.

He said the real task was to “make America again”—to build a different sort of society free from the ravages of exploitation and oppression. “Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, the rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,” the people “must redeem” the country and its vast wealth.

We can only win that through struggle against the far right—and the system that produces it.

CPGB

Trump's back. How should the British left respond?

MORNING STAR
Editorial
Wednesday, November 6, 2024


Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump points to the crowd at an election night watch party, November 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.


DONALD TRUMP’S victory in the US will embolden the hard right everywhere — including in Britain.

It underlines the ongoing crisis of liberal centrism, which applies well beyond the United States and has its roots in the long-term decline in working-class living standards across the Western world.

Britain is no exception. It’s masked by an electoral system that gifted Labour a huge majority this summer despite an actual decline in its popular vote. In terms of actual support, the biggest electoral shift last July was not left from Conservative to Labour, but right from Conservative to Reform UK, which secured over four million votes.

So there is no room for complacency about the right’s prospects here. Labour on current form is not well placed to defeat an insurgent right. It already polls below 30 per cent, neck and neck with a Tory Party that ought not to be in the running so soon after its worst ever election result.

An insurgent right can only be beaten by an insurgent, radical left. July’s election saw gains for the left, too, with the election of four Green MPs and five independent socialists, four of whom stood primarily on a platform of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

All this must inform our response to a Trump presidency. The Democrats’ loss of support was connected to their complicity in Israel’s barbaric war.

Some liberals try to blame anti-war candidates for splitting the “left” vote. But a party facilitating genocide is not on the left. Blame lies not with those who couldn’t stomach a vote for Kamala Harris, but with a Democrat administration that continues to arm and fund Israel’s killing machine.

Trump, of course, is a more explicit enemy of the Palestinians than Harris. He has openly advocated policies the Democrats officially oppose, such as formal annexation of most of the West Bank by Israel.

The British government will likely fall in step with whatever the White House wants, so this must inspire still greater mobilisations in solidarity with Palestine. Israel and its backers must be isolated diplomatically, and Labour must feel real pressure to recognise the Palestinian state and enforce a total arms embargo on Israel.

But that does not mean exaggerating the differences between Trump and Joe Biden. Israel has been aggressively colonising the West Bank for years with effective support from every US administration.

Trump is readier to abandon lip service to the prospect of a sovereign Palestine, but lip service has done nothing for the Palestinians.

The problem is US imperialism, which must be opposed whoever is in power in Washington.

That also means resisting calls for greater European and British militarisation in response to the fears of liberal warmongers over Trump’s perceived lack of commitment to Nato or the war in Ukraine. Indeed, we should use Trump’s unpopularity in Britain to push for a decisive break with Washington and an independent foreign policy.

All this means rebuilding a mass movement for peace and socialism.

Now written out of history, Labour’s big advances in the 2017 election on a socialist manifesto remain the only example in the last decade of the party bucking the trend of declining support.

Hope that “things can, and will change” rested on a clear alternative policy offer involving public ownership and redistribution of wealth, and an army of activists taking that message to community after community.

Keir Starmer’s Labour offers neither. This simply highlights the importance of building a united front from below, uniting the huge peace movement on our streets with a labour movement ready to promote and organise for a real economic alternative.

Failure to do so, out of misguided reluctance to confront a Labour government, allows Starmer and Rachel Reeves to cling to a discredited market liberalism that is rejected by electorate after electorate: and consign Britain to the same fate that has just befallen the United States.

Trump’s Return a Disaster of the US and Planet – The Stop Trump Coalition is Back

7th November 2024Leave a Commenton Trump’s Return a Disaster of the US and Planet – The Stop Trump Coalition is Back

“The UK Stop Trump Coalition was formed in January 2017, after Trump was elected for the first time and he declared a “Muslim ban”. Now Stop Trump is mobilising again, ready to oppose his policies once he takes office”

By the Stop Trump Coalition

The return of Donald Trump is a disaster for the US and the planet – for women, for migrants, people of colour, for Muslims, for trans people and for everyone else his administration will target.

It is another boost to the global authoritarian right and the consequences could be dire for for the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the increased killings in the Occupied West Bank, and wars in Lebanon and Ukraine. It will embolden violent racist far-right movements seen on our streets in the UK this summer, targeting Muslims, refugees and asylum seekers.

It is another blow to efforts to limit global rising temperatures and climate catastrophe.

The UK Stop Trump Coalition was formed in January 2017, after Trump was elected for the first time and he declared a “Muslim ban”. Now Stop Trump is mobilising again, ready to oppose his policies once he takes office as well as any UK visits.

The US Democrats have again failed to defeat Trumpism, having refused to provide a real alternative on the economy or on Gaza. We cannot allow our own government to keep making the same mistakes.

It falls to us all – workers, civil rights activists, feminists, anti-racists, the climate movement, genuine progressives of all stripes – to organise a mass movement and push back, in the UK and across the globe, not only against Trumpism, but also the failed politics that keep it alive.

We plan to work in the coming weeks and months to build a broad coalition ready to respond to what comes next.

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• You can sign up to take part in upcoming actions with Stop Trump Coalition here.
• This article was originally published by the Stop Trump Coalition on 6 November 2024.

With Trump’s win, we must redouble efforts to end the genocide in Palestine

6th November 20241 Commenton With Trump’s win, we must redouble efforts to end the genocide in Palestine

“Trump’s support for Netanyahu’s policy is clear.”

By the Stop the War Coalition

Trump’s decisive victory in the US presidential election puts him in a strong position. Trump is a racist and Islamophobe, who has engaged in warmongering in his previous term and is a supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.  

He won for a range of reasons, perhaps most importantly economic discontent. His victory also owes much to the refusal of traditionally Democrat voters to endorse Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and for extending the war on the Palestinians to Lebanon.

Harris lost the votes of Muslim and Arab Americans, as well as many others, on this issue.  

However, Trump’s support for Netanyahu’s policy is clear. And for all his talk of wanting to stop wars, his record when he last held office shows that far from delivering peace, he doubled down on US war and proxy wars, in Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen. 

He also ordered new nuclear missiles, ripped up nuclear treaties and demanded increased NATO military spending. 

Trump talks of bringing peace to Ukraine, but he is committed to an increasingly hot war with China. He is also demanding that Nato allies increase their defence spending at the expense of funding areas such as health or education.  

Trump has also talked of “two enemies” – outside and inside – and has vowed to defeat that “outside enemy” by mass deportations, reinstating his travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries and expanding it to prevent refugees from Gaza entering the US. 

Stop the War convenor Lindsey German said: 

“A Harris victory would not have stopped Israel’s genocide in Gaza or drive to war across the Middle East, but Trump’s racism, Islamophobia and bigotry, and his close relationship with Netanyahu could well enable Israel to pursue its desire for full control of Gaza and the West Bank.  

“We face an extremely dangerous situation worldwide, with a growing arms race. We in the anti-war movement must redouble our efforts to end the genocide and wars in the Middle East. We also need peace in Ukraine, for the west to stop arming Ukraine, and for an end to the escalation of militarism and conflict aimed at China in the Pacific.”

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Three-quarters of Labour voters unhappy at Trump victory, poll reveals

Daniel Green  7th November, 2024

Three-quarters of Labour voters are unhappy at Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, latest polling has revealed.

A survey by YouGov found that 75% of Labour supporters were either fairly or very unhappy at the result in America, with only ten percent happy at Trump returning to the White House in January.

Amongst other parties, 79% of Liberal Democrat voters expressed unhappiness at the election result, compared to 51% of Conservatives and just 22% of Reform UK voters.

More than two-thirds of Labour supporters (72%) also thought Trump’s election would be bad for Britain, compared to just nine percent who thought his second term would be good for the UK.

However, Labour voters were divided on how much of an impact Trump’s election would have on their life, with 40% believing his return would not affect them very much and 40% thinking it would affect them either a fair amount or a lot. Only seven percent thought it would not affect them at all.

Liam Byrne: ‘Trump’s victory is a warning to Britain and Europe – fix inequality or populists will win’

Liam Byrne

Credit: Rubanitor/Shutterstock.com

 

In the end it was not even close. But the scale of President Trump’s emphatic re-election is not simply a shock, it is a warning to Labour and the European left. Unless we find ways to fix the yawning chasm of inequality that divides our nations, then populists everywhere will continue their onward march.

It will be a few days until we have time to inspect the details of Vice President Harris’ defeat. But there was one clear story about the last time President Trump sailed to victory. The places that were left behind by American growth, the places at the sharp end of growing inequality, were far more likely to vote for Trump.

But guess what?

The same dynamics hold true for the UK, France, and Scandinavia. Those places where the growth in wealth did nor keep pace with the national average were the places that voted for Brexit, Le Pen in France and the Far Right in Scandinavia.

In a seminal piece of political science research, authors Ben Ansell and David Adler reported, “the geography of wealth inequality offers a convincing explanation for the pattern of populist vote share.”

Trump’s re-election shows these forces are not dissipating. Indeed, they may be growing stronger. And the same effect was clear at the last general election here in Britain.

In a new analysis of the election results I looked at the relative increases in aggregate wealth since 2006/08 and the Reform vote in each region at the 2024 general election. What emerged is a clear pattern; those regions where wealth grew least – the North East, the East and West Midlands – voted more heavily for Reform. Where wealth growth was largest – in the South East – the Reform vote was lowest.

The lesson from Trump’s win

This has a clear message for Labour. Bidenomics-style investment is important, but it is not enough. Investment takes a long time to yield results, but voters’ patience is short – nor are voters feeling very optimistic about the future.

In fact new research by the Policy Institute at King’s College London and the Fairness Foundation, and shared on Tuesday night in the House of Commons, showed that here in the UK, people feel the gap in wealth between rich and poor is too big; that the richest in society are now more powerful than national governments – but voters do not think this will change by the end of the parliament.

These sentiments are a clear warning. If we do not fix this, we too will be in peril of the sort of populist surge that took Trump back into office. And the remedy is pretty clear.

Investment in our economy to grow our economy is mission critical. But just as important is a project that connects rising prosperity to those families and places that feel they have been left behind.

It must be a project that not only raises real incomes but actually helps improve the wealth levels of voters who have simply been left behind by the 

Liam Byrne

Liam Byrne is MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North and Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.@LiamByrneMP

View all articles by Liam Byrne

Economic crisis, the Democrats and US election

The Democrats failed to address the deep economic crisis that persists in the US, allowing Trump's lies to prove victorious

Trump will not solve the economic crisis in the US (Photo: Liam Enea, CC BY SA 2.0)

By Thomas Foster
Wednesday 06 November 2024

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue


Trump sold the lie that he’d “Make America Great Again” and bring about a “golden age”. The Democrats said America was already great—after failing to improve the lives of the working class.

Trump harnesses a real feeling of resentment, of being left behind, forgotten and ridiculed.

Working class people are suffering and desperate for change in the United States. A glance at the US economy shows how millions of people are suffering.

An AP poll showed that eight in ten voters wanted at least a “substantial change” in how the country is run—including one quarter who said they want “total upheaval”.

Government assistance has faded, demand for foodbanks has surged, food insecurity sky-rocketed and homelessness is at a record high.

The number of people who have difficulty paying for basic household expenses has increased from 32 percent in 2020 to 39 percent in 2024.

That’s now 130 million people out of the total US population of 330 million. Of all US adults, 60 percent have seen their disposable income decline in the last year. And 58 percent live pay cheque to pay cheque. In comparison, 31 percent of British people say they do.

And there are huge long standing structural costs to US life that cause significant problems for working people.

Take healthcare. The privatised US healthcare system means that an essential service remains a huge expense for many Americans.

Just over half of US adults say it’s hard to afford healthcare, with nearly two in five saying they put off or skipped treatment entirely because of cost.

People without health insurance are often faced with a choice between bankruptcy and death.

And the number of people struggling for food is soaring, reaching record highs in 2024. Charities point to high food prices, the gradual disappearance of pandemic-era aid and unaffordable housing.

Nearly 44 million people are living in households where they struggle to get the food they need because they lack money and resources.

That includes 13 million children according to the last report by the US Department of Agriculture. And record levels of homelessness unsurprisingly come alongside high eviction rates and a crisis in affordable housing.

The number of renters who spend more than 30 percent of income on rent and utilities was 22.4 million in 2022, another all-time high. When it comes to childcare, parents are forking out tens of thousands of dollars a year.

In response to hardship, people are ramping up credit card debt with more than a third of people saying they have more credit card debt than in emergency savings. In the last three months of 2023, credit card debt reached a 22 year high of over £1 trillion.

Currently 21 million people are behind on utility bill payments and 25 million are behind on credit card or personal loan payments. These are the highest numbers since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Inequality has escalated out of control in the US since politicians introduced neoliberal policies in the 1980s.

Yet the income of CEOs in the largest US firms rose by 1,460 percent between 1978 and 2021. The average worker’s pay grew during the same period by only 18.1 percent. To give a sense of the scale, as of 2021, the average CEO got 399 times more than the average worker.

The reality is that the US economy isn’t working for ordinary people—and the Democrats have failed to do anything more than paper over the cracks in the last four years.

The Biden-Harris administration was marked by the state having a prominent role in directing investment in the form of tax incentives, direct subsidies and tariffs to encourage production. But what it did was a far cry from its progressive promises.

It passed bills such as the American Rescue Plan in 2021, which sent out £1,100 in stimulus cheques to most Americans.

It also expanded unemployment insurance, child credit and rental assistance. But it was temporary—a pop-up safety net—with provisions expiring at the end of the pandemic, leaving the deep inequalities unchanged and the crisis unaddressed.

Then there was the Infrastructure of Jobs Act in 2021 that allocated £1 trillion for transportation and infrastructure projects.

The Democrat’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included investments in green energy, including £300 billion in climate spending. But that funding was spread out over a decade.

Most of it was in tax credits and subsidies to big businesses to incentivise private investment in clean energy and green manufacturing.

This is due to its policies being aimed at shoring up the stability of US capitalism, with the US state taking a more active role in bankrolling its corporations to compete globally.

There’s huge class anger in US society. But the Democrats can’t point it to the real enemy—the capitalist class—as this is who they represent.

The result is what we saw on Tuesday—Trump’s anti-establishment fakery and anti-migrant ideas sweeping through.

Defend democracy! Defend the US left, labour movement and minorities!

WORKERS LIBERTY

 6 November, 2024 

 Author: Mark Osborn and Cathy Nugent


Edited Wednesday 6 November

With most of the results in it looks like Trump has retaken the US Presidency.

Although less likely than if he had lost, Trump may call people on to the streets to demonstrate for him. Other immediate and dangerous measures — some taken as revenge on his enemies — will follow.

That is why the US labour movement must organise to protect itself and help to defend Black and migrant communities. Despite the dangers, democrats must come out onto America’s streets to stand up for democracy.

The left must press the Democratic leadership to stand up to Trump’s demagogy. The left must demand the Democrats fight.

Trump, who is a bitter and vengeful man, will be target his political enemies.

Many of Trump’s supporters — around 65% — hold the unhinged belief that he won the 2020 Presidential election and may be motivated to harass Republican rivals.

We may well see an increase in racist street violence by a section of Trump supporters. There is a vast hinterland of racism in the US. 76% of Republicans, according to polls, do not believe the legacy of slavery affects Black people. Now a growing number, in the wake of vicious propaganda and years of anti-Latino migration policies, are hostile to migrants.

Trump, the convicted felon and legally-defined sexual predator, will begin to carry out a reactionary anti-migrant, anti-worker, racist programme. The US crisis in reproductive health care will get worse. Rights for trans people will be further attacked.

Friend of climate change deniers, Trump is a danger to the planet.

Trump has promised to sack officials he hates, sack many other civil servants (paralysing essential services), pack the state machinery with his people, purge the leaderships of the armed forces and secret services.

Trump promises to limit the right to protest and strike, to roll back labour and union rights, to attack electoral processes and further limit voting rights.

Trump promises to "green light" anything and everything that Netanyahu does in his bloody war on the Palestinians. Soon his administration will begin to pressure Ukraine into accepting a rotten "peace" with Putin.

Trump’s corps of political advisors will — after the experience of his first, chaotic Presidency — ensure that whatever Trump has highlighted in his rambling election addresses will have coherence.

Most of all Trump defends the rich, and their right to exploit and to escape taxes. And this is what endears him to the US elite.

Trump’s reactionary personality and vision, now completely dominant in the Republican Party, still does not represent the majority of US citizens. Trumpism has, however, managed to polarise US politics and has given direction to grievances that have arisen from social and economic crises over the past two decades: the destruction of traditional industries, the 2008 financial crash, the pandemic, a rise in the cost of living and worsening inequality.

Glaring inequality, lack of free health care for all, precarity, debt, mass opioid addiction, inadequate housing and expensive education all blight American life.

The Democrats certainly do not have political answers to the social crisis. They are in part to blame for many of the enduring problems of US society. What they have not done in the last four years in power is to blame for Trump’s continuing popularity and their own electoral failure. In the future the US left and working-class will go beyond the Democrats. But the Democrats and Harris were clearly preferable to Trump and the dangers that would be unleashed by him.

That is where we are and the socialist left, and, centrally, the unions, have to rise to the task and present an alternative.

It is also our fight as socialists in the UK. It is our fight because if Trump wins the far right around the world will get a boost.

Is this fascism? We think not, as the Trump movement has not got the organisational or ideological profile associated with the Mussolini or Hitler movements. The fascist moment in history is not being repeated; what we see in India, Turkey and Hungary is not fascism, but authoritarian, far-right, state-manipulated reaction. Trump, Orban, Farage — and to their right, characters like Tommy Robinson — are “brothers-in-arms”, united by their respective ultra-nationalisms and opposition to progressive social change.

What it also is, is a mortal threat to democracy and workers’ rights. The need to defend liberty and democracy is more urgent than it has been for decades. We defend even the restricted, peculiar and limited democracy of the US, with its rigged Supreme Court and ridiculous Electoral College, wrapped around a plutocracy.

Our task will be to support our allies in the US and their fight to protect the ability to organise — the right to protest, free speech, to unionise, to strike, to curb police powers and to demand the radical reform of the brutal racist prison system.

We fight for workers’ democracy, for workers’ liberty.