11-05-06, 9:33 am
In 1858 for example, the new Republican Party won a decisive victory in the North and gained control of Congress. This was a defeat for the administration of James Buchanan, which had supported slaveholder terrorism in the Kansas territory and the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which defended slavery as a system anywhere in the Republic. At a time when there was enormous despair among reformers of all kinds about the increasing strength of the slaveholders and the futility of fighting them through the political system, the 1858 victories helped the anti-slavery coalition elect Abraham Lincoln and fight and win a revolutionary civil war that abolished chattel slavery and greatly strengthened capitalist democracy.
Seventy-two years later, the elections of 1930 signaled that right-wing Republican 'cultural politics' – support for prohibition, chauvinistic emphasis on '100 percent Americanism' and support for fundamentalist Protestants in a 'culture war' against urban Catholic and Jewish populations – would have a harder time dividing the working class. The election gains set the stage for Franklin Roosevelt's victory in 1932 and the eventual creation of a center-left New Deal coalition, which enacted the most significant program of labor and social legislation in U.S. history. This included Social Security, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, the 40-hour week, the right of workers to form unions under the NLRB, the since-eliminated Aid to Families with Dependant Children, protection of bank accounts, public power under the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) administration depositors under the FDIC and limited forms of public housing.
Off-year elections in the post World War II era have so far played a destructive role for progressive forces in U.S. politics. Corporate financed conservative forces have taken advantage of both the cold war (and its Korean War and Vietnam War manifestations) and failed anti-progressive policies of Democratic presidents. In 1946, the Truman administration's shift to the right and development of early cold war policies led to a sweeping Republican victory, which enabled Republicans to enact the anti-labor Taft-Hartley law and expand the activities of the House Un-American activities committee.
Although Truman won the 1948 presidential election on a progressive 'fair deal' program and pledges to repeal Taft-Hartley, his abandonment of the fair deal and involvement in the Korean War enabled Republicans in 1950 to make major gains in Congress. Subsequently, Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had expanded HUAC's tactics to highlight lunatic charges of Communist and Soviet spies controlling the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, became a powerful national figure.
Though Republicans had been defeated soundly at all levels in the 1964 election, the Johnson administration's 1965 escalation of the Vietnam War enabled Republicans to make major gains in 1966, ending for all practical purposes Johnson's progressive Great Society and war on poverty programs. Republican victories in that mid-term election set the stage for Richard Nixon's victory in 1968 by appealing to both a racist backlash against Johnson and to war weariness.
Jimmy Carter's conservative domestic policies and economic stagnation helped Republicans make major gains in 1978, and with the inflation and Iran hostage crisis of 1980, set the stage for right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan's crucial victory in the 1980 presidential election, the event which more than any other has shaped and deformed U.S. politics for a generation.
Finally, Bill Clinton, elected in 1992 by working-class and progressive constituencies to bring the Reagan-Bush era to an end, compromised with right-wing forces and betrayed labor by pushing through the 1993 NAFTA agreement. His compromising posture helped Republicans to gain control of both houses of Congress in 1994. Today Republicans have controlled Congress for 12 years (the last time that was true was 1918-1930).
Since then, right-wing Republican domination of Congress has further undermined the labor movement, transformed the public assistance system into something like the Victorian 'poor laws' and turned the $4 trillion deficit of the Reagan-Bush I era, which Clinton, whatever his other failings, began to reverse, into a $9 trillion deficit. On foreign affairs it has rubberstamped every edict from the Bush administration, going from one disaster to another.
Why should we put all of our efforts into electing Democrats (some of whom we for good reasons don't trust) to change the Congress?
First, incumbency in U.S. politics draws money and support in a system where most of the seats most of the time are not competitive. Karl Rove, the key tactician of the Republicans, is counting on the edge they have in money and political organization to minimize what everyone knows will be a year of defeat for the Republicans. Maximizing the Republican defeat will help set the stage for right-wing Republican defeat in 2008.
Second, a Democratic Congress will have to offer opposition to the Republican war in Iraq, since all polls show that opposition to the Iraq war is the most salient issue for Democrats. Although Congress's power over foreign policy is limited, such opposition will highlight and intensify the general opposition to the Bush administration, either forcing it on the defensive on foreign policy issues or creating a constitutional crisis that may make impeachment a serious issue.
Third, a Democratic Congress amenable to progressive pressure will be in a position to investigate the enormous corruption which has characterized both the Iraq war and Bush administration policies generally. The Halliburton connections, the many billions spent for 'reconstruction' projects in Iraq that have not been carried out, the bribing and looting make the scandals of the past seem tiny in comparison. The evidence of corruption is everywhere, but the Republicans in Congress have a policy of pretending that it doesn't exist
Fourth, a Democratic Congress can be pressured by its constituency groups and its progressive members to investigate the massive violations of civil liberties, which the Bush administration has unleashed in the name of its 'war against terrorism.' A Democratic Congress can create something like the La Follette Committee of the 1930s, which investigated mostly corporate attacks on labor and civil liberties, or the Church Committee of the 1970s, which investigated CIA abuses.
Fifth, a Democratic Congress can pass legislation that will stem the tide of Bush administration attacks on labor, increasing the minimum wage and enacting reforms of existing labor law advocated by the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win trade union groups. If Bush vetoes such legislation, which is likely, it will more clearly draw the political lines and expose the Republicans for who they are.
Sixth, a Democratic Congress can both investigate and draft legislation to outlaw the violations of voting rights that right-wing Republicans have participated in recent years in their attempt to disenfranchise low income African Americans, Latinos, and other voters whom they see as enemies in key elections in key states. A Democratic Congress can also pass legislation reforming voter registration generally so as to make it easier not harder for citizens to both register and vote.
Seventh, a Democratic Senate can oppose and block Bush administration appointments of rightwing judges to the federal judiciary, which Bush planners cynically see as their 'long-term legacy' (meaning a right-wing dominated judiciary that will be around to block progressive initiatives for decades)
Eighth, a Democratic Congress can address the issue of the Bush 'tax cuts' and at least raise issues of fair taxation of corporations and the wealthy as both a way to fund social programs and check the deficit.
Ninth, a Democratic Congress can address such issues as reproductive rights for women and affirmative action for minorities and women, challenging the rightwing Republican hegemony on such issues.
Tenth, one must consider the alternatives to decisively defeating the Republicans. More of the same, meaning escalation of the conflict in Iraq and a possible war against Iran, not to mention a war in Korea which might escalate into a nuclear world war. More of the same, meaning a ten or eleven trillion deficit and more and more cutbacks in education, health care, and basic infrastructure. More of the same, meaning stagnating wages and living standards, more and more outsourcing of decent jobs as the great majority of Americans work harder to earn less and swim in a sea of consumer debt, one job and sometimes one paycheck away for going under.
A major Republican defeat and Democratic victory is not in itself sufficient to insure these ten outcomes, but it is necessary. Without it these ten outcomes will be impossible and the disaster that is the American reality will broaden and deepen and harden. Defeating the Republicans decisively will enable trade unionists, civil rights activists, environmental activists, peace activists, and all progressive forces to push a Democratic Congress into trying to make these ten points part of new reality.
--Reach Norman Markowitz at
