The Lessons Of Atlanta Justin Schwartz; Janis Michael
THE LESSONS OF ATLANTA
by Justin Schwartz and Janis Michael
The answer to the media's insulting question, "What does Jesse want?" was always obvious. The real question, though, was "What will Jesse settle for?" This turned out to be a few seats on the Democratic National Committee, some harsh language about South Africa, and unity behind Dukakis and Bentsen. Progressives deceive themselves if they count this as a victory, but the Democratic Convention in Atlanta need not be a total loss if we are willing to learn lessons.
Many activists have turned to working for progressive change by allying with Black and movement insurgents within the Democratic Party. What Atlanta drives home is that this strategy is a failure. The Democratic Party cannot be transformed into something that might represent the interests of poor and working Americans. For the foreseeable future, the only prospect for real change remains in grassroots organizing, rank-and-file trade unionism, and independent politics.
We arrive at these conclusions with great reluctance. Five years ago, the prospects appeared better. Jackson took progressive stands unprecedented for a serious presidential candidate; more important, it seemed that he was building a movement, not just a campaign. By inspiring a multiracial alliance of the left, the dispossessed, and the workers who could overcome racism, Jackson appeared to offer the hope of a challenge to the dominance of big business in U. S. politics that would outrun his own moderate electoral ambitions.
What has this strategy achieved? Has our participation reversed the rightward shift of the Democratic Party? Has it built that grassroots-based multi-racial alliance, leaving our popular movements better off? Could we have done better things with our time? On the evidence of the last few years, the answers are no, no, and yes.
Realignment: The Rainbow strategy has failed to reverse the rightward realignment of the Democratic Party. In 1984, Mondale ran the most right wing campaign of any Democrat hitherto, campaigning on an austerity program of putting the working class through the wringer of higher taxes to maintain Reagan's (really Carter's) military buildup. But Mondale was at least a liberal. When Reagan accused Dukakis of liberalism, he replied, "I think the President is a little confused." Given his record as an austerity governor and supporter of workfare, his demurral was perfectly correct. To hammer it home, Dukakis picked a George Bush clone as his running mate. The Democrats have chosen a "Southern Strategy" which takes Blacks for granted and goes for white backlash voters who supported Reagan in 1984.
The Rainbow did not win a single major concession from the Democrats in either 1984 or 1988. It defined "victory" in terms of (non-binding) platform planks, but Jackson lost every plank he brought to a vote. In Atlanta, the Democrats voted down by a 2-1 margin the Rainbow proposal to reverse Reagan's tax cuts for the rich. They once more opposed joining the USSR in renouncing first use of nuclear weapons. The Jackson forces did not even try to force a vote on Palestinian statehood. Jackson also retreated from his unsuccessful 1984 demand for a major military budget cut to a request for a budget freeze, and settled for an empty promise to "restrain" Pentagon spending. Dukakis, meanwhile, proposes a vast and expensive conventional arms buildup. Jackson's response to this emphatic rejection of his program and his constituency is to call for unity and swing behind the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket.
Unity with what? Carter gave us the MX and the Euromissiles, support for Marcos, the Shah, the slaughter in El Salvador, Paul Volker at the Fed, and supply-side economics. Johnson gave us the Vietnam war. Kennedy gave us global counterinsurgency warfare, the Cuban missile crisis, and the buildup of 1,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Truman gave us red hunts, the H-bomb, and Korea. Jackson's campaigns have done little to reverse Democratic commitment to such policies. Dukakis remains well within the Democratic mainstream.
Has the Jackson Campaign Built a Movement? Two Jackson campaigns and five years of Rainbow organizing have failed to build a nonelectoral movement. Jackson's appeal is in fact to people as voters. "When I win, you win," he says: but that is the wrong way around. This is how electoral politics work in capitalist democracy. All that matters in the end is how many individuals you can get to pull that lever. Any broader Rainbow Coalition with which Jackson supporters identified is a myth. If activists imagine they are part of it, they are deceiving themselves. The National Rainbow Coalition remains a shell for the Jackson campaign, a top-down, purely electoral effort which is already disappearing.
Could We Have Done Better Things? The Rainbow strategy is a response to the lack of a labor-based mass grassroots opposition. Just now, independent politics can only offer a way to minimize losses. There is a tendency to say: in times like these, what else is there to do? If you are sick of mere opposition, and want some real change, the electoral route can look appealing. A Jackson or a Dean Baker makes it palatable for us in a way that a Dukakis or a Lana Pollack cannot.
But the Democratic Party is no substitute for a mass movement. Major change in this country has never come through mainstream electoral politics. Social security and union organizing rights were won by factory insurgents and sitdown strikers in the 1930s. The abolition of Jim Crow segregation was won in the marches to Selma and Montgomery in the 1960s. The Vietnam war was ended on the streets and campuses. That is also where escalation of the Central American wars has been blocked and the INF treaty achieved. Women's rights, gay and lesbian rights, all have been won outside of major party politics. Mass movements are the only thing which we know make a difference.
Which party is in the White House might make a marginal difference on some issues: they are not exactly alike. But lots of things might make a marginal difference. We have to decide where to put our limited energies. By building the mass movements, the grassroots groups, rank-and-file unionism, and (where possible) independent local electoral politics, we prepare the ground for the next upsurge in progressive activity. Lord knows, there is no shortage of things to do. Participation in mainstream electoral politics can only detract from this work.
Many activists fear that leaving the Party will isolate us from any prospect of real power. Jackson has said, "We have too much invested in the Democratic Party. When you have money in the bank, you don't walk away from it." But when the bank is embezzling your funds, you have to cut your losses. Participation in the Democratic party has never brought workers or the oppressed real power. It has locked us into powerlessness in a de facto one-party system, where both parties are the party of capital. No matter who wins, we lose. The odds against independent radical politics are long, but long odds are not an argument against anything we do. The odds against the electoral route, however, are not long but impossible: and impossible odds are a decisive refutation. Otherwise we are wasting our time and others'.