It’s election season in the USA, and once again, we are being asked to choose between the lesser of two evils. On one hand, we have Donald J. Trump with his dangerous racist rhetoric, his misogyny, his open bribery and crimes. On the other hand we have Joseph R. Biden with his uncritical support for genocide, his repetition of zionist lies, and his continuation of Trump’s fascist border policies. How is one to choose and proudly cast a vote for either of two obvious evils? 

Comrade George Jackson in 1969 expressed this conundrum succinctly, “The fascists already have power. The point is that some way must be found to expose them and combat them. An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die.”

As communists, we should analyze this election scientifically. We can look at present and historical conditions to reach our answer of what is to be done.  

Rajani Palme Dutt in 1935 spoke on the dangers of lesser evil voting, “the continued hesitation and retreat of the reformist working class leadership at each point (policy of the ‘lesser evil’) encourages the growth of fascism. On this basis, fascism is able finally to step in and seize the reins, not through its own strength, but through the failure of working class leadership. The collapse of bourgeois democracy is succeeded, not by the advance to proletarian democracy, but by the regression to fascist dictatorship.”

We understand that, throughout history, liberals have always sided with fascists. [Editors: Liberals here mean not only the left “aisle” of the U.S. state, but the entire tradition behind liberalism; these liberals — private property owners opposed to absolute monarchy and systems of privilege — definitely turned on the movement for liberation when it attempted to extend its work to property in the middle of the 19th century and have been implacable enemies of anti-propertarian ideologies ever since.] Liberals vote and govern in ways that protect their private property and bourgeois interests. While working class liberal-minded folks can be reached with a message of class solidarity, the professional managerial class will always protect their interests. 

Scratch a liberal, and a fascist bleeds. 

Tailing the Democratic Party is out of the question. This major party is fully beholden to the corporate interests that finance it. The DNC is the party of Silicon Valley, of defense contractors, and is now the party of war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza. We, not only as communists, but as humans, cannot back Joe Biden for president in 2024. 

It should go without saying, but we also cannot back the Republican Party. They are the party of Christian Nationalism, of right to work laws, of abortion bans and homophobia. No, we will not support the GOP nor Donald Trump. 

Section Four of the CPUSA Party Program states:

Both Democrats and Republicans have collaborated over many decades to restrict ballot access for ’minor’ parties, massively increasing signature requirements to get on the ballot and increasing the percentage of votes needed to remain on the ballot over several election cycles. Many media outlets also restrict democracy by focusing on the horserace and personality aspects of elections, reporting endlessly on polls and perceptions rather than on coverage of the issues of importance to voters.

We, as the Communist Party, are considered a minor party. We are running several candidates in local and state races, but we are not running a POTUS candidate in 2024. While we recognize that electing socialists and communists into the bourgeois system will not change it (only revolution can accomplish that goal) we understand that electoral struggle is one method to spread our message of working class solidarity, and to show the masses that the system under which we live is the cause of our pain. We can and should utilize bourgeois electoralism to advance our cause. 

There are many minor parties running candidates with platforms that align more closely to our goals than those of the major bourgeois parties. So the question now is: “Shall we form a United Front against fascism with one or more of these minor parties?”

The Party for Socialism and Liberation is running a presidential campaign in 2024, and standing with them could be a great opportunity to form a United Front against the fascism of the neoliberal Democrats and the MAGA Republicans. 

The PSL candidates, Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia, have seven major policy goals stated on their website: 1. Seize the Biggest 100 Corporations, Create A New Economy for the People, 2. Overthrow the Dictatorship of the Rich — Build a Democracy That Serves the Working Class, 3. End the Rule of Money and Lock Up the Corrupt Elite, 4. Cut the Military Budget by 90% — Peace, Not War with China & Russia, 5. End the War on Black America, 6. Defend Women’s Rights, Full Equality for LGBTQ People, and 7. Save the Planet from Capitalism. 

These seven simple goals are not wholly different from the CPUSA party program goals. Claudia and Karina are also under no delusion that they might win the election or if they were to, that their victory would fundamentally change the United States. It couldn’t, but, as Lenin explained, running socialist candidates at all levels is one way to spread our message of socialism, and this is their goal in 2024. 

Many CPUSA members have a lot of experience working with Party for Socialism and Liberation comrades on the ground in our communities. We understand that they are good, principled comrades. PSL has been incredibly active in the FREE PALESTINE movement, they rallied with us against the Dobbs decision, and have worked with us on lobbying city councils regarding issues of policing. 

Dr. Cornel West, while not a Marxist, is running a progressive campaign for president as an independent candidate. His platform contains the following pillars: 1. Economic Justice, including a $27/hour minimum wage and breaking up monopolies, 2. Worker Justice — establishing a workers bill of rights and ending “right to work,” 3. Environmental Justice, 4. Health Justice by nationalizing the entire healthcare industry and protecting women’s and LGBTQ healthcare, 5. Racial Justice, including reparations to Black Americans, 6. Transformative Justice — ending mass incarceration and investing in alternatives to policing, 7. Voter Justice — instituting ranked choice voting, 8. Education Justice — canceling all student debt and making community and state colleges tuition free, 9. LGBTQIA Justice, 10. Gun Violence Justice, 11. Immigration Justice, and 12. Global Justice. 

The Communist Party has worked with Dr. Cornel West in the past through the Poor People’s Campaign. He has never claimed to be a Marxist, but he is an anti-imperialist. Take a closer look at his twelfth campaign pillar, Global Justice. This plan includes the goal of an expeditious closure of global U.S. military bases, disbanding NATO, and ending all weapons shipments to Ukraine to instead invest in peacemaking; ending military aid to Israel, ending zionist apartheid of the Palestinian people, and pressuring the U.N. to establish a program for Palestinian dignity and liberation; ending the embargo on Cuba and normalizing relations by removing the nation from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list; and no intervention, military or otherwise, in Haiti. 

Dr. West’s platform of anti-imperialism is well thought out, and stands in stark contrast to the stances held by either leading bourgeois party in the United States. Working through an independent grassroots campaign like his is one way we can spread our message of working class solidarity and anti-imperialism. He is a candidate who has aligned with us in the past, and would likely welcome our alliance in this election cycle. 

If we want to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, we need to work together with other progressive forces, and this election season is an opportune time to reach out. We have built-in allies in the PSL, the Dr. West campaign, Palestinian liberation and anti-war groups, labor unions, and workers all over the country disillusioned with the two corporate-aligned imperialist parties. We can use our collective power to show people that we don’t have to settle for an “evil” candidate, but that we can demand a different way of life. We can disrupt this election cycle, and use it to bring working class Americans into the struggle. 

So, let’s form a true United Front against fascism in 2024. Let us join forces with other socialist and communist parties, unions, and unaffiliated comrades. Let us work together to defeat all the faces of fascism, including both major political parties in the USA and their corporate overlords. Let us stand firmly against zionism, and all aspects of settler colonialism. Let us collectively say “No!” to militarization of the southern border, “No!” to the oppression of women and trans people, and “No!” to the over-policing of Black and Brown neighborhoods. 

Let us say “Yes!” to solidarity, “Yes!” to working class power, and “Yes!” to socialism. Let us say “Yes!” to a United Front against the fascist threat. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

To be clear, my certainty was not based on any notion that the Democratic Party would choose a candidate for whom I could, in good conscience, vote. Any belief I may have once had in either the Democratic Party or in “lesser evil” politics vanished long ago. On the contrary, my decision to wait out the 2024 election cycle came from a growing sense that the Left, such as it is in the U.S., was incapable of a presidential campaign that would be worth an ounce of my energy. The 2020 Howie Hawkins Green Party campaign left a bitter taste, and confirmed my belief that an awful lot of otherwise good people who advocate for an independent Left political party are thoroughly out of touch with working and poor people — so much so that the presidential election has become for them a sort of escape valve, a place to promote their ideas, with no responsibility to organize locally around them.

Naturally, the announcement of an independent presidential run by one of this country’s foremost Black intellectuals grabbed my attention and captured my imagination. Several of Dr. West’s subsequent interviews did more: made me believe that he understands something critically important about where we stand in history.

Anyone who sees and listens to the world around them should be able to see and hear the level of discontent and desperation that so many people feel, as well as the deep cynicism and disgust they feel toward the existing political parties and the entire realm of public affairs in this country.

The moment of hope and sense of at least temporary relief many experienced with the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020 only made the reality of this administration so much more horrible. If you were encouraged by a presidential candidate who invoked the memory of George Floyd, a Black man publicly lynched by police, how could you not feel nauseous when, once in office, that same president spent billions putting thousands more police on the street? If you felt relieved that the Democrats had at last come to understand the urgency of rapid climate change in November 2020, in the few years since you have certainly shaken with rage as Biden ushers in new drillings and pipelines and giveaways to the fossil fuel industry. If you had deplored Trump’s militarism and believed that at least “our” government was reorienting to diplomacy, how could you not be sickened by the Democrats allocating billions of dollars to fund a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, while promoting and gearing up for a new cold war against China?

The sudden entry of a widely respected voice like Dr. West’s into the cacophony of what has come to pass for political discourse in this country naturally compels attention. No matter the how or the why or the how well, it is certain that Dr. West’s run, his contribution to political discourse, stands to bring clarity on a wide range of political issues to millions of working-poor people, and might very well spark a consciousness-raising that in turn inspires a genuine working-class movement for a better world.

Dr. West is criticized by some people on the Left because he has supported and even campaigned for Democrats in the past, from Jesse Jackson to Bill Bradley to Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders. So it is important to hear him now when he declares that there are two major parties and political forces in the U.S. One is the neo-fascist Republican Party. The other is what Dr. West refers to as the “milquetoast neoliberal” Democratic Party. And a significant part of Dr. West’s motivation for running for president in 2024 is simply this: neoliberalism cannot forestall the triumph of fascism. If the Democrats refuse to articulate a compelling working and poor people’s agenda, millions in the U.S. will turn or acquiesce to a fascist government — no matter which party dominates it.

There is much, much more to say about the Democratic Party — including that its owners, the ruling capitalist class, keep it on a short leash, using it precisely to restrain the emergence of an independent working-class movement that combines organized labor with campaigns against oppression and imperialism. Some of it Dr. West says and some of it he does not say, or does not say clearly. But that is another discussion.

Dr. West is successfully articulating that only a broad, multi-racial, working-class movement can stave off the rise of fascism — as well as combat existential issues like rapid climate change and the U.S. war machine. Dr. West grasps this essential fact, and has the unique ability to explain it to millions of people who feel this reality in their bones, but do not yet have the words to express it.

2024 could be a turning point in U.S. history. It could be the year that millions of people rally around a political campaign that prioritizes radical demands for social equality, that recognizes and validates the experiences of oppressed people who want control over their own bodies, their own communities, and their own destinies. It could be the year that millions rally around a political agenda that reflects the interests of working-poor people — socialized housing, healthcare, and education; the right to organize in unions; world peace; a habitable future for our planet — and unconditionally puts those interests front and center.

Dr. Cornel West is not a messiah. He does not have all the answers. He will not — certainly not by himself — embody every change we need. In many respects, he is only a very eloquent figurehead. But he has appeared on the scene at a time, and in a manner, and with a message that could light a spark. And that spark, fanned by social movements into a flame, might grow into a fire that even fascism cannot extinguish.

Republished with revisions from the author’s blog, Tell No Lies. Claim No Easy Victories… We thank the author for his kind open-ended offer of republication.