The Rose Outlook

In the United States, there exists a restrictive two-party system consisting of the Democratic and Republican (GOP) parties. There is a phenomenon in the States where people on the left-wing spectrum, usually Democratic Socialists, Social Democrats and the like, may argue that the Democratic Party is generally in pursuit of our interests. However, this is a false assumption proven historically and by current political trends. The Democratic Party may be “the lesser evil” compared to the Republican Party, which has been after minority rights and many a progressive policy, but it must be remembered among leftist circles that the Democratic Party is not a working class party that advocates for the proletariat. The Democrats serve capital just like the GOP, resulting in a political deadlock that hinders real working class progress.

The Democratic Party was founded in 1828 by Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States. From the outset of the Democratic Party, they have not even dared to hide their subservience to capital, while still exclaiming that they fight for the common man. The Democrats were originally a conservative party, fighting for slavery and advocating for vicious racism – all while defending genocides against the native population. During the Civil War, the party was the party of the plantation class that held slaves and promoted slave-owning interests. There was barely any talk of helping “the common man”, and the few that were, revolved around the small plantation slavers (or the general White man). Now, you might say something to the likes of “Well, they were conservative back then, don’t you know the parties flipped?”

This rhetoric is shallow when you learn that the Democratic Party has always advocated for the current mode of production – it didn’t change the party’s fundamental role in upholding capitalist interests. Is it even worth reminding that the yearly fundraising event is called the Jefferson-Jackson dinner? Nevertheless, the Democratic Party adapted a new platform of populism entering the New Deal Era, where FDR passed much more progressive policies. Why did the Democratic Party do this? Because it was in response to people’s movements growing across the U.S. as capitalism failed and the terrible period of the Great Depression ensued. These progressive policies were created in an attempt to gather working class support and stop radicalization. 

In 1932, right at the doorstep of the peak of the Depression, the Democratic Party platform expressed desire for huge cuts in federal spending and “the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise, except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest.” in an effort to help stabilize the economy. Soon after, FDR consulted the leaders of General Electric and Standard Oil – two large corporate monopolies of the time – to help write the New Deal. These leaders included Gerard Swope, President of General Electric and Standard Oil’s Walter Teagle, former President of Standard Oil of New Jersey (Hey, that’s where I live!) – Chairman of the Board at the time.

The above all but proves that these conditions did not represent the interests of the workers, but the interests of the capitalist class once more. To further emphasize this, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of the New Deal granted the right for workers to unionize. What’s the catch, you ask? This same act gave the same permission for the corporations to form their own unions to try and thwart the efforts of the working class unions! This is a classic Democratic Party strategy, lightly appeasing the workers, but making sure to give the same amount to the dominant capitalists.

Due to this, multitudes of workers went to strike all across the country in places like San Francisco and Minneapolis. In the Spring of 1934, the Auto-Lite Strike occurred in Toledo, Ohio, resulting in over 200 wounded picketers. Just two years later, the UAW Commission voted to build a labor party after the UAW leadership wanted to expand their political strategy. Unfortunately, they were forced to capitulate after the heads of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a great ally to the Democratic Party and FDR’s administration, threatened to cut funding if the UAW abided by the election results.

Not even 30 years later, the Civil Rights movement was beginning to transpire. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party in the South was still devoted to the Jim Crow laws that they themselves created not very long before. Northern Democrats were more lenient, however the general party did not act in favor of Civil Rights. JFK and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to maintain this moderate wing so as to keep the Southern Democrats as supporters. Before JFK’s assassination, Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into segregated states in the south to challenge the fact that the Supreme Court already ruled segregated buses as unconstitutional, yet it wasn’t being enforced. These Freedom Riders faced violence from the local southern democrats and pleaded with JFK’s administration for federal protection so as to not suffer any longer. Granting this protection would alienate the Southern Democrats, so he decided on a non-solution; fund the activists as long as they focus on voter registration and not segregation. They also didn’t try to mitigate the violence faced by the Freedom Riders who were being jailed en masse and beaten in any way!

In conclusion, the Democratic Party exists not only to serve capital but also to help stabilize it in the face of working class resistance. It weakens social movements and props up Wall Street, not Main Street. It, in the same fashion as the Republican Party, furthers US imperialism and damages real working class potential. There is no ‘true’ liberation that can be achieved through the Democratic Party. Leftists in the United States, instead of focusing on the Democrats, should focus on building a United Front that could achieve real progress and go against the bourgeois interests rooted in both parties.

Selfa, Lance. “Who Made the New Deal?” Socialist Worker, November 14, 2008

Padover, Saul Kussiel. Thomas Jefferson on Democracy. New York: New American Library, 1946. 

Cave, Alfred A. “Abuse of power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian removal act of 1830.” Historian 65.6 (2003): 1330-1353.

Eyal, Yonatan. The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party, 1828–1861. Cambridge University Press, 2007. 

Sakai, J. Settlers: The mythology of the white proletariat. Morningstar Press, 1983. 

Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of reform: farmers, workers, and the American state, 1877-1917. University of Chicago Press, 1999. 

Silbey, Joel H. A Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil War Era, 1860-1868. WW Norton & Company, 1977. 

State Central Committee. “staff Finances campaign, 189, 204 communications expenses, 121 Dollars for Democrats, 213-24 finance director, 212-15 Jefferson-Jackson dinners.” n 16: 103-4. 

Martin, John Frederick. Civil rights and the crisis of liberalism: the Democratic Party, 1945-1976. Westview Press, 1979. 

Quoted in McFarland, Charles K. Roosevelt, Lewis, and the New Deal: 1933-1940. No. 7.  Texas Christian University Press, 1970. 

Swenson, Peter. “Arranged alliance: Business interests in the New Deal.” Politics & Society 25.1 (1997): 66-116. 

Goldfield, Michael. “Worker insurgency, radical organization, and New Deal labor legislation.” American Political Science Review83.4 (1989): 1257-1282.