White supremacy won in the 2024 elections, and the Democrats have no answers. Our only solution, writes Steve Bloom, is to develop militant mass movements for human liberation.
No way to sugarcoat it. The 2024 Presidential election was a referendum on white supremacy as an acceptable framework for addressing the social problems of the US. White supremacy won. White supremacy won, despite the fact that Donald Trump was a known liar, womanizer/rapist, overt racist, convicted felon, and advocate of totalitarian methods who has trouble putting a coherent sentence together—any one of which, in ordinary political times, would have disqualified him even from being nominated by either the Democratic or Republican parties. In 2024 our circumstances were not ordinary. Trump was nominated, and he won. He won not only in the electoral college sense: the way he “won” in 2016. He also won the popular vote, gaining 51 percent. None of Trump’s disqualifications mattered. What mattered was that he stood clearly and decisively for white supremacy as the framework for addressing social problems in the US and was, therefore, supported overwhelmingly by white people—most notably, working class white people and those who live in rural communities. He also significantly increased his share of the Latino and Black vote, which is not in contradiction to understanding this election as a referendum on white supremacy. We will consider that question in more detail shortly.
Accepting white supremacy as a framework for addressing social problems in the US isn’t the same as overt racism, or even as a conscious endorsement of white supremacy per se—though there is an increasing and dangerous level of both these things present today in our nation’s mainstream political discourse. Rather, it means that openly racist politics have now established themselves as a normal, accepted part of political life in the US to such an extent that a majority of voters did not feel Donald Trump’s brand of white supremacist ideology disqualified him from holding public office. I will argue that this represents a dramatic shift in mass consciousness which has come about because (a) the liberal (read “covertly or unconsciously white supremacist”) alternative has proven to be so weak and ineffective in its response to social needs, and (b) the more radical left alternative which might provide a meaningful choice is, for the most part, currently invisible in the US after allowing itself to be co-opted for decades by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. A ballot cast for Donald Trump meant that someone is either an active advocate of overt white supremacy, as Trump is himself, or has, at the very least, come to accept this as the only viable, readily available alternative to an intolerable status quo.
True: there were other significant trends— most notably an identification by men, including Black and Latino men, with Trump’s misogyny, a factor that reinforces his white supremacy. There were also counter-trends—such as the continuing support for reproductive rights when that issue is put directly to a vote, or the presence of a meaningful number of voters who refused, in a principled way, to cast a ballot for any candidate who has been complicit in the Gaza genocide. But I will argue that none of these other trends or counter-trends negate the referendum on white supremacy as the overarching reality of this election. There was a stark contrast between the campaigns of Harris and Trump, visible to all. One candidate, Harris, presented a fairly eloquent exposition of the liberal vision, embracing a diverse population including the immigrant population, asserting that the interest of the whole is what matters for everyone. It’s true that the actual policies of the Biden-Harris administration on immigration and support of Israel stood in complete contradiction with the image that the Harris campaign was attempting to project. Still, the public face of her campaign chose to simply ignore this truth, and it’s the public face we are considering at the moment. Trump, on the other hand, openly disparaged Harris’s vision, claimed that the rule of Democrats guided by such a universalist vision was the direct cause of the intolerable status quo that so many identify, and called for the mass roundup and deportation of “aliens” as the necessary antidote.
Rise in non-white support for Trump
As noted, the rise in support for Trump among Latinos and Black men is not inconsistent with an assessment that this election represented a referendum on white supremacy. Latinos who are citizens of the US, or legal immigrants, enjoy a set of privileges in the form of higher living standards and life opportunities which flow directly from empire and white supremacy compared to the reality faced by Latinos who are undocumented residents of the US or who live in other countries. They can, therefore, be seduced by the idea that a defense of white privilege is in their interests too. There is likewise a relatively privileged layer of the Black community that has come to the same conclusion. It is not only Clarence Thomas. Factor into this the identification of some non-white men with Trump’s machismo and we have a reasonable explanation for the inroads he made in these constituencies between 2020 and 2024. It’s a deep historical irony that significant layers of the Black and Latino community could be persuaded to vote for an alternative that’s steeped in white supremacy. It is also the reality we need to honestly acknowledge.
Of course, no one identified defending empire and white privilege as the key question in deciding how to cast their vote when talking to pollsters. Other issues were highlighted, primarily the economy and inflation. This, too, does not contradict our thesis. How many Germans who voted for Adolph Hitler would have told a pollster that the German economy was their primary issue of concern? It was true enough. And yet we can still understand that the underlying question was whether the establishment of a militarized Aryan state rooted in anti-Semitism was an acceptable solution to the problems of the German economy.
The 51% Trump polled is not an overwhelming margin of victory. But it would be foolish for us to take false comfort from this fact, because what matters most is the clear trend demonstrating that a larger portion of the electorate—both white and nonwhite—was willing to vote for Trump and his racist agenda in 2024 compared to both 2016 and 2020, despite eight years of experience which has resulted in complete transparency regarding who Trump is and what his politics represent. Trump even gained a slightly higher total vote in 2024 than he did in 2020, exceeding his tally from four years ago by something over 500,000 (at the moment I am composing this article, with updates still coming in last time I checked) despite the fact that the number of voters was lower overall than in 2020 by several million. Thus the conclusion is unavoidable that since 2016 there has been a significant shift in public sentiment toward the active advocacy, or at least an acceptance, of far right-wing, white-supremacist solutions that would have been inconceivable in the US as recently as a decade ago.
Let’s consider another point in the context of this shift to the right. In Florida, a pro-choice ballot initiative gained a substantial majority of 57% (though it failed to pass because 60% was required). At the same time, Trump, who bragged openly about his responsibility for overturning Roe v. Wade, and Rick Scott, a Republican US Senate candidate who is militantly anti-choice were both elected by double-digit margins. Clearly there is a substantial percentage of voters in Florida who support reproductive rights as a stand-alone issue, but still voted in favor of two openly anti-choice candidates because other questions were more important to them. It seems likely that this phenomenon of pro-choice but also pro-Trump politics coexisting in a meaningful portion of the electorate affected the vote in other states too, which is why the assumption that pro-choice sentiment would fuel a surge for Harris proved to be unfounded. I have to admit that this incorrect assumption was an important element in my own miscalculation about what to expect on election night. There is some considerable cognitive dissonance at work in people who can vote “yes” for choice and simultaneously for Trump. It’s a bit difficult for us to make sense of such a phenomenon. And yet we must acknowledge that it is present and played a significant role in how this Presidential election turned out.
The good news is that no one can reasonably blame Jill Stein and the Green Party for Trump’s victory, nor can they blame the refusal to vote for Harris by Muslims and others who sparked the “uncommitted” movement during the Democratic primaries. Since Trump’s margin was around 4 million it’s clear that even if all these Green/uncommitted voters had cast a ballot for Harris in the general election Trump would still have won.
In Michigan, where the Muslim rejection of Harris was strongest and most visible, Democratic primary voters for “uncommitted” were approximately 100,000. Trump won the state by a smaller margin. So it’s possible that the Muslim rejection of Harris was the decisive factor in her losing there. But even if we assume that these 100,000 votes in Michigan remained a bloc and that all rejected Harris in the general election (which seems unlikely), if we add 100,000 to Harris’s tally in Michigan, thus defeating Trump in that state, he would still have won the national popular vote as well as a majority in the Electoral College. So it should be clear: Harris lost to Trump fair and square, totally on her own.
Making sense of what seems irrational on its face
Looking at this result through the lens of what would actually be in the best interests of a majority of the US population, it’s hard to understand how so many could vote so substantially against their own interests. Working people will, after all, be the ones to pay the biggest price as a Trump administration pursues Project 2025, which will roll back social programs, gut regulatory agencies, empower Trump to move toward one-man rule with impunity, and more. While I agree with the assessment that Harris is not the answer to the Project 2025 agenda in any long-term sense, her victory over Trump would have at least ensured that such a deep level of immediate suffering might be avoided. I would like to suggest, however, that there is an explanation for the apparent contradiction—so many people voting against their own interests—which can help us to make sense of things.
Let’s begin by noting that while Trump did increase his vote totals from 2020, this alone does not explain his victory. The increase was relatively modest. Had Harris simply come close to Joe Biden’s totals four years ago she would have won the 2024 election—certainly the popular vote and probably the Electoral College, too. What accounts for Harris’s underperformance?
I would like to suggest that we start our assessment with Hillary Clinton’s nomination in 2016, which was marked by the bureaucratic smothering of the Bernie Sanders campaign by the Democratic Party leadership. Sanders quickly made his peace with that leadership, but many of his supporters were permanently alienated from the Democratic Party due to the totally undemocratic nature of its nominating process. It seems clear that this experience represents a decisive turning point, with significant numbers realizing that the Democrats were structurally incapable of becoming the solution they are seeking to the problems of working people in the US. If we combine that experience with the tepid “achievements” of the Biden administration after he defeated Trump in 2020 plus Biden’s continued support to the Zionist state as the Gaza genocide unfolded which further alienated another layer of Democratic voters, we can account for the reality that even the manifest right-wing danger posed by Trump and the ability of Harris to hold large enthusiastic rallies, set fund-raising records, and mobilize unprecedented numbers of volunteers were insufficient to revive a level of trust in the Democrats necessary to prevent the electoral result we are now confronted with.
For decades the leadership of the Democratic Party has proceeded based on the assumption that they have no need to actually address the needs of working people or communities of color in the US after a candidate takes office, that these votes are coming to them in the next election no matter what they actually do between now and then. The vote in 2016 should have been a warning to Democratic strategists that this approach was beginning to reach the limit of its effectiveness. The working class in particular demonstrated, in the 2016 election, that it was no longer willing to vote for just any Democrat no matter what, turning massively to support for Donald Trump instead. The most recent result should now make it clear to everyone that the Democratic strategy of taking the votes of certain constituencies for granted has become completely bankrupt.
The most important conclusion we should come to as a result of the 2024 election, therefore, is that liberalism in general, and the Democratic Party in particular, have no convincing or meaningful solutions to offer those of us who are looking for a genuine alternative to white supremacy and empire, because liberalism in general and the Democratic Party in particular are built on support for both of these things, in their more covert form rather than the overt form projected by Trump. This highlights the truth that a weak opposition to fascism1 is, in some ways, worse than no opposition at all, because the weakness of those who stand opposed becomes a talking point for the fascists themselves as they try to convince masses of people to support their bid for power. True to this model Trump, in his speeches and campaign ads, highlighted the weakness of the Biden-Harris administration as a major rallying cry for his supporters.
If we look further back than 2016, all the way to the 1960s and the first half of the ’70s, the difference between politics in the US then and today is stark. Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for President in 1964, was the most visible expression of far-right politics during that time. Goldwater was a moderate and a model of statesmanship compared to Donald Trump, and yet he was easily defeated by Lyndon Johnson because his views were rejected by an overwhelming majority of the electorate as too extreme.
What’s the primary difference between then and now? The year 1964, when Goldwater was defeated, represented the height of the civil rights struggle in the US South, a struggle that would, by 1966, spawn the formation of the “Black Power” movement and, shortly thereafter, overtly revolutionary formations like the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army, and others. 1964 is also the year Malcolm X founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity. The rest of the decade saw the development of an anti-Vietnam war movement that would mobilize millions of people in opposition to the imperial war aims of Washington in SE Asia; a strong Puerto Rican nationalist movement; the American Indian Movement; the Raza Unida party and other formations reflecting the Chicano struggle in the US Southwest; protests by women, gays, lesbians, and others that forced major institutional reforms throughout this nation.
All of that began to erode in the mid-late 1970s, when economic crisis caused the rulers of the US to turn to austerity at home and neoliberalism abroad, while stepping up their repression against individuals and groups who continued to espouse overtly revolutionary goals. To the extent any of the independent movements of the previous decade remained by the year 1980, they were one by one allowing themselves to be absorbed into the Democratic Party and thereby co-opted. Yet the Democratic Party never offered more than a facade of resistance to the right-wing agenda manifested primarily by Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, because Democratic Party politics were also moving dramatically to the right during this period. Each election cycle still offered a stark contrast between the two major-party Presidential nominees, a fact which induced many to vote for the “lesser evil” once every four years. Yet this very fact—that electorally the left was trapped in its support to a Democratic Party that was moving steadily to the right—is what allowed the overall rightward drift of political life in the US to deepen further, election cycle by election cycle, ending up where we are today.
The ability of the Democratic Party to absorb and co-opt movements is one of its most significant contributions to demobilizing social protest in this country. Genuine mass mobilization gets transformed into door-knocking and campaigning for politicians who are institutionally tied to either active support for empire and genocide, or else an unacceptable compromise with these realities, causing the movements themselves to lose their ability to fight independently for their own demands. The same process is still at work today, as we can see when Black Lives Matter is transformed in relatively short order into just one more component part of the nonprofit industrial complex that ends up relying almost entirely on the Democratic Party for any effect on public policy.
It occurred to me as I watched the Harris campaign that this year might prove to be an exception to this historical pattern of Democratic politicians moving overtly to the right with each election cycle. Harris presented herself as offering a bold new social vision that, I thought (even hoped), might inspire and mobilize people against Trump sufficiently that it would actually have a carry-over effect with real meaning in terms of social policy once Harris was elected. A bourgeois politician who mobilizes a base of support using the rhetoric Harris did cannot simply ignore the expectations that have been set up by her rhetoric once she is elected. There will inevitably be an imperative to pursue policies that can keep the illusions generated by the campaign going in an attempt to maintain her base. In the present case this could never have been more than tinkering around the edges of capitalist oppression. But even tinkering around the edges of oppression can have a tangible impact in a country like the United States. The results are in, however, and any such hope for the Harris campaign has been dashed.
The only strategy with a chance of moving politics in this country in a leftward direction once again is to revive the development of militant mass movements for human liberation, thus recreating social conditions in which Trump’s racist politics disqualify him from holding public office. These movements must refuse to be co-opted by the Democrats, remaining independent and resolute in pursuit of their demands. In addition, the Green Party still stands as a beacon of hope for the development of a different kind of electoral politics. I acknowledge that such a revival of independent mass social movements in the US seems a long way off, especially after the latest Trump victory. But if you had told me in 1954, at the height of the cold-war witch hunt hysteria in this country, what kind of social protest movements would erupt during the 1960s, I would have insisted you were dreaming. So I will assert that it is possible. And I will also assert that nothing else can work. If we remain trapped in the electoral choices offered us by the Democrats and Republicans we should expect an even deeper and more profound right-wing challenge in the 2028 elections, assuming the Trumpists don’t succeed in suspending them. That’s pretty hard to imagine, you tell me? Well, during the Reagan years, you would never have been able to imagine Donald Trump. Yet here he is.
Let’s also keep in mind that, although Trump swayed a majority of voters, there remain tens of millions who cast their ballots for Kamala Harris and who are, therefore, demonstrably seeking a different course for our country, plus hundreds of thousands who voted for Jill Stein or another alternative candidate and many who just sat out the election because none of the available choices appealed to them. These constituencies can generate a powerful social force if we are able to mobilize even a fraction of the anti-Trumpist sentiment into anti-Trumpist action during the coming months and years. Further: if we succeed in mobilizing a meaningful mass opposition in this way I am convinced that at least a portion of those who voted in 2024 to accept white supremacy as the framework for addressing the social problems of the US can be won to our side. For that to happen, however, a real alternative that people can truly believe in must be created, in opposition to the weak alternative represented by the Democratic Party that fewer and fewer among those seeking solutions are willing to pin their hopes on.
Let us, therefore, move ahead with our eyes open. Let us not underestimate the task. But let us not hesitate to engage it.
- I use the term “fascism” here in its classical sense of a mass right-wing movement that actively utilizes extra-legal violence as a means of imposing its will. There is a more common usage of the term, quite prevalent among leftists in the US today, that is, essentially, equivalent to “repression.” In my view using the term “fascism” to refer to any kind of repression means that we lose the insights about the specific nature of fascism that come from understanding it as a distinct variety of far-right political movement.