'Democracy' in the United States (a debate)

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote that “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” Almost two centuries later, the battle for democracy continues. Today, economic precarity and social upheavals have led many to question our present political system. In these times, DSA’s position that the United States is “no democracy at all” is a rousing and powerful assertion against mainstream narratives. At this event, DSA members Jerry Harris and Luke Pickrell will discuss their understanding of democracy, whether the Constitution supports or frustrates democracy, and to what extent socialists should "fight for" or "defend" democracy going into the 2024 Presidential elections.

Jerry Harris is the national secretary of the Global Studies Association and on the international board of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. He is a retired union activist with over 120 published articles on political economy, globalization, democracy and other topics. His work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, German and Chinese. His last book was "Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy."

Luke Pickrell is a member of East Bay DSA and Marxist Unity Group. He's written in Cosmonaut and The Democratic Constitution Blog, and contributed to various discussions in the Why Marx? project. He's also interviewed or co-interviewed several people about democracy and the U.S. Constitution for Cosmopod, including Robert Ovetz, Douglas Egerton, Gil Shaeffer, and Bruno Leipold.

The video version of this episode can be found on YouTube here.

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Transcript

Elton LK: 0:00

You're listening to Class, an official podcast of the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Education Committee. My name is Elton lk. Today we have another bonus episode. This episode is a debate between National Political Education Committee members, Luke Pickrell and Jerry Harris on their understanding of democracy, whether the constitution supports. Or frustrates democracy and to what extent socialists should quote, fight for or defend democracy. Going into the 2024 presidential election, it was recorded January 27th of this year, which is 2024. Luke has written in Cosmonaut and the Democratic Constitution blog and contributed to various discussions in the Why Marx project. Jerry is the National Secretary of the Global Studies Association on the International Board of the Network for Critical studies of Global Capitalism. He is a retired union activist with over 120 published articles on political economy, globalization, democracy, and other topics. His last book was Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy.

Sarah Callahan: 1:23

Okay, welcome everyone. Welcome to our event, Democracy in the United States. It's going to be a debate leading up to November. This is part of the National Political Education Committee's events that we do. My name is Sarah Callahan and I'm on the steering committee for NPAC. Um, this is our first event where we have reached out to caucuses. So thank you for everyone who turned out their members to this event. I'm just gonna read like a really short blurb about their event. So, in the Communist Manifesto, Mark and Engels wrote that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. Almost two centuries later, the battle for democracy continues today. Economic precarity and social upheaves have led many to question our present political systems. And these times DSA's position that the United States is no democracy at all is arousing and powerful assertion against mainstream narratives. And this event, DSA members Jerry Harris and Luke Pickle will discuss their understanding of democracy, whether the constitution supports or frustrates democracy, and to what extent socialists should fight for or defend democracy going into the 2024 presidential elections. First, I'm going to introduce Jerry Harris, who is the National Secretary of the Global Studies Association and on the International Board of the Network of Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. He is a retired union activist with over 120 published articles on political economy, globalization, democracy, and other topics. His works have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, German, and Chinese. His last book was Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy. And the next I'm going to introduce Luc Picquerel, who is a member of East Bay DSA and a member of Marxist Unity Group. He's written Cosmonaut in the Democratic Constitution blog and contributed to various discussion in the Why Marx Project. He's also interviewed or co interviewed several people for Cosmopod about democracy in the U. S. Constitution. So I'm going to jump in and I'm going to have Luke and Jerry both do a presentation for 15 minutes, starting with Luke. Luke, if you want to go ahead. Yeah, thanks Sarah. Thanks everyone for coming out and joining us this evening. I'm looking forward to the discussion. So, I'll leap right into it. Democracy and the U. S. Constitution are the most critical topics that are facing the American left today. And the Constitution always shapes our lives, but awareness of its power. I think is really heightened during presidential elections. And of course, when you know it, this is an election year this year, uh, the democratic, uh, democratic party's message is clear. Trump is an aspiring dictator. The magnet movement is, is fascist and only a vote for Joe, for Joe Biden will neutralize the bad guys. And that's only because the Democrats, only the Democrats will defend democracy, maintain the guardrails of the constitution and ensure that the sun keeps rising each morning. So this afternoon, I want to make three broad arguments. Each one of those arguments really goes under the umbrella of what I'm going to call democratic republicanism. The first argument I want to make is that contrary to what Biden says. The U. S. is not a democracy. The second argument I'm going to make is that we should care that we don't live in a democracy. And the third argument is that the theory of classical Marxism, which is everything prior to the Bolsheviks establishing a one party state, Along with the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the history of Students for a Democratic Society or SDS. All that has a lot to offer, uh, what we need, which is a mass democratic socialist movement in this country. Democratic Republicanism is one of three perspectives on the American left. Those other two perspectives are what I'm going to call an electoral perspective and a socialist perspective. And these two other struggles, they really put democracy on the back burner. I'm going to dive into that a little bit here. So, the electoral strategy, the electoral perspective, says that democracy is the ability to vote. Because of that, the U. S. is more or less democratic. And therefore, the best strategy is to work through the three branches of government that we have to enact progressive laws. Doubt, however, can grow within the electoral camp when legislation runs into the brick wall of the Senate. And so, for example, one senator, Joe Manchin, Joe Manchin represents a really minuscule percentage of the entire U. S. population. That one person can stop Biden's Strip Down, Build Back Better Act. That's a good example of running into the brick wall of the Senate. Hard work. can really start to feel Sisyphean. You roll the rock up to the top of the hill only to watch the rock roll right back down. People might start thinking about uncapping the house, abolishing the filibuster, putting term limits on supreme court justices, and maybe getting rid of the electoral college. That's one perspective. The socialist perspective Also downplays the importance of the constitution. Uh, there are more critical things to consider than the law and bourgeois democracy. There are a lot of different positions that fall under the socialist umbrella, but I'd argue that all pretty much believe that a socialist revolution is needed to realize democracy and that the way to bring about this revolution is by spreading socialist consciousness. And really supporting anything that builds the class struggle. Political agitation within this perspective is linking every problem to capitalism, and really linking every solution to socialism. The best political strategy then is to either ignore politics and build working class power, use the political arena to spread the good news of socialism, or somehow combine the two. In contrast to those two perspectives, then, democratic republicanism says that the working class must first win the battle for democracy. That a democratic revolution is needed to realize socialism. That democracy is defined as complete and unobstructed political rule by the people. And that a democratic state is one in which total lawmaking power is vested in a unicameral legislature elected by universal and equal suffrage. So those are the three perspectives in a democratic state. The principle of one person and one equal vote is supreme. And Victor Berger actually, I think, described this principle really well to his American audience in 1911, Berger said that the Senate Thank you very much. Is, and then this is a long quote, is an obstructive and a useless body, a menace to the people's liberty and an obstacle to social growth. All legislative power will be vested in the House of Representatives. Its enactments subject to a referendum will be the Supreme Law and the president shall have no power to veto them, nor will any court have the power to invalidate them. That's Victor Berger, a socialist. putting forward what needs to happen in order to make the state democratic. Where does democratic republicanism come from? This perspective that I think we need to put forward. The theoretical roots are in Tom Paine's Common Sense, also his Rights of Man and his dissertation on the first principles of government. They're also in the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. They're also in the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens and the Constitution of 1793. And also Mary Wollstonecraft's Rights of Women, the theoretical roots are also in the British People's Charter of 1838, and also in Babouf's Manifesto of the Equals, and what I really want to emphasize is that Marx and Engels grabbed hold of those roots, and that's seen in texts like The Principles of Communism, and The communist manifesto and the critique of the draft German social democratic program that was published in 1891, just as important, this theory of democratic republicanism lives on within the socialist movement after their deaths. That could be seen in Kautsky's The Republic and Social Democracy in France, Luxemburg's Theory and Practice, the 1903 Russian Social Democratic Labor Party program, and then also the American Socialist Party's Platform of 1912. In the United States, in this country, the struggle for democracy was really driven back underground by the counter revolution against Reconstruction. Now I want to take a few quotes from some of those sources. So from Tom Paine, Tom Paine says that the true and only true basis of representative government is equality of rights. Every man has a right to one vote and no more in the choice of representatives. From Marx, Marx says the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. Engels, writing just a few years before his death, Engels says, Marx and I for 40 years repeated ad nauseum that for us the democratic republic is the only political form in which the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class can first be universalized and then culminate in the decisive victory of the proletariat. From the party of the Socialist Party of America, excuse me, the program of the Socialist Party of America, we got the idea of abolishing the Senate and the president's veto power, electing the president and vice president by direct vote, and abolishing the Supreme Court's power of judicial review. So recently, a few historians have rediscovered the centrality of democracy to Lenin's political thought. If you're willing to fight for political freedom, Lars Lee wrote in 2005, you were Lenin's ally, even if you were hostile to socialism. If you downgraded the goal of political freedom in any way, you were Lenin's foe. Even if you were a committed socialist, Lee had read Neal Harding and Neal Harding in 1977 wrote that according to Lenin, workers didn't have to come to socialist consciousness to acquire political consciousness. And then Neal Harding worked contemporaneously with Hal Draper and Hal Draper did his part, a very important part, in debunking the myth of an undemocratic Lenin. And one of the things I want to emphasize today is that everything I've just presented so far, all this theory, this is almost all the theory and the history that's needed for a mass democratic socialist movement in the U. S. Any propagandist and agitator, wrote Lennon, must find the best means of influencing any given audience by presenting a definite truth in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive. So today, here I am talking with you all, my audience is Jerry, and of course you all, any other DSA members listening, which I hope includes Bhaskar Sankara, Eric Blanc, Chris Maisano, and Seth Ackerman. These are folks, publishers, and writers for Jacobin who, over the years, have recognized That the U. S. political system is not democratic, and who've written very persuasively about that, which is commendable. Simultaneously, though, they kind of confusingly refer to the U. S. as a capitalist democracy. DSA's political platform is similarly confusing. The platform says that the U. S. is no democracy at all, and then at the same time, it says we should strengthen and deepen our democracy. So one of the questions I want to ask us is why is there this in, in, inconsistency, um, and what would it mean to admit that the U. S. isn't a democracy, to engage with Marx and Engels democratic republicanism, And then to conclude, uh, that the first step is to win actual democracy in this country. So, people don't forget when the government gives a collective shrug in the face of popular legislation, right? They don't forget getting screwed over, and I'll go through a little list. The Obama administration overseeing bank bailouts during the Great Recession. In 2013, there was a universal background check bill that was filibustered to death. By 45 senators who represented only 38 percent of the population. The next year, there was a bill to raise the minimum wage. Supported by two thirds of Americans. It died in the Senate 2016. Trump of course lost the popular vote, but won the election. And then of course the Build Back Better Act was processed through the legislative meat grinder, as they call it. It emerges in tatters. The Democrats let the child tax credit die, which sends 65 million children right back into poverty. The Supreme Court blocks student debt relief. Jeopardizes abortion access, so on and so forth. And then also, the wars, right? The endless wars that you and I have no control over, even if the president sought congressional approval, which he doesn't. In the face of this mass political apathy and growing discontent, the Democratic Party fearmongers and distorts and manipulates the meaning of democracy for its own purposes. If the Democrats really cared about democracy, I want to argue, or if they really cared about stopping Trump, they would demand a democratic constitution. Trump and the far right didn't get to where they are despite a revered constitution, as some have argued, but they actually got there because of it, and with help from the Democratic Party. And so only the, uh, ultimately I should say the only meaningful division between political movements is the question of democracy. Democracy is either something that you want or you don't want, and therefore you either fight the Constitution or you support the Constitution. What's interesting is that our situation parallels France's debate surrounding the Dreyfus Affair and Alexander Millerand joining the government in 1899 to defend the Republic, to save democracy, so on and so forth. Equally interesting is that Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg weren't fooled. They actually wrote very persuasively. Um, and this is Kautsky saying if you want to strengthen the propagandist power of the Republican idea in France, then you have to show that the Republic we want is the Republic of 1793, 1848, and 1871. Right, that the democracy we want is fundamentally different from the Republic of today. So to wrap up, I'm going to touch on two organizations and their relationship to the Constitution, the Contemporary Poor People's Campaign, and then also Students for a Democratic Society. There's a tendency, I think, on the American left to label SDS and the civil rights movement not socialist, and thereby dismiss really two decades of our history, which is disappointing. So in 1968, MLK writes that the civil rights movement has left the realm of constitutional rights and has entered the area of human rights. Today's. Four people campaign looks to continue on that legacy and they make a lot of demands which I don't have time to go into now, but the important thing is that while they critique the state. And, um, various elements of the Constitution, they don't critique the Constitution itself. So I want us to think about that a little bit. And then I'll end with, um, Students for a Democratic Society and, and say that their idea of participatory democracy, um, is very interesting and very laudable. And yet no one asked if participatory democracy was possible in a country with an undemocratic Constitution. And I think that this was really a missed opportunity. But it's also one that we can learn from. So ultimately wrap up just by saying, I think our disagreement concerns something sort of other than the undemocratic structure of the U S constitution, but really comes down to the content of our political message, to the ideas, uh, that we present to the public and I'll try and touch on those a little later. And I just want to end by saying that all of the struggles that DSA is engaged in, all of this comes down to who has political power. And I really think that the struggle for democracy is what will determine who has that political power. Thanks so much, and I'm looking forward to continuing the discussion. Thanks, Luke. Alright, next I'm going to have Jerry. Um, and also just a reminder that our Q& A is open, so if anyone wants to toss any questions in there, we're going to have a Q& A section. Um, for now, Jerry, go ahead. Thanks. So, uh, thanks, Luke. I really felt that was, uh, really interesting, and there's a lot I agree with, uh, particularly that democracy is the most important question facing the left. And I really appreciate your historic, um, review of Tom Paine and the French Revolution and Lenin and the democratic tradition within socialism, I think is very important. Um, but I think when we talk about the United States is not a democracy, that's, you talk about the political content of our message being important. I think that is the wrong approach, because millions upon millions of Americans believe we do live in a democracy, and it ends up being a very confused message. Um, in fact, I would say that what we're doing right now is participating in democracy. We're a socialist organization. We have people from all over the country listening to what we're speaking about. We exist legally. We organize openly. All that is democracy. It's bourgeois democracy, but it's democracy. And to say that we don't live in a democracy flies in the face of our existence as DSA and every other socialist or revolutionary organization in the United States. So I also want to approach this question from sort of a historical point of view, and actually a dialectical point of view, and I want to start with the American Revolution. The first great anti colonial revolution, and, uh, the American Revolution was carried out by an alliance of class forces, uh, primarily in the leadership, of course, was the commercial bourgeoisie of the North and the plantation slavocracy of the South, but the mass base of the revolution and the soldiers of the revolution Uh, were farmers and, uh, workers like the Longshoremen in Boston and craftsmen. And, uh, the, uh, writing of the Constitution, therefore, was really a result of a balance of class forces, which produced various types of compromises. Uh, the main compromises were between, uh, the commercial bourgeoisie of the North and the plantation bourgeoisie of the South. And out of that compromise, we get things like the electoral college and the three fifths of a human being, uh, law dealing with slavery and other things. But there are also concessions and compromises with the, uh, mass popular base of the revolution. And those compromises, I think, are the Bill of Rights. So we get, uh, freedom of press, freedom of speech. Freedom of assembly, uh, freedom to, uh, redress our grievances to the government, a jury by our peers. Essentially, what was created was civil society and citizenship. For the first time, you were born with inalienable rights, uh, from the government, not from God, not from a king, but as a citizen of a country. and belonging to, as I said, civil society. Uh, Jefferson lays down the ideological sort of basis when he writes, you know, all men are created equal. Of course, Jefferson meant all white men who own property are equal, and that is written into the Constitution as well. In fact, that's the primary aspect of the Constitutions, of course, is a capitalist constitution written to enhance and expand the power of the capitalist class, but there's another aspect, uh, the other part of the dialectic, uh, within the constitution that gives us democracy, uh, and in fact, uh, the working class have used that dialectic. Aspect, uh, to expand democracy in struggles over the last 250 years, whether it's the labor struggle. The women's struggle, uh, the, uh, struggle for, uh, the gay movement and the queer movement, uh, civil rights, all those mass movements have used the aspects within the existing constitution to fight for greater democracy and expand it. That's a contradiction. That's a dialectic between these two historical Aspects of what came out of the American and the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, for that matter of fact, to, um, now, uh, those popular struggles to expand democracy have always been met with resistance and backlash and violence. That's because the US is an imperialist. racist, patriarchal, and violent society. That's that aspect of the dialectic. That's the primary aspect of what American capitalism is all about. But there's also another aspect, which is the democratic aspect, which gives us a good amount of political flexibility and political rights, um, that we are, have used, uh, for the last 250 years. Uh, so I think if you talk to the American people that and tell them this is not a democracy, uh, it just puts up a barrier in terms of understanding, uh, what the society's content really is and how to fight within it. Um, how does this, uh, sort of historic dialectic get resolved? Well, I think there's two possible resolutions. Uh, between these two aspects that have been in contradiction for the last couple hundred years. One is a, uh, neo fascist, uh, authoritarian, uh, government, which, uh, we can see is on the horizon, based in, uh, Christian nationalism and white supremacy and patriarchy, uh, crushes civil society, uh, and establishes authoritarian rule. So that is a very present and real danger. It's always been an aspect in one way or another of American society from the very beginning. Uh, and it's always been in contradiction with expanding civil society, expanding mass democracy. It's been a constant struggle. The other aspect of the revolution is our resolution, which would be, uh, eventually rewriting the Constitution. That's actually a question of the balance of forces, and I wouldn't want to do that until we had a, uh, Solid socialist majority in this country, but we need to end capitalism with a eco socialist, uh, multiracial democracy. Those are the two ways that that historic dialectic is eventually resolved between that, those struggles. And that's sort of the core of, in many ways, where we are today, uh, struggling between these two choices. I think there's a real difference between fascism and bourgeois democracy. I know this is not what Leep was saying, but I know a lot of people on the left, and this is been a problem ever since I've been, uh, around the left as a teenager, uh, of talking about the U. S. as a fascist country or no democracy as the DSA is that no democracy. Um, maybe I could just digress a little bit and, uh, a short story here. I had traveled for about a year through South America in 73 and 74. I was heading to Chile. Uh, when, uh, the coup d'etat against Salvador Allende and socialist government took place, I was in southern Colombia at the time. So I diverted to Argentina, and in Argentina, there was a mass revolutionary movement that included all sorts of left groups, uh, revolutionary Peronistas, Maoists, Trotskyists, traditional CP. Left social Democrats. Everybody was in the streets. Everybody was demonstrating. It was really an exciting time. Um, and, and, uh, about six months after I left Argentina, uh, the people I stayed with, the people I hung out with, uh, everybody I knew. Uh, we're, we're underground, we're going into exile because of the military fascist coup d'etat. Again, everybody I knew was either killed, tortured, jailed, in exile, or underground. That's the difference between fascism and bourgeois democracy. So when we talk about America is not a democracy, that totally confuses this question, totally confuses in our minds that there's no difference between authoritarianism and bourgeois democracy. So I've wrestled with myself about the coming election. And maybe I'll just wrap up here and probably help us debate the question. I've debated myself, should I vote for Biden? Particularly, obviously, with what's going on in Gaza. And I decided, yes, I would. Not, but I don't really view it as a vote for Biden. Because it's not really a vote for an individual. It's a vote for what conditions are going to best facilitate left organizing. What conditions will best facilitate our ability to organize against capitalism and in fact against Biden himself? What conditions will best facilitate a more open civil society where we can use the democratic rights that we have? Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to organize, freedom to demonstrate, and use those things to build a more powerful socialist movement in the United States. And when I look at it that way, it's obvious that the social political conditions under Biden will be more beneficial to the left than Trump's neo fascism, which will quickly, I think, lead to a McCarthy like material, uh, uh, conditions. Uh, and very dangerous, uh, to our existence and to the existence of millions of people throughout our country. So let me just wrap it up there. I'm sure, uh, people will have a lot of questions and we can get into a discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. All right, and I'm going to have Luke and Jerry also give 10 minute or 5 minute direct responses. So starting with you, Luke. Yeah, thanks, Sarah. I know we've got some provocative questions to go into to, um, the 1st thing I want to touch on is this idea of the US being a democracy or not a democracy and. What the DSA has done and its platform when it says the United States, the country that says it is the world's greatest democracy is no democracy at all. Um, I find that actually very clarifying somewhere along the way, someone in the DSA or a group of people in the DSA went back to the traditional understanding of what is a democracy. Um, and that's a contested term, right? You could probably pull many different political scientists and say, You know, what is a democracy, this, that, and the other. So I think it's helpful to really focus in on what folks have described in our tradition, even, and I listed some of them. So a democracy being universal and equal suffrage, uh, that elects a group of people into a unicameral legislature, straight from the French revolution, straight from Tom Paine, and it's in the demands of classical Marxism prior to. So to really put that front and center and say, this is what democracy is, there might be all these other different variations or political systems, but this is what democracy is. And it's this particular type of state that we need. In order to carry out a struggle for something else, the other thing that I want us to think about is how are we going to build a particular movement for anything, right? How are we actually going to get folks going and moving and and in action? Um, you know, Jerry mentioned particular conditions that we might need, um, or maybe what kind of slogans or particular ideas we'd need to kind of get folks active. And that's where I think it's helpful to put up the two other. Positions out there besides democratic republicanism being either electoralism or socialism And I hope to touch on this a little bit later But one of those things can say well the things that we want to get can be ascertained through this existing system And then I think, at the end of the day, you'll have to reckon with always coming up against some obstacle within the Constitution and being unable to explain what's going on. The other thing, or the other way you might attempt to do things, is to build socialist consciousness. So say we need a socialist movement. And therefore we build maybe the kind of innate power within the working class or we sloganize for socialism. We use the electoral arena to tell people about the good news of socialism and There, it becomes two different things. One, it becomes, I suppose, kind of a judgment call in some senses. Do you think that it's going to be under the banner of socialism, communism, workers power, that people are invigorated in this country? Or do you think that a larger movement can be built under the banner of democracy? But it also has to do with how you think, um, political consciousness. Is built and how you really think you can engage people and how you can really connect with people. So those are kind of 2 things I want to draw out both the definition of democracy and then also how you can build a movement and how you can really connect with folks. Awesome. Thanks, Luke. Alright, Jerry, do you want to give me a direct response? Okay. Um, Well, I think Luke's bringing up some really good questions, how to build a movement, how to connect with people. I mean, these are really essential things that every social should have for great importance on, um, in terms of the sort of this definition that democracy is voting. That's one aspect of democracy, and I think it's an important one. Uh, just look at how broad and vicious the right wing is attacking voting rights and have always tried to limit voting rights as an indication of the danger that may pose to right wing rule. But voting is certainly only one aspect, and perhaps Not the most important. As I said, look at our Bill of Rights, freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of protest, freedom of grievances, jury by our peers, uh, and freedom of religion, et cetera. I mean, when you, when we talk about how we want to connect to people, uh, those are the types of things that the American people think of as living in a democratic society. So if you go to them and tell them this isn't a democracy, it's just Confusing, but the way to connect with people is to defend those. Democratic rights and to expand them. It's one in the same struggle. Uh, I agree with Luke that there's some socialists who take a very sort of dogmatic and purist approach to this thing and only want to talk about socialism, never want to concretely connect with where people are at. Um, and you can't build a movement that way, but you can build a movement by getting down with people in their daily struggles. And where they see, uh, what's important in their lives. And what are the tools they use to defend their interests, such as organizing a union, organizing a community group, organizing through their church, going to a demonstration, going to a picket line, signing a petition, speaking out at the school board, all those basic Bill of Rights freedoms or democratic rights that we have. And we should be there arm in arm with those folks, but at the same time. We can talk to them about the shortcomings and the roadblocks, uh, that we face because in those various struggles and all those things I mentioned is the dialectic, you come up to the other dominant aspect of capitalist society is repressive, reactionary, racist, patriarchal aspects. And that's what gives us the ability to talk about going beyond capitalism to a multiracial democracy and a socialist democracy. So, participating in these very real struggles. Around democratic struggles is the road leading to building a greater socialist democracy and gives us the ability to talk about awesome. Thank you, Jerry and Luke for both of those speeches. So now we're going to move into some Q and A's that I have. Um, I'm going to give you both 2 minutes to respond. Um, the first question is going to be most people in the United States describe our country has a democracy. and believe it is a good thing. Should socialists, especially democratic socialists, seek to claim the term? And if so, what does this mean by the word democracy? And I'm going to have Jerry go first on this one. You know, I almost answered that question pretty well on what I just said. So yeah, I think we should claim democracy. I think we should declare, uh, It claim it as a as ours. In fact, it has been ours. I mean, Luke talked about the history of socialist thinkers and philosophers and organizers and the role of democracy and in the thinking of those revolutionary minded folks. So we should claim it, but we should also push it and expand it. Uh, and there's no contradiction between the two. I think in our, uh, blurb about the panel we talked about, should we fight for democracy or defend democracy? You do both at the same time. So I'll throw it over to Luke now. Thank you. Go ahead, Luke. I think a few things. Um, one, I can't imagine that any of the folks, you know, who I mentioned would look at the United States today and say, this is a democracy. I just don't think any of them would. Um, Marx looked at the United States in 1848 and said, it's a democracy and he was wrong. Angle said contradictory things, you know, in his communist program, the draft of the manifesto. So, what you can do is you can find the folks, Lenin being one of them, Lenin's pretty good, um, who has a definition of democracy and sticks to it until the end and critiques folks who waver. On those definitions of democracy by saying, well, first, this is our first. This isn't so that's also why I think it really helps to have a concrete definition that you stick to and you don't waiver from the other thing. Um, that I would say is there might be a difference in terms of what we think most people in the United States feel. And then depending on what they feel, what we feel like our job is to do, um, say folks do think the U. S. Is a democracy. It's the same when folks talk about capitalism. What if the working class thinks capitalism is good? Well, then we tell them otherwise, right? It's the same principle. You live in a democracy. No, you don't. And if folks are confused, we help them understand and we clarify that. But the other thing I want to push off on against is to what extent folks actually think we do live in a democracy. Because there I think we disagree too. People aren't exactly biting at the gun for, uh, a democratic constitution. But there's vast, uh, disinterest in politics in this country. Um, people, people absolutely know that something's up. People don't forget, you know, being screwed over, as I said. So that's where it's our job to come in and, and make that connection. Um, I don't actually think it would be confusing or alienating at all, uh, to really push that message of the U. S. is no democracy, and we need to make it one. Awesome. Thanks, Luke. All right, so the next question, and I'm going to start with Luke first this time. Many of the most important social movements during the past century in the United States have been focused on the right to vote, a core, maybe the core component of democracy, women's suffrage, civil rights, etc. Is a right to vote slash access to voting still an important focus of organizing and struggle in the United States? Why or why not? So I'd say the right to vote is not the core definition of democracy. Um, I'd say the right to universal and equal suffrage is, uh, the core of democracy. And then having a state in which there aren't, um, minoritarian checks. As Robert Overt says that can somehow come in and disrupt the power of the people, um, voting is, of course, what people often think of democracy is being. And I think I might have said, or I might have cut it that that's sort of understandable, considering that most political scientists also define democracy as the ability to vote in terms of Movements that have been fighting for the ability to vote. I think there, it can be interesting to look at the civil rights movement. Um, and to look at the fact that here's a struggle that goes a particular distance, uh, and wages a very important struggle and then King towards the end of his life, basically starts to think, huh, what if we've come up to the limits of the constitution? What if we've kind of moved past that to a certain extent? And so that's why I'm interested in engaging with the Poor People's Campaign and asking them that question. You know, you have these various things that you want within the lineage of those movements. Do you actually think that these things can be accomplished within our existing Constitution? If you do, what makes you so sure? What about all these counterexamples? If you don't, why not say something about the Constitution? Alright, thanks Luke. Um, next is Jerry. Um, you know, I'm Marx, um, saying that the United States was a democracy. I would say he was right. Um, but, uh, you know, Marx was a correspondent for the New York Tribune, uh, during the Civil War, wrote about 120 columns. Uh, and there was some short correspondence between him and Lincoln. And, uh, obviously Marx was a very strong supporter of the northern cause and for the, uh, overthrow of the slavocracy in the south. Uh, I think we're sort of facing a situation like that today with the rise of a neo confederacy. Uh, in America, and the need to unite behind, uh, defeating the neoconfederacy and the struggle for the multiracial democracy. Um, when you say we could use the U. S. as no democracy, sort of as a slogan or as a mass. Organizing tool. Well, there is some people who do that today. It's the right wing. It's the Magna forces. They're the ones who are jumping on the U. S. Is no democracy, uh, and, uh, that the elections were stolen, et cetera, et cetera. So I would be careful about sort of paralyzed, paralyzed the mass slogans of the right, um, which Dr King, uh, when they started out the struggle against Jim Crow. Uh, you could erase then this is possible to achieve with democracy. Uh, and, uh, obviously the victory over Jim Crome, like, uh, was really a second reconstruction period, was a great democratic victory and it changed qualitatively the life. Of millions of people. Uh, there's still miles and miles to go. It didn't end racism in any sense, but it certainly changed the living conditions of millions of people, uh, and the horrible conditions that they lived under. Um, what I said before about sort of rolling up our sleeves and getting into these struggles side by side with people around democratic struggles, yeah, it does lead to the next step, right? So, as Luke said, then it led to the Poor People's March and more of a class orientated struggle, economic struggle, that King was moving on to. That's exactly where it goes, and that's exactly where we want it to go. We want these struggles, uh, to expand and defend democracy, to lead to the next barrier. Uh, and it's through those processes where we educate about socialism being the, uh, necessary step to complete and consolidate these battles for democracy. Thank you, Jerry. All right, I have one more question, and then Q& A is going to open up, so ask those questions in the Q& A box. We can go ahead and get them to Jerry and Luke. Um, the next question is, is democracy on the ballot in the upcoming presidential election, as many are saying? And if so What should DSA in the left also do during the coming 10 months? I'll start with you, Jerry. I would say it is on the ballot. Um, not in the way we would want it to be, uh, but it's definitely staring us in the face. Uh, I don't think there's any way to ignore the neo fascist movement with its, uh, 73 million voter base. I mean You know, they have a much larger base than we do. Uh, 73, 74 million people voted for Trump last time around. And that is the base of white supremacy. That is the base of Christian nationalism. That is the base for patriarchy. And all you have to do is look at Texas and Florida and all the, uh, states where the, uh, MAGA forces control, uh, the states to, to see what the agenda is. And it's Serious and it's frightening. So I think, uh, the main thing to do in this coming election is to defend the squad and the left, uh, the whole office actually and progressives, but also I think we need to vote for Biden as uncomfortable as that is, as I said before, uh, what we're voting for is maintaining the conditions in civil society that allow us to organize against capitalism. That's the decision we have to make. Uh, what conditions are best for organizing against racism, are best for organizing against capitalism, are best for organizing to expand democracy and to able, and to be able to speak about socialism freely. Uh, because we're heading for something very similar to the McCarthy period, which was really a nasty Period and the left didn't recover that from that probably really until the Bernie Sanders campaign. In many ways. Thank you, Jerry. Go ahead, Luke. Sure. Um, democracy is not on the ballot. Uh, maybe someday democracy will be on the ballot. Um, folks in the U. S. have actually never had the opportunity to To decide if they want to live in a democracy, they did a little interesting experiment, um, in Chile, actually, uh, in the 1980s, kind of leading up to the ability to even have a constitutional referendum where the Communist Party went around and they asked folks, what would you do if you actually had the ability to make a constitution? What would you do if you had the ability to, uh, decide the constitution that you lived under? So folks in the United States have actually not had that ability. Um, so leading up to the elections, what do we need to do? Um, we need to focus on the democratic party. We need to take the democratic party, which is the political force that says, we know what democracy is. Here's what it is vote for us. We'll protect your democracy. So on and so forth. And we need to expose them. Uh, we need to brand them as hypocrites, we need to brand them as charlatans, we need to point out all the instances in which they are complicit, not only in not stopping us from Donald Trump, not only in not stopping us from the far right, but actually because they don't fight the Constitution, in creating those very consti in creating those very uh, conditions that create the possibility, uh, for someone like Donald Trump and for a minoritarian movement. Uh, to gain a foothold in this country. So folks will vote for whoever they want, right? Folks will vote for whoever they want. I'm not here to tell people who they should or shouldn't vote for. I'm here to talk about what kind of political propaganda and political agitation we in the DSA can do. Our very small part for very small part. Um, I think it would be very important, uh, and a very, uh, uh, a long needed step. In this country to have a force on the left that actually said, you don't have democracy. We can get democracy. Um, and here's, you know, what it would actually mean to do that. Thank you, Luke. And thank you to everyone who's submitting questions. I'm going to go ahead and open it with the first question, which is by Daniel W for either Jerry or Luke. So I'll give it to both of you. Do you think it's possible to achieve a socialist democracy without universal and equal suffrage? If so, how? Luke, do you want to start us off? Um, I don't know how it would be possible to achieve a socialist democracy without universal and equal suffrage. When I say that, it doesn't necessarily mean that I think we can peacefully vote our way into fundamentally changing the economy of this country. Um, but I don't understand how we could democratically change society. without universal and equal suffrage. Um, so the struggle to change society goes hand in hand with the struggle for democracy. You can't, uh, impose a change of society on two people. Um, nor though can you pretend as if The existing political system, the existing constitution allows us to, in any operable way, change society. Um, I'm sort of reminded of what Engel said, I think, in his critique of the Erfurt program, which I might have alluded to. Where it basically says Look, it's a problem that y'all aren't saying the key thing here, which is that this is not a democratic republic, there's no way to work through this system. And it's also a key thing that y'all are forgetting that trying to change society will create massive amounts of rupture and chaos and so on and so forth. Um, but no, you need, you need democracy. Thanks Luke. Jerry, do you want to answer this question? Yeah, I mean, I would say universal mass voting rights are part of what we want in socialism. Uh, I think actually one way we can approach this question is getting rid of the electoral college. I don't think we could move towards like a constitutional convention at this time, the balance of forces are totally against us, but getting rid of the electoral college would be a major step. And it's one that's already been rather broadly discussed even in the liberal mass media, and has rather broad support even within sectors of the ruling class. So I think, uh, that's a battle that can be engaged and necessary, but obviously voting is one tool in the toolbox and all the democratic rights that we have protests, meetings, press, speech, all that has to be used. And, uh, the question of violence is really up to the ruling class. Uh, and, uh, I believe of course people have the right to self defense. Thank you, Jerry. All right. Our next question is from Clipsy. In his book, An Economical Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, Charles Beale reviews the evidence and finds that less than 160, 000 white men make up less than 1 percent of the population participated in ratifying the Constitution. No person alive today has had a hand in shaping or altering it. Should we defend this document as a democratic charter for the government, or would it make sense to agitate for a replacement shaped by mass participation, as was recently done in Cuba? Jerry, do you want to start this one? Yeah, we need to change the Constitution. Absolutely. There's aspects of the Constitution I think we should keep. Bill of Rights. We should keep that. Uh, but, uh, the time to fight over, uh, rewriting of the Constitution or re foundation of American democracy Is when you have a socialist, uh, solid socialist majority consolidated leadership. Um, I think we should look at Chile recently. Um, for some lessons where you had mass support for a new constitution, the left went into it and came out with something that got roundly defeated. I mean, that was a huge defeat for the left in Chile around rewriting the constitution. So, uh, if, if we try to use it in some mass slogan or mass organizing tool today, rewriting the constitution, no, I don't agree with that because the balance of forces are totally not in our favor. The right. It's already organizing for rewriting the Constitution, and if we go into some process with that, there's a good ability we'll lose. Can we raise up the question of expanding democracy and rewriting the Constitution? Yeah, you can do that in terms of education and propaganda, but I don't see it as a mass issue. Beyond this, uh, idea of, uh, getting rid of the electoral college that has already been out there as a mass issue. Thank you, Jerry. Luke, you can go ahead. Sure. Um, I think getting rid of the electoral college would be great. And while we're at it, we can add in all the other very undemocratic things. I don't, I don't think we need to start there. Um, as I said, I really liked the idea and I'm very curious. Um, and I think. DSA should, uh, really explore ways, um, of agitating, uh, or developing forms of propaganda around this question of choice. And when have you ever actually had, uh, the opportunity to decide, uh, the laws, uh, that fundamentally shape your life, uh, in ways that you can't always appreciate, uh, but are the ultimate system of making laws totally. Um, So if the right is talking about it, and I don't think they're talking about it in the way we are, they're talking about it in a very truncated form. All the more reason that we should talk about it too. Uh, if the right is talking about making a new constitution, then we should talk about making a constitution. If they weren't talking about making a constitution, we should still talk about making a new constitution. You know, the time is always right. Uh, I think to talk about a lack of democracy. Point out why there is no democracy. And then if the right has some idea about what they think democracy is, we poke holes in that too. Uh, just the same way that we poke holes in the same conception of whatever the democratic party, uh, thinks is democracy. And then on Chile, I'm not so convinced that Chile really has much to offer us. You know, the fact that they reject one and then they reject the second one. You know, maybe folks 10 years down the line will look at this and say, Oh, it bodes a particular direction. But I think we just focus here in the United States and think about what we need in this country. Thank you, Luke. All right. Now the next question. I'm gonna have two questions. One for Luke, one for Jerry. So first, I'm going to start with Luke. How do you reconcile Mark's original push for the battle for democracy with his later skepticisms following the crushing of the Paris Commune, namely that co opting ready made state machinery is ineffective? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, because if you look at the, or what would you call it, historiography of Marx or whatnot, um, the traditional opinion is, well, Marx has a certain conception of the state, and then he looks at the Paris Commune, and the Paris Commune kind of changes everything. Um, I don't think it does. You know, uh, the quote that I took from Angles there is from, uh, a letter that he wrote to someone in 1892, just a year before he dies or so. Marx and I, for 40 years, have been repeating ad nauseum what we need as a democratic republic. Okay. Um, the same point being that Marx, uh, in the demands of the German Communist Party, uh, that he writes, oh, what's that, 1850 or so, a lot of that has the exact same things that he praises in the 19th century. Paris commune. Um, so this idea of kind of smashing the state and establishing the, um, dictatorship of the proletariat, so to think, um, I don't think that that in any way, uh, disqualifies this idea of a democratic state at its core, uh, being one with the unicameral legislature elected by universal and equal suffrage. It's from that position that you can do all those other things that he discusses. Um, or I should say that he wants to see. In the Paris commune, because, of course, he's embellishing that whole thing, too, in many ways, uh, in order to really draw out what he'd like to see done. All right. Thank you, Luke. So, the next question is going to be for Jerry, um, and it is, it says, Jerry, I agree with the clear distinction with bourgeoisie democracy in the United States and the neo fascism, neo absurd in Chile. However, it's, of course, worth noting that U. S. involvement in the military coup that created a fascist Chile. Does or should the suppression by the United States of usually anti capitalist democracies around the world undermine the extent of democracy we enjoy here at home? Go ahead, Jerry. Yeah, the United States is an imperialist, racist, patriarchal, violent society. The American bourgeoisie is all those things. And we've always known that. That's why we're socialists. That's why we want to get rid of capitalism and build a socialist society. Uh, as I've been arguing here all along, that's the main aspect of, uh, the historic dialectic that we're facing. Uh, the U. S. imperialism, and European imperialism as well, has always had a fascist face, uh, in the global south. Uh, and of course that, uh, Is part of the character of what they are. Again, uh, you know, the chickens came home to roost with the Nazis and Mussolini and the fascists in World War II, and the chickens are coming home to roost now, both in the United States and Europe again, because the right is on the march, the fascist right is on the march, and of course, they have plenty of experience, uh, With their long history of colonialism and imperialism throughout the world. Um, no better seen in the horrific, uh, violence that the, uh, Israeli government is carrying on in Gaza at this very moment, and what Russian imperialists are doing in Ukraine. So, um, uh, I'm not arguing that America is some wonderful democratic society. What I'm saying is that Democracy is one aspect of the society that we live in. We use those rights every day to organize a fuller democracy and for a socialist future. Awesome. Thank you, Jerry. And thank you to everyone who submitted questions. We can't, we don't have time to get to them all, but they were really good. So I'm going to allow both of you guys to go into closing statements. I'll start with Jerry for five minutes. Go ahead, Jay. Uh, oh, I've really enjoyed the discussion. Actually, Luke and I have periodically talked about this stuff for about two years now when he was in Chicago. Now he's in Oakland. I've always enjoyed it. Um, I think it's a really important discussion for us on the left to have. Uh, and, uh, as Luke opened up saying democracy is, you know, the most important question confronting us. I fully agree with that. And I think, uh, when you say there is no democracy, uh, it leads, uh, logically to the, uh, sort of, uh, positions that Luke and I have on the election. where our sort of real differences come to the fore, where if you have no democracy, then there's really no difference between Trump and Biden that we have to worry about, because America isn't a democracy. But if you think that there is a democracy in the United States, that there are clear differences between these two camps, And they, and having one or the other in power will make a big difference in terms of our ability to organize. I'm not saying that you vote for Biden because he's a good guy or anything like that. We see what his nature is, what he's doing. Uh, what we're voting for is what are the political conditions that allow us to best organize. And it's really that, that's the question. And the political conditions that allow us to best organize are the most open conditions, the ones that, uh, where we can use the existing democratic rights that we have. To their fullest extent to push forward the socialist movement and the anti capitalist movement. And to me, it's clearly, uh, that we'll have greater flexibility under a democratic administration than a neo fascist administration. Thanks. Thanks, Jerry. Go ahead, Luke. Luke, you're, uh, you're, uh, on mute. Thanks, Jerry. That would help. Just to echo what Jerry said, too, in the opening. I've, I've always enjoyed talking with Jerry and, um, you know, learn a lot from, from our conversations. Um, a few things, though. This desire for a socialist revolution, um, that folks talk about. I do still want to draw a distinction between a socialist revolution and a democratic revolution. Because I think it does impact how we kind of conceptualize the future in a certain sense, and the same way that it Does impact how we talk to people and what we say to people like kinds of conversations we have and so on um, so I would argue that we want a democratic revolution in order to Create the position from which we can Decide what kind of society we want to live in to decide what kind of economy we want to have We don't have that ability right now. Now, of course in the lead up to all of that There are, of course, going to be people who will be arguing for what kind of economy we should have, uh, and what the future should be. And I would support folks who, during that movement, in that process, during that constituent assembly, whatever, however you want to conceive of it, are saying we need to take X, Y, and Z steps in order to socialize the economy. Okay. But I think our primary task is to build a democratic movement that's actually saying, hold on, we don't even have the ability to decide any of that right now. And so then the question becomes, are we going to build that movement by telling people, uh, what the future society could look like? Or what the economy needs to be in that future society, or do you build that movement by looking at the existing society and saying, you don't have any control, you don't have the ability to decide, right, wrong, good, bad, doesn't matter. You can't make it happen. So there are, of course, going to be people who are going to be talking about socialism. forever. That's fine. The left, though, has not been talking about the constitution and about democracy. And that is the first obstacle to overcome. So I really feel like that's, uh, that's our goal. It's to have that ability to choose, you know, to kind of use some of the language of SDS, the ability to, uh, decide the conditions that Shape your life or maybe to use kind of more contemporary Republican language, the ability to not be dominated. The other thing I want to bring up just to end here is an interesting book, um, by these two guys who, um, I always want to say their last names are Levitsky and Ziblatt. I've said them so many times now that I make up last names for them. In 2018, they wrote a book called, um, How Democracies Die. Uh, and this was Obama's favorite book in 2018, one of his favorite books. And Biden cited it as one of the reasons that he ran for the presidency. They basically said, um, Trump became president despite the guardrails of our constitution. People need to kind of learn how to play by the rules. We need to kind of strengthen the respect that we have for the constitution. That's how we'll defeat Trump. And then you flash forward five years and they come out with this book called tyranny of the minority, where they basically say, huh, it kind of looks like Trump got into office, not despite the constitution, but because of the constitution that allows a minoritarian movements to. Take power, obstruct the system, stop popular legislation, so on and so forth. So, if we are concerned about starting, excuse me, about stopping an authoritarian MAGA movement, so on and so forth, as the Democrats claim to be, Then we should argue for a democratic constitution. If the Democrats cared about stopping Trump, they would argue for a democratic constitution. They would read a book by two Harvard, uh, law professors. You know, I only laugh because it seems. So, uh, so kind of silly in that way, but that's also what I want to bring into this conversation is okay. How do we, how do we stop bad things? If that's really our goal, uh, well, it's only through democracy, right? Democracy would allow us to enact the reforms we need. But then actually allow us to go further into socialism. And then, of course, if you want to talk about democracy, you'd have to talk about the U. S. Constitution. Thank you, Luke, and thank you, Jerry. So that concludes our event. Um, thank you so much from everyone at the National Political Education Committee. We are so glad that everyone turned out to this event. Your questions are really great. Thank you to both of the panelists. Um, I have dropped the link to the public Slack. In the chat. So basically we have our slack channel for impact is open so you can join and we can keep this conversation and debate going on slack. Stay tuned because impact will also be having an event next month. I'm working with the trans rights bodily autonomy campaign commission as well. So stay tuned for that. And with that, this event is over. So thank you everyone for coming out and solidarity.