Hillary Wants a Crusade to Defeat Trump’s “Bigotry” – and Leave Her Bankers Alone
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“It took the emergence of a grassroots movement against police terror, to wake a critical mass of Black folks to the reality of their condition.”
"If Hillary Clinton can make the general election into a crusade against “bigotry” and “intolerance” as embodied by Donald Trump, she can win with an otherwise issue-less campaign, thus shielding the 1% from harm. Black folks will be happy, imagining the election is all about them. “The great task of independent Black politics is to pry Black folks loose from the Democratic Party’s lethal embrace.” For that, we need a movement in the streets."
Tuesday’s primary
victories will allow Hillary Clinton to get busy planning her “big tent”
general election crusade against racism and incivility, in the person of Donald
Trump. It will be a corporate Democrat’s dream campaign, with the prospect of the
party garnering majority white support for the first time since 1964. Clinton
will allow Bernie Sanders’ delegates to craft much of the language of the party
platform, in Philadelphia – a meaningless exercise designed to convince the
Sandernistas that there is still hope to transform the Democratic Party “from
below.” Clinton – who is permanently primed to lie on any subject, at any time,
in the interests of the Lords of Capital – may give forked-tongue service to a
Sanders-inspired platform, especially if Trump continues his hype on jobs
losses to “China” because of “bad deals.” But, Wall Street will have little to
worry about. Clinton’s central project will be to build an historic Democratic
super-majority by appealing to all “decent” Americans to reject “bigotry” and
embrace “fairness” and “tolerance” – by which she will mean nothing more than
that they reject Trump.
Such civil
rights-sounding rhetoric will signify to Black voters that their faith in the
party, and the Clintons, has been bounteously rewarded; that the campaign is
really all about them. They will be
reassured of the continuity of Barack Obama’s policies under Hillary – as if that were a good thing, and as if Obama
and the Clintons were not political triplets all along, rooted in the same
right-wing of the party.
When Hillary Clinton
is sworn in, there will be no Great
Black Hajj [3] of millions to the Washington Mall, as in 2009 – no dizzying
euphoria. But, the effect of a huge Democratic triumph over the Trump Monster
could reproduce much the same disastrous Black political passivity as in the
early Obama years, when folks thought they were on track to the Promised Land.
Despite having been set back as much as 30 years by the Great Recession, in
terms of their relative position to whites, African Americans clung to the
delusion that things had never been so good, simply because there was a Black
family in the White House.
“The effect of a huge Democratic triumph over the Trump
Monster could reproduce much the same disastrous Black political passivity as
in the early Obama years.”
It took the
emergence of a grassroots movement against police terror, under the general
heading of Black Lives Matter, to wake a critical mass of Black folks to the
reality of their condition. For two generations, the dead, hegemonic weight of
the Democratic Party had subverted and suffocated the Black Radical Tradition,
diverting all Black political energies into a corporate dominated electoral
enclosure. However, no sooner had the “Ferguson movement” (as many initially
called it) gained traction, than it was partially co-opted by young
opportunists with corporate ambitions. Campaign Zero immediately set out to
become a player in the Democratic Party. (Its twittering star, DeRay McKesson,
is currently running for mayor of Baltimore.) #Black Lives Matter was endorsed
by the Democratic National Committee, with its founders mentioned by name.
However, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, rejected
the endorsement [4]. “The Democratic Party, like the Republican and all
political parties, have historically attempted to control or contain Black
people's efforts to liberate ourselves," they said. "True change
requires real struggle, and that struggle will be in the streets and led by the
people, not by a political party."
In a caricature of
confrontation with power, activists held two
cozy “chats” [5] with Hillary Clinton, in which they made no substantive
demands. Clinton easily dominated the discussions, and succeeded in projecting
herself as a stern but sincere supporter of the movement – an undeserved
reputation that would benefit her presidential campaign.
The brazenly
opportunist Campaign Zero group and the Garza-Cullors-Tometi network dickered
with [6] the Democratic National Committee over campaign events. Campaign
Zero agreed to collaborate with the Democrats on a televised town hall-type
event on racial justice issues. The #Black Lives Matter network preferred
a televised debate. Either way, participation in such projects relegates the
collaborators to the status of annexes of the party, like MoveOn.org.
“Being controlled by the two-party system is hugely
problematic and is disempowering and oppressive to black people.”
It was refreshing,
and heartening, therefore, to hear another founding member of #Black Lives
Matter explain why the network will not endorse any presidential candidate.
Prof. Melina Abdullah, chair of the Department of Pan-African Studies at
California State University, Los Angeles, told Democracy Now! viewers that
“neither Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton have a strong command of the
particular issues related to race in the specificity of black oppression.”
(Actually, a more knowledgeable Democratic Party leader would be, if anything,
even more dangerous.) More definitively, Prof. Abdullah said “being controlled
by the two-party system is hugely problematic and is disempowering and
oppressive to black people.” The movement needs to “think about what democracy
is,” and “we need to really kind of redefine what that means and break away
from this notion that the only way of being democratic is engaging in electoral
politics.” The #Black Lives Matter Network “is pushing the real revolution,”
she said.
Revolutionary
movements – movements of any kind – require the formulation of demands. “We
need to develop a plan that really deals with the specifics of blackness –
black jobs, black employability, moving toward black wealth,” said Abdullah,
the political scientist.
Hillary Clinton
hopes to build a super-party this election season, packed to overflowing with
“moderate” Republicans fleeing the taint of Donald Trump, who will bring their
otherwise conservative politics with them into the Democratic “big tent” – an
ideal infusion to reinforce Hillary Clinton’s (and Barack Obama’s) corporate
wing of the party. Black folks will emerge from this electoral process even
more marginal to party policy than before. But, most will not realize it.
The great task of
independent Black politics is to pry Black folks loose from the Democratic
Party’s lethal embrace. For that, you need a movement that is armed with proper
demands. The #Black Lives Matter network is not there, yet, but at least some
members are aware of the general path that must be taken.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
[7].
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