By David Sole
A great deal of attention is being paid to the cracks developing in Trump’s Republican Party. Many people are hoping that a serious split will develop between sections of the MAGA base and the full-blown fascist elements on the right. A more significant question is whether the Democratic Party can survive in the coming period. This is not just wild speculation. A New York Times report on August 6 announced “Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left.”
The Michigan Senate primary win by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed against Congresswoman Haley Stevens on August 4 has deeply worried the corporate leadership of the Democratic Party establishment. Stevens had received over $32 millions of dollars for her campaign from the zionist American Israel Public Affairs Committee while El-Sayed expressed strong opposition to US aid to the genocidal Israeli regime.
El-Sayed also is pushing for Medicare for all and has not taken any corporate funding for his campaign. He has repeatedly called for the abolition of the murderous Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
The corporate Democrats are worried about victories by a number of candidates who identify as progressives and with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in recent elections, including Donavan McKinney who out-polled incumbent Shri Thanedar in Detroit’s 13th Congressional District.
A president of the “centrist” Democratic organization Third Way told the Times “We are preparing for the next war that is coming” and are planning “a new $15 million effort between now and 2028 to discredit democratic socialism.”
The fundamental problem the Democrats have is not a new one. Since the 1930s the Democratic Party has posed as the electoral choice for poor and working people as opposed to the openly pro-business Republican Party. The Republican Party had benefited from its prosecutors of abolition and slavery, the Civil War and reconstruction. But as monopoly capitalism expanded that progressive legacy became a distant memory.
The Democrats, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, were wise enough to blunt the revolutionary wave in the working-class movement by adopting many reforms to save the capitalist system. This period saw big victories for industrial and other unions: Social Security, job programs and some welfare programs – all of which came from mass movements led by communists and socialists.
The US ruling capitalist class needed national unity during the years of the Second World War and restrained itself from attacking the new unions and popular social programs. But as soon as WWII was over the ruling class went after these social gains and the militants who first proposed them.
The anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947 severely limiting the powers of unions. It also included the infamous anti-communist provision that drove many of the original union organizers from union leadership. This was followed by the broader attack on socialists and communists led by Senator Joseph McCarthy that lasted well into the 1950s.
This violent attack on the left led to a four-way split in the federal elections of 1948. The Republican Party received about 21.97 million votes. The Democratic Party saw two splits. Southern racists (Dixiecrats) formed a States’ Rights Party to protest a modest civil rights plank adopted by the Democrats. They polled around 1.169 million votes. A second breakaway from the Dems opposed the Cold War anti-communist, anti-Soviet direction of the country and formed the Progressive Party. Their candidate, former Vice-President Henry A. Wallace, received 1.157 million ballots. Democrat Harry S Truman won with 24.106 million votes. African American voting was severely restricted, especially in the Southern states.
In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s the long suppressed mass movements erupted throughout the US. Civil rights and Black Liberation struggles and rebellions swept the nation. The Vietnam War provoked the powerful anti-war and anti-imperialist movements. Women and LGBTQ+ people took to the streets.
The Democratic Party has tried over the decades to maintain within its ranks many of these progressive currents without acknowledging that it is precisely the capitalist system that is the cause of our many problems. However, the firmly ruling class leadership of the Democratic Party has never allowed the party base to force major changes – even when the Dems controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Again, and again the public has voted the Democrats into office only to be disappointed, leading to losses in following elections.
Some things the capitalist class, the billionaire rulers of the US will not tolerate. Primarily, they will not permit, they cannot permit, any interference with US economic, political and military control of the world economy – imperialism. This is a fundamental source of their profit system. But even something like national health care which threatens the enormous profits of the medical, pharmaceutical and private insurance industries is violently opposed.
Since the ruling class is only a tiny fraction of the population, the capitalists are desperate to divide the huge working class in this country. They, and their control over mass media, promote racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, anti-Muslim hatred, anti-immigrant sentiment – in short, all the Trump-MAGA program.
As mass popular revulsion against Trump and his movement has grown, it is naturally developing inside the Democratic Party. The further right Trump and Co. go, Democratic forces are leaning further left, including a rapid growth of the Democratic Socialists.
One of the most worrisome aspects to the ruling class of this developing movement is the strong support that has emerged for the Palestinian people against the US financed Israeli genocide. This has truly taken on a mass character. Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of President Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores on January 3, 2026 received widespread condemnation. The unprovoked US-Israeli war against Iran is also widely condemned in this country.
The Democratic Party leadership is faced with an impossible dilemma. They cannot maintain the illusion that their party represents the working class and oppressed people while making sure no serious threat to the capitalist system can emerge. An explosion is inevitable. The question remains – if excluded by the “mainstream” Democratic leadership what form will electoral opposition to capitalism take?
Finally it must be asked – if the capitalist ruling class no longer feels it has control over the capitalist electoral system, if the masses find a way to use the bourgeois elections to shake the system, will the ruling class simply discard elections? Trump has already indicated his willingness to do so. Will the entire ruling class take that road? Union leaders and activists should be already considering how to respond if this fascist move occurs.
