Biden Presidential Election Win and US Rulers Breathe a Sigh of Relief

Written by: Ned K. on 11 November 2020

In the book American Exceptionalism - A Double Edged Sword, US sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset analyses US settler society history and shows how the US political system developed as a two-party system without the formation of a bourgeois social democratic labor party.

Instead the two Coalition Party system of Republican and Democratic Party developed with both parties being formed by powerful capitalist interests. However, as Lipset points out, both of these parties developed as loose enough coalitions to "absorb/co-opt manifest evident discontent in the form of mass movements. The major parties stealing the thunder of the dissenters by adopting their policies" thereby encouraging groups to act within major parties.

In the 2020 Presidential election, this has been played out for all to see. The Republican leader Trump epitomisiing Marx's view of the USA social system as "...the sphere of egoism, of bellum omnium contra omnes (war of each against all). It is no longer the essence of community but the essence of difference." (Marx "On The Jewish Question')

Trump could not deliver or would not deliver his promises to the white working class men thrown out of work in the rust belt States while waging war against immigrants, women, Afro-Americans and all things Chinese which to him included the Covid-19 Virus.

The situation for the ruling class was getting out of hand. What would four more years of Trump mean if the oppressed peoples who came out in record numbers to vote Trump out and give Biden a go to (in Lipset's words) "steal the thunder of the dissenters" representing the oppressed millions? 

Another Trump win would have had the oppressed people looking for answers beyond the two-Party system perhaps and massive social upheavals.

The mass media would have us believe that the main source of social unrest and violence would come from the extreme Right wing. This has not eventuated yet, but still may come. However, another Trump win would have arguably unleashed something more powerful, a people's democratic movement for fundamental social change in the USA.

Such a movement is sure to grow as many of Biden's promises to those who voted for him will not eventuate due to Biden's allegiance to Wall Street and media magnate capitalists and the conservatism of the US political system.

US imperialism in its earlier days was able to throw enough crumbs to the white working class in particular to contain the working class movement. This was even the case in relation to bourgeois political liberty as pointed out by Lenin who used the term "gift of suffrage" when explaining that the socialist movement in Europe grew out of the struggle for electoral democracy. In the USA, however, the voting franchise predated the appearance of any organised worker movement. (Salig Pashman , Theory of the Labour Movement by Augustus & M Kelley quoted in Lipset's book)

However, times have changed and US imperialism does not have the dominance globally it once had and its internal economy does not have as many economic crumbs to throw the workers' way.

So Biden's win gives the ruling class some breathing space but not for long

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