The Democrats: blood-stained party of imperialism, war, and oppression

by Blas Reies · Published April 2, 2020 · Updated January 19, 2022

That time has come again, it comes every four years, when people tell us it is our duty to vote…to vote for the lesser evil, to vote against the Republicans, to vote for the Democrats. Right now, some people are enthusing over Democrat Bernie Sanders, that great hope for liberals.

Many justify their support of Sanders by stating that he will push the Democrats to the left, take them back to its “progressive” roots. The truth is that the Democrats are not the party of lesser evil and its roots are far from “progressive.” It is not an ally of labor and the oppressed, and it never was. The Democratic Party is the other party of the Anglo-American ruling class, it is a party that enforces mass incarceration and mass deportations, wages imperialist wars, and supports bloody dictatorships abroad. This is what the Democratic Party is – a capitalist, imperialist party.

Two wings of the same capitalist party

The statement that this party is the “lesser evil” is a blatant lie. How is Obama deporting more people than any other president –even Trump—a lesser evil? How can Bill Clinton make deep cuts to welfare and increase mass incarceration of black and brown people and still be a lesser evil? Let’s not forget that this is the party that waged criminal wars against Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Serbia. Going back further, it was the party that started the horrendous wars in Vietnam and Korea.

Both of those wars resulted in millions of deaths. The carpet bombing of North Korea destroyed whole cities and towns, killing around 15% of the population. The Democratic Party carried out the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba under John F. Kennedy. It is the party that purposely bombed civilians in Germany and Japan, first under Roosevelt and then Truman. It is the party that dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the only time nuclear weapons have been used in war. If we go back further, the Wilson administration (1913-1921) twice invaded Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, invaded Haiti in 1915, and the Dominican Republic in 1916.

This party has a long history of supporting bloody dictatorships abroad. It supported the military dictatorship of Somoza in Nicaragua, the various military dictatorships in El Salvador, and most recently, the dictatorship of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt. This is a man who came to power in a 2013 coup that killed over a thousand protesters and had countless more tortured.

These are just a few examples. Every single Democratic president –along with their Republican peers- has supported dictatorships abroad. They have armed and financed the Israeli apartheid state since its foundation, making possible over half a century of oppression of the Palestinian people. And let us not forget that Sanders has for decades also supported Israel and voted to finance its military. He voted for a senate bill in 2017 that said that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, he stated in 2017 that he was against the BDS movement, and that he was against Palestinians in the occupied territories having the same rights as Israelis because it would be “the end of the state of Israel.” As Sanders himself put it, he is “100% pro-Israel.”

It was the Obama administration that materially supported the genocidal war of Saudi Arabia against the people of Yemen. Over 12,000 Yemeni civilians have died in military attacks during this war, over 130,000 have died as a result of the starvation that has resulted from the Saudi blockade of Yemen and their destruction of the country’s infrastructure. On top of this, half of the population now lacks access to clean drinking water and hundreds of thousands of children are suffering from malnutrition. This was all made possible with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, especially the administration of “Nobel Peace prize-winner” Barack Obama.

Not the “lesser-evil”

The Democrats have also championed the increase of government surveillance and oppression. It was the Democrat Woodrow Wilson that signed the Espionage Acts in 1917. This was used against leftists, labor militants and others opposed to the U.S. participation in the First World War. It was used to arrest and sentence socialist Eugene Debs to ten years in prison for giving an anti-war speech. And it was President Barack Obama who used this act more than any other previous president to go after whistle-blowers and leakers.

It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who signed executive order 9066 during World War II, which forced over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese-American men, women, and children into the U.S. in concentration camps. It is the party that supported Clinton’s Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which increased the criminalization of all immigrants in the U.S.

Democrats supported Clinton’s initiation of Operation Gatekeeper, which vastly increased the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. The increased militarization and criminalization that Clinton began has been continued by every President since. The result of these actions has been the increase in deaths of migrants crossing the southern border.

At the state level, the Democrats were the main proponents of Jim Crow segregation against Blacks, Mexicans, and Asians. It was the historical party of the KKK, of the “states-rights” segregationist movement; and before that—of the southern slave-owners. This was the party of Andrew Jackson, that slave owner responsible for the Trail of Tears which led to the removal and death of over 4,000 Cherokee men, women, and children.

This is the party that in Congress has supported the depredations of U.S. imperialism. The Democrats in Congress have backed the continuing sanctions against Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and most recently, Nicaragua. Even Bernie Sanders, the champion of “progressive Democrats” is also guilty of supporting U.S. imperialism. He voted for Clinton’s war against Serbia in the 90s, for more sanctions against Iraq and for U.S. led regime change there in 1998. He voted for the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and he has stated his intention to continue to use drone strikes against “terrorists,” if elected president. He voted for the 2001 Authorization Unilateral Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF) which gave the President the power to use military force in the “war against terrorism.” This opened the door to the endless interventions, bombing campaigns, and other forms of US imperialism that continue across the Middle East and North Africa to this day.

The Democrats have been responsible for the deaths of millions of people throughout the world over the last century. They have taken part in the plunder of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, using the profits to strengthen the ability U.S. capitalists to rule over the multiracial workers and oppressed here.

Wars which were started by Democrats have been continued by Republicans, and vice-versa. The same is the case with domestic policy. Alongside the Republicans, the Democrats have taken part in carrying out the oppression and exploitation of Black, Brown, immigrant and poor people in the U.S. They continue the same general policy approaches, whether it be increasing incarceration, cutting welfare, detaining and deporting immigrants, or enabling police violence. The reason for this is that both parties serve the capitalist class, both exist to maintain this system, pitting them directly against the interests of the working class and oppressed people across the globe.

Most people support the Democrats due to the false idea that they are the “lesser evil”—that will somehow deport or incarcerate fewer people, wage fewer wars, or project US power abroad more humanely. To support them is to support on-going wars abroad, the current and continued exploitation of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. By extension, it means to also accept their repression and exploitation of immigrants, the poor, Blacks, and Latinos in the U.S.

In fact, history shows that they have actually deported more people, incarcerate as many people, waged as many wars, and are responsible for as many deaths as Republicans.

It is not possible to separate one’s support for candidates in the Democratic Party without also coming to terms with and accepting what the party has actually done when it has been in power and what is currently happening in the world as a result of this party's support for existing policies. The fact that both parties of capital pursue the same broad agenda, and cannot behave in a manner antithetical to the ruling class interests they represent, to support the Democratic party is to support their crimes, whether it is comfortable admitting this or not.

The working class needs its own party

This outlook of voting for the lesser evil is due to the absence of a revolutionary worker’s party that can effectively fight against the daily depredations of capitalism while presenting people an alternative to the profit-driven system. Without such a party, people are left with little hope of there being a world that is free of oppression, free of attacks against the poor, free of racist laws and institutions, free of imperialist war. The outlook of lesser-evilism is to frame political reality in defeatist terms; that there is no possibility for change and to therefore narrow the scope of politics to voting for a regime that may inflict less suffering.

This outlook is prevalent among workers and oppressed people of this country in large part because of the ideas pushed by liberals and leftist opportunists. Those on the left who align with the Democrats and promote the idea of “taking it over” or have their own political ambitions and aspirations for political office or influence, sell the lie that Democrats (currently the Bernie Sanders campaign) are the best chance for them to defend and fight for their interests.

This is nothing new, in fact it is a historical cycle. Liberal and leftist support for the Democrats goes back over a century. The same falsehoods of Democrats as the “friends” of labor and the people and the oppressed have been pushed about Roosevelt, Truman, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and the rest.

Three socialist groups that support the Democratic Party through the Bernie Sanders campaign are the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Socialist Alternative (SA), and the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL). They have given support to Sanders, emphasizing how he is responsible for more people identifying with socialism.

They say that they will campaign and vote for Bernie Sanders because his campaign is bringing together people who are being radicalized. The PSL justifies their support by stating that Sanders is part of an “insurgency against the Democratic establishment.” The DSA says that “Bernie’s Agenda Will Transform Our Society.”

In reality, Sanders has not pushed the Democrats to the left during his decades in Congress, rather he has moved more towards them – to the right.

There are people who are disgusted with capitalism and have become interested in socialism not because of Sanders, but because of the misery of this society. Many of these people mistakenly believe that he is a socialist. The PSL, DSA, and SA are actually keeping illusions in Sanders alive and the anger of the oppressed and workers confined within that party of imperialism and exploitation.

Instead of mobilizing people to stop supporting the Democrats, and working towards creating a revolutionary workers party, they are telling them to join the Sanders campaign. These pro-Democratic socialists are telling people to support a guy who has a long history of supporting imperialist wars, who has supported dumping nuclear waste near a poor Mexican town in Texas, who has had protesters arrested on several occasions, and who supported the criminal sanctions against Iraq which resulted in half a million dead children.

History in repeat

Working to mobilize to get Democrats elected will only contribute to the continuation of the capitalist system that has led to so much death, poverty, racism, sexism, and war. Such mobilizations only help to feed the working and oppressed masses to the capitalist meat grinder. Instead, what we need to do is to mobilize to combat the ravages of this system: poverty, racism, cop terror, imperialist war, and many others.

And while mobilizing to fight these ravages we have to make the point to people everywhere that these ravages are a product of capitalism and that they can only end for good once this system no longer exists. A revolutionary workers party is needed to tie the daily struggles of the workers and oppressed with the need to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism; a society where those that work control the economy and in which production is organized for human need not profit. Such a party needs to organize the working class around this outlook.

During World War II, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) supported the Democratic Roosevelt administration as part of a popular front against fascism. Part of this “popular front” included abandoning the fight against Jim Crow segregation in the South, dismantling front organizations meant to combat racism, such as El Congreso del Pueblo de Habla Española, supporting the internment of over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans, and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that incinerated over 100,000 people.

Supporting such horrible crimes is what happens when someone works to support a party dedicated to the existence of capitalism and securing the profits of the imperialists at home and abroad. The leftists currently working to support the Democrats should learn from this history. If they continue down that road they will also end up abandoning the fight against racial oppression, imperialist war, cop terror, and many of the other evils of this society. They will also end up minimizing or ignoring the crimes of the Democrats in order to make their candidates more electable. When they go down this path, they will be on the side of the enemies of the working class and oppressed.

Blas Reies grew up in rural California raised by Mexican parents who were agricultural workers. He continues to work and organize in his community, is committed to social change and collaborating with others who want to fight for the liberation of all the oppressed.