The victory of the extreme MAGA right in the 2024 elections represents a major setback for the working class.
This sweeping victory by the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, will irrevocably alter the terrain progressive forces fight on. The Trump administration plans to destroy trade unions, institute mass deportations, promote and carry out acts of violence against people of color and LGBTQ+ people, further a dangerous, isolationist, right-wing foreign policy, and attack publicly funded institutions.
In many cases we will be put on the defensive, fighting to maintain the bare bones of these institutions we rely on to further the political interests of the working class.
The Democratic Party has alienated a wide mass of voters, largely through their support for the genocide of the Palestinian people and courting of the far-right on many issues.
In light of this, we have heard calls for an independent left-wing political organization in the United States, with a clean split from the old parties. However, this framework of understanding ignores the actual level of organization and development of working people in this country, appealing to leftist voters on moralistic grounds, which will only orient the left towards sectarianism. Trade union density remains at 10%, with little rank-and-file involvement, and as we’ve seen, the far-right is gaining a great deal of power on the basis of voter alienation.
The working class must organize to defeat fascism and build socialism, but in order to do so we must find our voice.
The progressive working class has laid a great deal of groundwork in the Democratic Party but will never be able to capture the institutions of either of the old bourgeois parties on behalf of our own interests, being controlled by monopoly capitalists. However, we understand that the vast majority of workers vote for and support the old parties. We will continue to work with all progressive and working class forces, with the expressed goal of building a labor party that has the appropriate capacity to split from the old parties, built on the limitless political power of workers’ labor, as well as continuing to educate the workers on our Marxist-Leninist political platform.
In Massachusetts, with an electorally marginal far-right, the Communist Party can pursue an advanced program.
We must work to oust the MAGA right from our political organs entirely, while challenging the entrenched corporate Democratic Party machinery. Corporate lobbying recently drove Gov. Healey to publicly speak out against ballot questions 2 and 3; in Northampton, Mayor Sciarra and her clique have unnecessarily cut public services in favor of business interests; in Springfield, the machine around Mayor Sarno has instituted a racist police regime. These weak, money-hungry Democrats are the reason the Massachusetts GOP has any standing, but also offers us avenues forward to challenge them, and to be the tip of the spear for a strong communist political movement in the U.S.
The Communist Party will continue to work relentlessly to build trade union density, form and support strong progressive coalitions, and fight relentlessly for our hard-won democratic rights. We will run communist candidates whenever we can, build the foundations for an independent labor party, and build the Communist Party from the ground up. Times are tough, but we will never stop fighting. We have a world to win!
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Western Massachusetts CPUSA 