The American left is once again debating how it should engage in electoral politics.
This debate seems to take on more meaning this year, as voters declaring themselves independent (45%) are more numerous than those declaring themselves Republican (27%) or Democrats (27%). Could the left now offer a political alternative to these disillusioned voters?
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Mazzocchi and the attempted Labor Party
The issue resurfaced last week at Tony Mazzocchi’s centennial conference, held at the Labor Center at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Mazzocchi, leader of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Energy Workers’ Union and a central figure in the fight for legislation protecting workers’ health in the 1960s and 1970s, was the driving force behind the attempt to create an American Labor Party in 1996. Union leaders who took part in this initiative spoke at a roundtable discussion organized to commemorate and celebrate Tony’s work, which provided a forum for discussion of working class electoral strategies.
The United States has never had a successful Labor Party, Socialist Party, or Communist Party, that is, capable of presenting itself as a serious competitor for political power at the federal level. The Socialist Party reached its peak in 1912, when Eugene V. Debs, its presidential candidate, received nearly a million votes, or 6% of all votes cast. The Communist Party reached its peak in 1932, when William Z. Foster received 103,307 votes, or barely 0.3% of the total. The Labor Party, which Mazzocchi helped found, was created with the support of several major national unions and many regional and local unions. But the party leadership was reluctant to field candidates against the Democrats in national elections and never fielded a presidential candidate, fearing that a left-wing party would weaken the Democrats and benefit the Republicans. The party ran out of steam with the death of Mazzocchi in 2002 and disappeared in 2007.
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Two strategies under debate
Today, as in the past, left-wing and union activists and organizations present two main strategies in relation to the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the nation’s largest socialist group with 100,000 members, has rejected the formation of an independent socialist party. He supports and works for Democratic Party candidates, electing some of them, such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Labor Notes staff member Jenny Brown defended this position at the conference, arguing that DSA candidates are movement activists who run as socialists. The Working Families Party certainly has its own electoral organization, but it also supports the Democrats. The Leopolds, of the Labor Institute, formerly linked to Mazzocchi, advocate carrying out awareness-raising work to rally disillusioned working class voters of the two major parties to the idea of a labor party.
For its part, the Green Party, which defends an eco-socialist program, wins certain local elections, presents presidential candidates but has never obtained more than 0.7% of the vote. He is ignored by the DSA, the WFP and the far left.
Far from progressive regions, in the Republican state of Nebraska, Dan Osborn, mechanic, former union president and leader of a major strike, is running for the Senate as an independent – and he has a chance of winning. In the race for the other seat In the state Senate last year, Democrats decided to give him financial aid and he won 47% of the vote. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist and political independent, praised Osborn for his campaign. in favor of the working class Osborn called the Senate  country club of millionaires working for billionaires . Obviously, he hopes to break into this club and shake it up.
You could say that Osborn is single-handedly testing the idea of a Labor Party, a one-person Labor Party for now. One question is whether the left, in search of a strategy, will be able to associate itself with working class candidates like Osborn, if there are more of them. Does our future lie there?
Treduction Henri Vilnius
