On Electoral Advance
Following Abraham Galloway’s Path Toward a Third Reconstruction
By Aaron Jamal
Donald Trump and his minions are hard at work maneuvering for Trump to be President for a third term. This is obviously completely illegal and in blatant violation of the spirit and letter of the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but given his ongoing smashing of civil society and his instigation of a war against the world, it cannot be a surprise to us that this too is a line Trump and his New Confederate regime are excited to cross. Trump’s rogue term is being choreographed with the usual hubris and shameless arrogance we have come to associate with Trump, MAGA and the entire New Confederacy: Here is Steve Bannon literally saying Trump will have a third term. The response of the U.S. left has been characteristically… absent. This is unfortunately not a surprise either, given that too considerable a portion of U.S. leftists disregard elections as a hopeless and hapless bourgeois charade.
There are two temptations away from principled and strategic engagement with elections. The first is a policy of electoral abstention. This is an orientation to elections that views elections as hopeless, and so forgoes engagement with them altogether. Some try to add a tactical veneer to this policy: “If enough of us sit out elections, it will send a message to the two party system that we are sick and tired of being messed over.” The problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes the New Confederate regime cares about what we think. It does not. In fact they would love nothing more than for elections to be coronations. They would love nothing more than unilateral disengagement of everyday people from the project of transforming politics. They are salivating at the prospect of lower voter participation and they are prepared to use that as a pretense to further ram forward their Confederate agenda. Far from sending a message to them, it would gift them a lifeline.
The second temptation away from a principled and strategic engagement with elections is electoral accelerationism. This is an orientation to elections that views elections as hopeless, and so opts to do what it can to encourage the obviously worse outcome. Some try to add a tactical veneer to this policy: “The only way people will wake up to the horror of this moment in history is for things to get way worse.” The problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes everyday people don’t understand how bad things are. In fact they do—which is precisely why over and over again in large numbers across history and in the present day, they electorally and politically reject the reactionary politics of the New Confederacy.
As strategists, we must see elections for what they are: an uneven and unfair terrain our peoples and movements must navigate, win within and transform. This is what I call a policy of electoral advance. It is exemplified by the legacy of Abraham Galloway and the 19th century U.S. abolitionist movement that won governing power. Galloway was born enslaved in North Carolina, escaped to freedom, likely studied revolutionary warfare in Haiti, returned to the U.S. to enlist in the Union Army, was elected to the North Carolina General Assembly, and proceeded to enact a Reconstruction agenda before dying at the age of 33. His contributions to North Carolina and the liberation of Black people would not have been possible had he chosen the hopeless route of electoral abstention or the cowardly route of electoral acceleration. Instead, he chose the principled and strategic route of electoral advance.
Aaron Jamal is an organizer in North Carolina and is committed to the socialist transformation of the United States. Aaron writes regularly on his Substack, Black Unbound.
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Thank you for this!
Liked this very much.