Trump goes all-in on racist voter disenfranchisement after indecisive election night

After last night’s indecisive result, a massive effort is underway by the Trump campaign and Republican Party apparatus to prevent hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes from being counted. This effort has a clear racist character — hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots concentrated in cities with majority or near-majority Black populations have yet to be tabulated, and the final outcome of the election hangs in the balance. The struggle for the right to vote has historically been a central feature of the movement for Black freedom in the United States. The ongoing effort at large-scale voter disenfranchisement recalls the tactics of paramilitary and judicial repression used to enforce Jim Crow apartheid. Many other oppressed people also face the prospect of mass disenfranchisement by the reactionary court system, including the right-wing supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Specifically, this is taking the form of court challenges in Michigan and Pennsylvania with the goal of stopping the vote count and ultimately disqualifying large numbers of mail-in ballots on bogus pretexts. Members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation are in the streets today resisting this racist voter suppression campaign. Our placards and banners tonight will read “Stop Trump’s Racist Voter Suppression!” and “Stop the War on Black America!” We understand that the political crisis is dynamically evolving, and it is of the utmost importance to be tactically flexible and prepared to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. The PSL’s branches have for weeks been preparing materials, banners and signs that were aimed at building a mass working-class movement to fight for the very reforms that Biden said he would veto: Medicare for all, defunding the police and the Pentagon, the cancellation of rents and debts, and so on. From day one of any incoming Biden administration, the essential thing is to launch a politically independent movement that will not wait in vain for the corporate-controlled Democratic Party to deliver progressive change. That is largely what happened when the Democrats controlled the White House and the Congress in 2009. For today, however, we will keep those banners and signs on hold. The fundamental issue of this moment is the Republican Party’s attempted disenfranchisement of large numbers of working-class and Black voters. If Biden were to consolidate his victory in the coming days — as it appears he may if he can hold on to Michigan and Wisconsin, and squeak through in Arizona and Nevada — it would be essential to immediately prepare a struggle against that administration’s neoliberal program and Biden’s life-long program of imperialist war and intervention. Read the full article here: https://www.liberationnews.org/trump-goes-all-in-on-racist-voter-disenfranchisement-after-indecisive-election-night/