Democracy Transitioned

On Election Day, Ohio won – sort of – and New York Lost.

Ohio adopted legislation on redistricting that affects how state races are to be run. Election districts in Ohio state races (only – not the federal level) are going to be more competitive to guarantee that the party in power has to listen to the voters rather than big money.

New York has its convoluted mess of appointed commissioners (by the Assembly and Senate) and some other messy rules. Status quo antebellum. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's a step in the direction of democracy for Ohio though.

Ohio (and NY's) election districts are pretty well gerrymandered to guarantee that whatever party holds power keeps it. That is not a democracy – it is a dictatorship. In a democracy, the voters decide who stays in office and who goes. Parties are irrelevant. The real question in a democracy is “Did the person elected to office represent my real interests?”

Ohio took a step towards democracy with it's redistricting plan which is supposed to guarantee competitive districts decided by independent commissioners.

But competitive for whom?

If the choice is between two capitalists parties, there is no real choice. As I've heard people say, “Republicans stab you in the heart, Democrats stab you in the back. And at least you get to see the face of the Republican when they stab you.” And you know when it is going to happen. They tell you before they do it.

Back stabs however….. The Democrats are well known for NAFTA, Welfare “reforms,” and other less than admirable activities that have hurt the poor, unions,  people of color, women, LGBTQ, the elderly, and the youth. If I left anyone out, my apologies.  The Democrats have betrayed so many people  over the years that I've lost track.

In a truly democratic state, we would have proportional representation. This exists in European parliaments. I believe this is also how Canada runs its Parliament as well. (The Canadian comrades can correct me if I am wrong.) If a party receives 5% or more of the vote, they receive that percentage of the representatives. And in Germany, parties in the Parliament receive money from the government to register and educate voters.

This opens the door for the disinterested, nearly 2/3rds of the electorate. Why vote for the main two parties when there are alternatives. And socialism is an alternative that is gaining more and more traction in the lives of people today.

Consider the excitement over Bernie Sanders and his version of "socialism."

What Bernie Sanders speaks about as an end goal though– the social democracies of Scandinavia – are my starting points. Bernie wants to reform and regulate capitalism. I want to relegate it to the “bad idea” section of economic text books.

So how do we get there?

The current read of the Western NY/Buffalo Branch is Trotsky's Transitional Program. Is it a step by step blueprint? No. It does give guidelines though. If revolutions could be accomplished through a cookie-cutter approach, we would have had a socialist revolution already. Each situation is different and needs to be decided by the people. Trotsky understood that and was the true revolutionary. Which is why he was so feared by so many.

We are also looking into the Transitional Program for BlackLiberation. It needs some updating, to be sure ($15 Now! And Black Lives Matter have plenty of good ideas to update this text.)

These are the topics that we are discussing in our group and others write about in the monthly newspaper and weekly newsletter. How do we get there? What demands do we make? And what steps do we take to get there.

The capitalist parties are afraid of democracy because they know if they gave us a real choice, we might democratically choose socialism.

If I might paraphrase Malcom X, we will get democracy by the ballot or the bullet.

I prefer the ballot.