Kevin Ovenden interviews Saman Sepehri, an Iranian socialist who has been active in the US radical left for many years, especially involved in social struggle in the Midwest 

Many socialists and social movement activists will be asking how is it possible that Trump can revive? That’s so whatever the eventual result will be, which we may not know for days.

The Democrats are wedded to the system. Perhaps better characterised as upholding the system. They decided to go after Trump following the riot he encouraged on 6 January four years ago. But they did so with narrow legalism, not politically.

Here was a defeated presidential candidate who turned to extra-legal means to overturn the election. But instead of pursuing this as a left and sincerely democratic party would against a right-wing insurrection – you put people in jail first and try them afterwards – the Democrats used the term ‘insurrection’ for theatrical effect but reduced it all down to legal cases including into Trump’s sordid and corrupt personal life. You cannot say fascism is at the gate one minute and leave things to arcane legal processes the next. Politically, this became irrelevant, especially to his base, who feel persecuted already.

The real question becomes: How can the Democrats be struggling to beat a misogynistic racist who is convicted of a felony?

We have to factor in here that there is an inherent bias towards conservatism and the status quo in the US political system. It is not one person one vote. You have to win a majority in the ‘electoral college’. That is of the 50 states of the US with their weight skewed towards smaller and generally more conservative electorates. This was the pro-system compromise that was solidified after the civil war in the 19^th century and it means there is a massive democratic deficit in the US that favours the rich and powerful.

It is important to look to the numbers. Trump’s polling numbers are fairly consistent, meaning he has a base. Sure, they dropped a point or two after Biden dropped out. But he has been recovering. He is not the variable. The Democrats are. They were playing the lesser evil, anybody but Trump, card. Again.
So they were running with absolutely no enthusiasm, and as time went on someone who was obviously impaired due to age, Biden. There was grave concern among Democratic and ruling-class figures. But they pretended ludicrously that there was no issue.

The most astute realised that this would not end well, given Biden’s state. The push was on and given the lesser evil dynamic, that is anybody but Trump, the natural person became Harris. She was anointed to the candidacy without any discussion, without any policy debate, and hence Gaza never came up. A zoom call and virtual vote was the ‘democratic process’ and the convention a celebration/marketing event…in the middle of a genocide. A celebration of ‘Joy and Hope’ with a half-life of weeks…slightly better than ‘thoughts and prayers’.

Second, the undemocratic nature of the US political scene is such that stacking the courts with appointments, whether it is the Supreme Court, Federal, District, or others. can prove critical. Judges, appointed by Trump – and with the Democrats rolling over and doing the same – meant the Republicans could do similarly when they have the majority. So the Democrats ran with a very risky legal strategy given the partisan divide in the judiciary.

Third, and most importantly, The Democrats are offering so little. We can understand what Trump stands for. We may not like it but have some idea of what he stands for, and his demagogic misogynist, racist idea. But can anyone say what Democrats stand for? Can they clearly?

And they have presided over a lot of decay and misery, without providing any relief.

For instance, Ohio is a key swing state. When the chemical train derailment in Ohio devastated the East Palestine community, that disaster was the result of years of deregulation which the Democrats were party to – longer work shifts, decreasing staff on trains, decay of the rail infrastructure. The Biden administration with the support of the left Democrats broke the rail workers’ strike in December 2022 that demanded changes to address this and other problems in the industry. The derailment happened not three months later, in February 2023.

And Biden did very little. There was minimal help. Not even Bernie Sanders or any of the left Democrats, or even the Democratic Socialists of America, who aim to organise for socialism through alignment with the Democratic Party, organised any aid to the disaster zone. The proto-fascist militias did come into town to organise ‘mutual aid’ (usurping a fine left tradition). It was a terrible indictment of where the left is and a call to where we ought to be. So is it any wonder that the mayor of East Palestine was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention? Standing with JD Vance, the fake Republican Hillbilly Vice-President candidate?

Or take Michigan, which is so central as a battleground state in this election. Michigan Democrats relied on the United Auto Workers’ union strength and the Black and Muslim vote for so long.

Flint Michigan, which was a General Motors town and the site of the historic 1936-37 sit-down strikes but was hollowed out in the 1980s as GM downsized and moved out, was left bankrupt. In 2014, to save money, City of Flint, under State of Michigan financial receivership, started to pump river and lake water as a source of the city’s water, creating a disaster, with lead levels and fecal bacteria exploding in the residents’ water, forcing a water crisis.

This took place under Barack Obama’s presidency. In January of 2016, a year and half after the Flint residents lost their drinking water, Obama was urged to declare a state of emergency there. He refused to do so and instead sent just $5million in aid. Flint did not have drinkable water from August 2014 until January 24, 2017, four days after Trump’s Inauguration. Is it any surprise that Flint residents may be sceptical of the Democratic Party or Kamala Harris? Is it possible that ‘Make America Great Again’ may hit a sympathetic nerve there?

And now, we have seen the Biden administration lift not a finger to stop an ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza (about to spread to Lebanon). Not only that, a report by Al Jazeera recently showed that it has created an air-bridge (with Britain’s help) to keep the Israeli armed forces supplied with arms to continue the killing. This is a US war as much as it is Israel’s.

The uncommitted vote movement (voting ‘uncommitted’ rather than Biden or anyone else in the Democratic primary selection process) was born in Michigan to show that the Arab and Muslim organisers easily had the support of a lot of people who were withholding their votes because of the Democrat’s support for Israel and the slaughter in Gaza. It was bigger than the margin of victory for Biden in Michigan in 2020. It was to make a clear political point and show a break with the Democrats. It was extremely successful and spread to other states.

However, the Democrats including Kamala Harris refused to shift at all. They would not even allow a five-minute speech for a ceasefire at the Democratic Convention. Is it a surprise that the Arab and Muslim communities are wary of voting let alone campaigning for someone who is aiding their family’s death?

The Democrats are the main reason for Trump’s lease on life and revival.

Does this mean that workers in the US are committed to racism and the Republicans?

No. First of all, it is important to be extremely clear that the support for Trump does come more so from middle-class small business owners, conservative middle managers, and middle-class small town and suburbia types. And of course, from reactionary tech-moguls like Elon Musk, floating the idea of hyper-austerity and eugenics.

But as far as workers go, the main issue is the lack of a viable alternative. Something that attacks the ruling class, and the underpinning of capitalist deprivation of people and destruction of their lives. Something that can speak to and connect with masses. We saw a resurgence of interest in and popularisation of the word socialist, when Bernie Sanders in 2016 did this. But the Democratic Party torpedoed him and made him acquiesce. He did collapse and fall in line. There were people who supported Sanders who would not vote for Hillary Clinton. And working-class people who went from Sanders to voting for Trump. Some went from Obama in 2012 to Trump in key states.

This is the dynamic we have to understand. The status quo, the respectable centre, the ‘keep on keeping on’ is unbearable and becoming more so for many. Hence ‘Make America Great Again’ has traction for some who are falling into deprivation.

Whether it is the economy, class pressures, or Gaza and genocide today, whether 2016, or 2024, it is the same dynamic. People looking for a break with their chronic ongoing bleeding, not a continuation of it. As one black autoworker from Detroit who is planning to vote for Trump in an interview with broadcaster CNN said, ‘I am desperate, I will try anything.’

How do you characterise Trump? He is clearly not a fascist of the interwar type but what is his relation to the far right in the US and how is it organised? 

He is not, and I’m not sure if he really understands what that is. He is far too narcissistic, which makes him too apolitical to strategise to build anything, let alone a fascist movement. But…and this is a big but…win or lose, he has opened up the space for those ideas and elements who may be more cognisant. Even a Steve Bannon character (just released early from prison and immediately campaigning) is much more politically astute than him.

What we are facing is the unleashing of very nasty elements and sentiments. The sentiments, anti-immigrant, racist (see the anti-Haitian attacks in Springfield Ohio and western Pennsylvania, in the old Ohio and now western PA steel country), and misogynist, have now been normalised within a wider layer of hurting disenfranchised, disenchanted people.

That is the danger. Without a left pole to focus and organise the attack on the ruling class and capital, righteous popular grievance is open to be preyed upon, by the far right, with Elon Musk providing cover.

Unfortunately, we do not have a left in the US able to insert itself into that process nationally at the moment.

Who is Kamala Harris and what is the Democratic Party these days?

Kamala Harris is the perfect face of the newer generation of the Democratic Party. New skin for the old ceremony if you will. And she is really not that skilled yet. She is a state prosecutor from California making all the necessary political moves to climb up the party ladder. Nothing special there.

She is of a new generation. As such she presents a more ‘diverse’ face, which the Democratic Party is promoting. Diversity, but the content is not that different. In real terms this is a product of changes of the past 50 years. The civil rights, women’s, and gay and lesbian movements of the 1960s and 1970s did mean a change and break in some oppressive barriers. But who benefited from them and got incorporated into the structure and advanced, is a class issue. Only a few did, and not the working class. If anything, the attacks on the working class in the late 1970s and 1980s, and the onset of neoliberal policies set the working class and hence the majority back.

And that is the story of the Democratic Party: The transition from liberalism during the 1960s when there was economic capacity to give marginal but real gains to the working class, even though the international policy was imperialism, to the years when there is crisis in profitability, and attacks on the majority and on living standard. That led to neoliberalism, with globalisation as a mechanism. The international policy is still imperialism. So from ‘Guns and butter’ to ‘Guns but no butter’, from the Great Society of President Johnson and the Vietnam War 60 years ago, to austerity and forever wars (Iraq, Afghanistan).

When one takes the ability to provide real material betterment, better standards of living, however small, out of the equation (Labour under Blair is similar), and replaces it with austerity but maintaining some myth that the party is progressive because it stands with women, blacks, gays, lesbians, trans etc. the shift is done. Liberalism without its material class component is neoliberalism with symbolic gestures, politics of symbolism and identity. And that opens one to attacks and culture wars: Anti-woke’ politics from the right.

The Democratic Party has become the party of neoliberalism and imperial adventures and war. And Trump can as a consummate conman present himself as the peace candidate,

 Is it just white reactionaries who are tipping this election? How is it that Trump has improved among black and Hispanic men?

There is a real gender gap. But Trump has greater support this time around among black and Latino voters all told than in previous elections. It is a combination of factors. The Democratic Party not delivering anything and taking its presumed base for granted over and over again. The erosion of political frameworks, again as the right has made arguments that have affected the ideological terrain, with the Democrats being ineffective in responding. That has seen a shift from solidarity and social outlook to an individual one of fending for oneself. And finally, people remember that previously (no thanks to Trump, but it doesn’t matter) economic life was marginally better. Inflation was lower, prices were lower. Now they are seeing the economic hardship of inflation. It doesn’t matter much that inflation is dropping to 2% from the 6-7% of a year or two ago. The point is that people have suffered. The damage is done and continuing. 

That is far more real and impactful on people’s lives. It comes on top of decades of relative decline from the period which a lot of people and all their parents and grandparents can remember of year on year advances in the quality of life – and with it for opportunities for those usually excluded: the specifically oppressed. And the Democrats do not have a solution. Nor do they even acknowledge that something is wrong. Trump may not either, but he does acknowledge it and pretends that he does have an answer.

It is all very much in the balance. Should Trump win, what do you think will be the consequences and how might the socialist left respond? Equally, if Harris wins. 

A Trump victory will be a boost to the right-wing, racist and proto-fascists here in the US and even internationally. We will see their confidence grow. There will likely be more harassment, and even violence. There may be more fightback: likely but not a given. It certainly is not something benign or that we are agnostic on.

It will be a win for the right. But a Harris win is not a win for the left.

A Harris win will see a continuation of what we have now, and the slow decay which is producing the consolidation of the forces of the right and of reaction. The hard right is cohering no matter what and it will continue to do so if there is not a challenge from us -whatever the election result.

As a friend put it, ‘It’s like the whole country is waiting for a biopsy result. It is as if the country is waiting to find out if it’s the same chronic disease we’ve had, the slowly worsening neoliberalism and empire in decline, or whether the illness has entered a new malignant stage.’

Collapsing or conceding an inch to the Democrats, after they have been participants in genocide and have been seen by so many poor and working-class people as being no friends, is only discrediting ourselves. That is helping the right fill the political space we on the left will be giving up as the opposition to the system.

It is important to consider this. In previous US elections there have been arguments by the left against falling into the two-party game. But often we have been isolated. From that position some have ended up slumping back into the conventional politics when things got tough. Or there has been a tendency to stand in splendid isolation. That is not so now. It is not some micro-left discussing this on the eve of poll. It is a historically unprecedented number of people. New activists from students to Microsoft workers for Palestine, and actual communities of Arabs, Muslims, radical and progressive people. In the last two months there has been a big panic and moral blackmail from the Democrats about why Arab and Muslim and many black voters will not go for Harris this time in key states such as Michigan and Georgia.

The left Democrat Congresswoman Rachida Tlaib refused to endorse Harris (much better than most left and progressive Democrats). Same with the radical black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates. In this cauldron of hundreds of thousands of people lies a future for a radical but also effective and engaged left in the US.

What support can socialists elsewhere provide to those in the US in the coming months?

I am not sure if there is anything directly that can be done. But the contrast between the US and the UK in terms of the movement is undeniable and noticeable for anyone. The role that the left, however small, has played: the role of organisations like Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign; the important work that has been done keeping these groups going; and maintaining a principled anti-Imperialist position have been transformational. It is the difference between the demonstrations of hundreds of thousands in London and other places, and the much weaker state of things here.

The example itself is critical. It shows that politics matters and principled work matters in the long term; that the left even though small can makes a difference on a mass scale. That mass (not just niche) radical politics is possible. Any discussions, connections and contact to exchange this and the experience of others in Europe and internationally can be of huge boost and help.