PSL candidates Claudia and Karina ‘a breath of fresh air’

by Nathalie Hrizi, Breaking The Chains

The 2024 U.S. presidential election is a ridiculous contest. We are offered a choice between a wealthy convicted criminal who masterminded an attempted coup but suffered no consequence and a wealthy Democratic establishment that has condoned and ensured continued funding and weaponry for the genocidal slaughter of the Palestinian people.

In the midst of this political landscape, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is running two powerful working-class women candidates for president and vice president of the United States.

Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia are nothing less than a breath of fresh air for workers of all genders and nationalities. They are popular educators. They are working mothers. They have emerged as leaders in struggles for immigrant rights, for reproductive rights and for economic and social justice.

In 2022, 7.4 million more women than men were registered voters. Since 1980, women have voted in larger numbers than men. Still, only 53% of eligible women voted in 2022 and young women vote in significantly lower percentages than older women; that means 47% of women chose not to vote or were not able to get to the voting booths on election day.

Despite higher rates of participation relative to men, women are also underrepresented amongst all levels of elected office. Women are alienated within our “so-called” democracy.

Claudia and Karina are running to engage all women, especially working women, in the struggle for our liberation—in opposition to the alienation that is integral to this oppressive society.

The Vote Socialist 2024 campaign is an outgrowth of the mass movement. The campaign is bringing to the forefront the multilayered experience of two women who have been in struggle their whole lives. They are part of an organization that is always learning lessons from, and is part of, the struggles of our class.

Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia are socialists running for the highest office in the center of capitalism. Socialists do not run in elections because of illusions about capitalist democracy or faith in the U.S. electoral system’s capacity to affect real change. Socialists run to ensure that workers can vote their conscience. Socialists run in elections to broadcast to the millions of working people, so many of whom are fed up with the exploitation and oppression they experience, that the struggle is where we find our power.

Socialists like Claudia and Karina, working class leaders in their own right, run to build the movement for socialism.

The bourgeois candidates represent the interest of the elite, the wealthiest echelons of U.S. capitalist society. The Republican uses racist, chauvinistic, sexist language to appeal to the most backwards elements of a dissatisfied working class. The Democrat poorly attempts to appeal to a tiny section of the masses who would prefer anyone over Trump while distinctly alienating progressive people—the majority. Both promote policies that would further eviscerate working-class living standards. Neither represents progress for the workers of the United States.

The American ideal of democracy, which has always stood on shaky ground, is being revealed as a sham in the eyes of millions of people in the United States. The omnipresent argument that we must vote for the lesser of two evils is a hard argument to stand behind when the Democrats enacted right-wing immigration policies, funded and supported a genocide, made sure railroad workers could not fight for sick pay, reversed pandemic funding and services, and did nothing as reproductive rights were gutted.

The U.S. ruling class has waged war around the world, attempted to dismantle existing social services, curtailed women’s rights and voting rights, stood in the way of unionization and upheld a racist and reactionary “justice” system. Billions are spent on wars, occupation and proxy wars while the living standards of the majority of people in the country are deteriorating. The political crisis of the U.S. ruling class is deepening, and the elections are becoming less effective at directing the energy of mass movements into acceptable activity.

The current energetic, dedicated and anti-imperialist movement for Palestine is shaking the status quo and shifting consciousness across the country. Just four years ago, at the end of the Trump presidency and ushering in Biden’s term, the rebellion against racism, sparked by the murder of George Floyd, also shifted consciousness. Trump was the target of massive protests starting from the day after the 2016 election. In each of these building and cascading mass movements, women have played leading roles in the struggles for self-determination—against imperialism, against racism and for social justice.

Breaking the Chains (BTC) is a socialist feminist magazine published by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). You can get a copy at https://www.breakingthechainsmag.org/ or by reaching out to PSL Eugene at psleugeneor@gmail.com. Featured in this issue of Breaking the Chains:

• Reform, revolution and the question of elections, by Felisha Bushinger. As revolutionary feminists, we engage in bourgeois elections to highlight escalating contradictions of capitalism. We fight for reforms to improve conditions of working-class life and expand class consciousness. But our horizon is always socialist revolution and the liberation of the working class.
• A night of terror in the fight for women’s suffrage, by Tara Sandlin. In November 1917, suffragists were brutally imprisoned at the Occoquan Workhouse for picketing the White House, marking a significant and militant shift in the movement. The `Night of Terror’ exposed the Wilson administration’s brutal repression and highlighted the women’s right to be recognized as political prisoners.
• Why we need to build a socialist movement, with art by Rachel Domond. Our platform advocates for socialism, empowering poor and working people to wield political and economic power for the collective good. Addressing issues like the climate crisis, AI-induced job losses, and nuclear threats requires a shift away from capitalist governance. Our platform prioritizes human needs and the planet over profit.
• Shirley Chisholm: Women fighters, our teachers, by Monique Rangell-Onwuegbuzia
• Liberal feminism is a scam, by Lisa Eugene
• Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia, interview conducted by Jessica Ingram
• Revolutionary optimism and building a socialist party, by Ximena Hasbach
• Women’s role in building socialist democracies, by Alyssa Doublet
• Capitalist democracy is a sham for all, especially working women by Elva Escobedo
• Women’s leadership forged in the fire of exploitation by Evelyn Hanon

Keep in touch with PSL Eugene by subscribing at https://substack.com/@psleugene and check out our upcoming Breaking The Chains study group Sunday, Sept. 29 at bit.ly/VoteSocialistEugene.