In the concluding paragraph of the article below, the authors write, “In reality, white workers have no stake in the system of exploitation that black oppression is designed to uphold.” I’ve made the same argument myself in the past, but is that really the case? If it is then it is hard to explain the persistence of racism over centuries and the sustained resistance of white workers to anti-racist politics.

A better approach is, in my view, to acknowledge a tension (or contradiction if you will) within the working class movement. In other words, white workers have and don’t have a stake – economic, political, cultural, psychological – in racist exploitation and oppression. What is more, without accounting for this contradiction and how it expresses itself, it seems to me, the struggle against racist exploitation and oppression becomes a steep – maybe insurmountable – hill to climb.

Here are a few remarks of Georgi Dimitrov. They are a small part of a report he made to the Communist International in 1935. Dimitrov was a Bulgarian Communist leader, who distinguished himself in the fight against Hitler fascism. They remain good advice for the progressive and left movements in present circumstances. As a thought exercise, substitute the Biden administration and its progressive demands in the place of Social Democrats and their demands and left and progressive movements for communists. And then ask yourself if the substitution is apropos.

“Formerly many communists used to be afraid it would be opportunism on their part if they did not counter every partial demand of the Social-Democrats by demands of their own which were twice as radical. That was a naive mistake. If Social-Democrats, for instance, demanded the dissolution of the fascist organizations, there was no reason why we should add: “and the disbanding of the state police” (a demand which would be expedient under different circumstances). We should rather tell the Social-Democratic workers: We are ready to accept these demands of your Party as demands of the proletarian united front and are ready to fight to the end for their realization. Let us join hands for the battle.

Thus, in countries having Social-Democratic governments, the Communists, by utilizing appropriate individual demands taken from the platforms of the Social-Democratic ministers as a starting point for achieving joint action with the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations, can afterwards more easily develop a campaign for the establishment of a united front on the basis of other mass demands in the struggle against the capitalist offensive, against fascism and the threat of war.”

Predictions about the midterm elections next year and the presidential elections two years later should be taken seriously. But we should be mindful that what they don’t take into account (and they can’t) is sudden and unforeseen turns in the larger political/economic/ideological environment and the energy and scale of the democratic movement in the coming elections. Separately or together they can rearrange the election landscape in consequential ways and defy the predictions of the best election analysts.