I wasn’t going to say anything about the Republican convention, but I want to set something straight: Joe Biden is not a communist. I know a few communists. Some I met at events, others I know through university. The thing about communists is, they’re not subtle. I mean, they literally carry red flags. You can’t get much more obvious.
The idea of the subtle or hidden communist really died with the USSR. China and Russia today have made it clear, both in words and actions, they don’t care what party line the rest of the world follows, as long as the rest of the world is made to revolve around them. Sure, they do foreign subversion all the same, but not communist subversion. They back whoever they think will best undermine the US, without regard to partisan allegiance. Meanwhile, Communist parties in the US don’t believe in subtlety as a matter of principle. It defeats the purpose of building class consciousness towards a revolution, which is kinda their whole schtick. Working within the system, and especially pretending to be moderate, would mean delaying progress towards the class war.
Even if Joe Biden secretly believes, in his heart of hearts, that Marx was right and capitalism needs to die, and managed to get elected by subtly pretending he believes otherwise, the communists- those who have been marching and striking and carrying red flags all their lives -wouldn’t take him. For that matter, the people who actually call themselves communists unironically probably wouldn’t take Sanders either. Or anyone you’ve heard of. Communists don’t believe in compromise, at least, not with the establishment. Communists despise the Democratic Party, often more than they despise the Republican Party. The latter are at least transparent in wanting to exploit workers.
Do communists support voting for Biden over Trump? In most cases, no. Many don’t believe in voting at all, thinking it makes them morally beholden to the system by participating. This is also true of the anarchists I know. For the small group that do endorse voting as a means of making revolution, many would actually prefer to vote for Trump. Not because they agree with him, but because they expect he will further divide and undermine the United States, pushing the country closer towards social collapse and sowing the seeds for political violence. Communists expect Trump will bring them closer to the revolution they want, while Joe Biden will move the country further from communism. This line of thinking is called accelerationism, and it means voting for the most controversial, destabilizing candidate.
But wait, I hear you ask. What about all those people who supported Bernie Sanders, and have since lashed themselves to the Democratic candidate? Almost all of them aren’t communists, at least, not in an orthodox Marxist sense. I don’t want to get too deep in the weeds of leftist terminology here, because between constant infighting, the shifting of terminology between elections and generations, and political labels being always to some degree in the eye of the beholder, there are no perfectly correct answers, but Sanders supporters are mostly not communists. If you held a gun to my head and made me pick labels, I’d say that most of Sanders’ core supporters are some flavor of democratic socialist or social democrat.
Much ink has been spilled over these two labels, and the difference between them, particularly given how much they often hate each other. The General difference, near as I can tell, is that social democrats prefer reform, while democratic socialists demand revolution. Social democrats think democratic socialists are dangerous Molotov-throwing radicals who don’t understand how economics and politics work, and democratic socialists think social democrats are spineless cowering liberals who won’t put their money where their mouth is when it comes to actually making change. On the second point, both groups feel this way about the Democratic Party at large.
As an aside, my secret suspicion is that a lot of particularly young Americans who are disenchanted with the mainstream, many who self identify as democratic socialist, or further left, would probably be social democrats or even just progressive leaning liberals if American culture didn’t imbibe the “socialist” label with such mythical rebellious qualities. Most developed countries, such as Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, and so on, have major social democratic parties, as well as small far left socialist and communist parties. But as America paints everything left of the Democratic center as socialist, it also pushes a lot of otherwise moderate voters into the label as well.
But I digress. Among democratic socialists, you will find some accelerationists who are voting for Trump. Among both groups, you will find people who are so upset with Biden that they have vowed not to vote for him. I have not met a single person who self-identifies as socialist who likes Biden. To them, Sanders was the compromise candidate, and Biden is a right wing stooge, only a shade better than Trump. Many of them wish, and I quote, “that Biden were half as radical and socialist as republicans paint him”. Of those who have resolved to vote for him anyways, the reason is never that he is actually going to push the country in a socialist direction, but usually some variation of “I fear the violence Trump started will spiral further out of hand”. For these people who are hoping to make progress towards equality by reform and legislation, this is a bad thing.
On the other hand, the militant communists, as opposed to the people who wind up at the same protests, are hoping and betting that Trump will win and accelerate the course of collapse and violence that has already started. The longer he’s in office, the more people lose hope in the American Dream, and the more people they can recruit. Of course, fascist and neo-Nazi recruitment has also gone up under Trump, but this doesn’t change the Marxist view that once it comes to open class war, the workers will prevail, since that is an article of faith. These are the people who actually want to dismantle America. And they’re backing Trump.
