As people prepare to vote with choices between a right-wing racist Republican and a corporate establishment Democrat presented as an exciting step forward, we need to learn the lessons from the presidencies of similar candidates in different circumstances. The lessons for union activists and young revolutionaries are rich when we examine the struggles and political terrain under Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Even if we end up with a right-wing lunatic in the White House, movements in the streets, workplaces, campuses, and communities can fight back, win victories, and improve the lives of working people. This might seem outlandish as many fear doom and gloom under four more years of an aggressive Trump regime, but it’s happened before under Nixon.
To make a long story short, movements were strong in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and they made real gains, some of which we still enjoy today, even with Nixon in power. Despite a right-wing Supreme Court, the women’s liberation movement won Roe v. Wade, the biggest step forward for abortion rights that the right-wing overturned and Democrats refused to stop. Through a social revolution in Vietnam, US soldiers refusing to fight a losing battle, and a mass anti-war movement at home, Nixon was forced to accept defeat and withdraw US troops. The Black liberation movement continued to grow in the Nixon years, and the Environmental Protection Agency was established.
That’s not all. The Nixon years saw a resurgence in the labor movement and the establishment of many public sector unions. Left-wing opposition caucuses in labor overthrew conservative leaders, led wildcat strikes, and won strong contracts. Like all union upsurges in US history, organized Marxists played an important role. If we are faced with a Trump 2.0 Presidency, right-wing attacks will be on the agenda, but movements can fight and win. We can’t wait for the Democrats to fight for us. We need to get organized, with socialist ideas as the backbone of struggle.
The Clinton years tell a different story, but equally as instructive for labor activists and the left. The 1990s were a time of capitalist triumphalism as they said this system would lead to unending peace and prosperity. That was a lie, but millions believed it after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a dictatorship pretending to be communist, but in reality a bureaucratic monstrosity. Clinton waged war, slashed welfare, and established further corporate domination through trade deals. It was a low point for movements and strikes. Union density plummeted.
This wasn’t inevitable though. For instance, millions of workers wanted to fight against the rampant factory closures under Clinton and his predecessor Bush Sr. This was reflected, often in a warped way, in growing support for third party efforts of many stripes, from Ross Perot, a billionaire who campaigned against free trade deals, to more progressive candidacies like Jesse Ventura and the more clearly anti-corporate Ralph Nader. The 1990s also saw the short-lived Labor Party in the US.
The Labor Party was built by Socialist Alternative and some labor leaders and had affiliated unions representing over one million members. However, the labor leaders at the top of the party refused to run candidates against Democrats and they shut down the strongest branches of the party, fearing the influence of Marxist ideas. On the back of a growing mood for independent politics during the explosive protests in 1999 and 2000 against capitalist institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization, the Labor Party was largely absent from protests and didn’t support Ralph Nader’s Presidential campaign in 2000 that gained millions of votes.
The lessons from these struggles under Nixon and Clinton show the importance of mass movements, the need for strong unions, and the openings for independent politics, especially with Democrats in power. This time around, no matter who wins the White House, working people need to get organized for fundamental change. Karl Marx wrote that “history presents itself twice, first as tragedy, then as farce.” The parties of big business will be increasingly exposed as a farce while they oversee ongoing tragedies for working people. For the first time in history, we need an international working class revolution to sweep away all the horrors of this rotten system and the puppet politicians that serve the billionaires.