My “I Voted” sticker from early voting.
Introduction
As millions of Americans tuned in to watch NFL football this month, Trump used taxpayer money to air a commercial featuring himself walking down a hallway and delivering an almost Armageddon like trumpet call. He vowed to enter a final battle against villainy once and for all.
Given the rise of left-wing movements fueled by opposition to the Big Beautiful Bill, the rising cost of living, the backlash against ICE, and the genocide in Gaza, the commercial centered on attacking Communists and Marxists. Those who lack the capacity for critical reasoning will likely lump all the other political labels he listed in his rant together with Marxism, precisely the association he intended to create. This rhetoric aligns directly with the Trump administration's issuance of the scare tactic found in NSPM-7.
However, minus being a Communism and Marxism, the political characteristics he listed are his own ideologies! Trump, his administration, and the two party capitalist class are the warmongering, globalist, fascist, sick political class that hates our country, and deceives it with its privately owned fake news outlets. The violent, criminal, vampiric system that allows these characteristics to flourish is what we must liberate America from once and for all.
Recent events have placed the criminality of the fascist state apparatus on full display. After all, under capitalism, the state determines what is considered criminal and what is not. No criminal accountability has followed the killings of Kohen Wildey, Nolan Wells, Jace Lee Scott, or Darwin Alexander. The billionaire class and its state-sponsored agents, both at home and abroad, operate with the freedom to take lives without consequence. We see this through the police state and ICE domestically, And through the U.S. military and CIA abroad.
Anyone who threatens their consolidated power and hegemony becomes an enemy of the imperialist exploitation that builds their wealth. One way the ruling class maintains this hegemony is by permitting certain citizens to vote in ruling class elections. Casting the illusion that the citizens with the ability to vote can change the course of the country simply by electing a new set of congressional leaders during the midterm elections.
The growing desire across the country to defeat Trump and his billionaire agenda is righteous. But what would a so-called "blue wave" in the midterm elections actually accomplish? Ultimately, the Midterm Curse exposes the two-party system for what it is: a political dead end, incapable of delivering the fundamental changes the majority of Americans are demanding.
The Midterm Curse
Since the consolidation of the ruling-class two-party system, a familiar pattern has emerged in U.S. politics: the sitting president's party almost always loses seats in the midterm elections, which take place halfway through each presidential term. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the "Midterm Curse."
The ruling class wants us to believe that meaningful change can be achieved through the ballot box alone. We are told that our vote is our voice. Through cultural hegemony, the ruling class has embedded in the public consciousness the idea that people have no right to complain about the state of society if they do not vote. As if participating in ruling-class elections could bring about the fundamental social changes necessary to relieve working people of the crushing costs of food, housing, utilities, and mounting medical debt, one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the United States.
Voting represents only 10% of the working class's political responsibility. If we are to achieve a decent standard of living, justice, reparations, and dignity, the other 90% of our collective responsibility must be devoted to building working-class organizations, developing class consciousness, mobilizing mass movements, and establishing independent political power.
Voting is a small part of our responsibility as working people living under an exploitative capitalist system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. While participating in elections is important, it is secondary to building grassroots power of our own. We must participate in elections and fight for reforms within the existing system, but our greater responsibility is to expose the contradictions and injustices inherent in ruling-class democracy.
We need an entirely different form of democracy to free ourselves from the ills inflicted upon us by dollar democracy. The only way to bring about that transformation is to organize ourselves with the same determination and discipline as the ruling class.
Ninety percent of our energy must go toward organizing grassroots power because voting in ruling-class elections has inherent limitations. We elect representatives whose campaigns are financed by the ruling class and who, in turn, serve their interests. We are beginning to see the rise of a new generation of candidates advocating for social democracy. Many of these progressive candidates sincerely want change. However, the changes they seek cannot be fully realized through legislation within a capitalist system designed to protect itself against fundamental transformation.
When Bernie Sanders ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, the Democratic Party did everything in its power to undermine his campaign after he won the Iowa caucuses, and ultimately succeeded. Rather than building an independent political party following his defeat, Sanders endorsed Genocide Joe.
Then there are congressional leaders like Hakeem Jeffries, who rode the momentum of the progressive movement only to demonstrate how the Democratic Party co-opts progressive politics. After being elected to Congress in 2013, Jeffries co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, joining as a co-sponsor in September 2019 and maintaining that position through the 2021 session. However, after becoming House Democratic Leader in 2023, he was no longer listed as a co-sponsor. During an appearance on Meet the Press this year, Jeffries explicitly stated that Medicare for All was not legislation he currently supported or co-sponsored.
Ultimately, the reforms these politicians pursue leave the capitalist ruling class in control of the economy and its institutions. Even when such reforms offer meaningful improvements, they remain confined within a system that continually undermines their implementation and limits their potential for lasting change.
The Rise and Fall of Social Democracy
The social democracies that flourished across Europe during the 20th century emerged, in large part, in response to the revolutionary transformation that had taken place in Russia.
The expansion of social welfare programs and labor protections in Europe was driven by the threat of socialist revolution and the example set by the Soviet Union. European governments introduced social democratic reforms to contain the growing appeal of communism and prevent revolutionary movements from gaining power.
Franklin D. Roosevelt pursued a similar strategy in the United States. The growing influence of the Soviet Union internationally and the Socialist Workers Party in the labor movement domestically, alongside mass strikes and working-class organizing, helped force the Roosevelt administration to introduce sweeping social programs and labor protections in the New Deal.
However, today's capitalist class faces no comparable socialist competitor with the organizational strength to force it into offering the same expansive social benefits.
When we fight and die to win reforms that still allows the capitalist system to exist, we remain bound to a system in which competition governs economic and social life. The ruling class continues to organize the economy around its own interests while exploiting our labor to generate wealth. Within the working class itself—Wage workers who don’t own the means of production—we would still have a large sector of the wage workers constantly competing to see who can come closest in status to their capitalist masters. Competition within the working class is one of the many mechanisms the ruling class likes to use to keep us divided.
Democrat Sellouts
The overarching reality is that Democrats have controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives at various points in recent history, yet repeatedly failed to deliver on the promises they made to the American people.
So, once again, what would a "blue wave" in the midterm elections actually accomplish?
Let's examine the Democratic Party's recent track record on some of the most pressing issues shaping this year's election cycle.
Cost of Living
Following the 2020 elections, Democrats controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Despite holding this power, they failed to pass their Build Back Better agenda, which would have provided substantial cost-of-living relief through measures such as universal free pre-K, tuition-free community college, 300,000 new affordable housing vouchers, and other social benefits.
Rather than delivering this relief, the Biden administration was marked by an inflation crisis in which corporations reaped record profits by raising prices while working people struggled to make ends meet.
Healthcare
Following the Democratic Party's sweeping victories in the 2008 elections, the party held the political power necessary to pursue significant healthcare reform. At the time, nearly 50 million Americans lacked health insurance.
Democrats had an opportunity to establish a universal healthcare system that would eliminate the predatory, for-profit insurance model and recognize healthcare as a fundamental right for everyone in the country. Instead, they passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The ACA directs billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to private insurance companies while leaving millions of Americans uninsured. By preserving healthcare as a for-profit industry in service of corporate interests, Democrats helped maintain a system in which medical debt remains one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the United States.
Immigration
The Democratic Party incorporated "comprehensive immigration reform" into its platform in 2004, and Barack Obama promised to pass such legislation during his first year in office.
That promise went unfulfilled. Instead, the Obama administration deported more immigrants than any previous administration. Since 2003, Democrats have repeatedly worked across the aisle to fund ICE and expand the deportation apparatus.
In doing so, they helped lay the groundwork for the Trump administration's current assault on immigrant communities.
War
The capitalist system is addicted to war, regardless of which political party holds power.
Barack Obama failed to end the war in Afghanistan. His administration authorized the military overthrow of Libya's government and carried out approximately 500 drone strikes across several countries. Biden's administration authorized a similar number of drone strikes, funded a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and worked closely with Israel while it carried out its genocidal campaign in Gaza.
Since 2000, the U.S. government has spent trillions of dollars on its military while contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. Both parties bear responsibility for these immense human and financial costs.
There is nothing supernatural about the Midterm Curse. It reflects the dead-end nature of the two-party system. Republicans and Democrats have demonstrated time and again that they prioritize billionaire profits and political power over the needs of ordinary people.
We Need a Revolutionary Socialist Party!
Our electoral system reflects a capitalist plutocracy. We live under a government that operates for, by, and in the interests of the wealthy. Politicians are beholden to their corporate backers. Even those who begin their political careers with humble backgrounds or progressive ideals eventually find themselves pressured to adopt positions acceptable to the capitalist ruling class and the military-industrial complex.
Establishment politicians must embrace the objectives of U.S. imperialist domination or risk being discarded by the Republican and Democratic parties. None of them will advance the working-class struggle beyond the limits tolerated by the ruling class.
Major-party candidates spend millions of dollars on their campaigns, making financial support from powerful corporate interests essential to their success. Candidates representing the parties of big capital do not serve the interests of workers or oppressed people. They may speak demagogically and pay lip service to the needs of working people, but their actions tell a different story.
Time and again, pro-corporate candidates have pledged themselves to managing the affairs of the ruling class if elected. Their campaign platforms may reflect the competing interests of different factions of the capitalist class, but their ultimate objective remains the same. All capitalist candidates could share a single campaign slogan—"Profits Over People"—if they were willing to tell the naked truth.
Working and poor people need their own class-conscious organizations, where their interests are subordinate to no one.
Elections provide working class parties with an opportunity to contrast their political programs directly against those of the capitalist parties, demonstrating how socialism offers solutions proportionate to the scale of the problems facing the majority of society.
Alongside strikes, rebellions, and protests, elections can serve as rallying points where broad sections of the population disillusioned with capitalism can unite and transform scattered opposition into a powerful, organized force for change.
Furthermore, elections provide a unique opportunity to educate and organize greater numbers of people around the need to build a new system. Winning political power is a long and complex process, but it will never happen unless we openly contend for that power and demonstrate what an alternative society could look like.
This is the struggle that the largest revolutionary socialist party in the U.S. has entered.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is not simply about fighting for individual issues. The PSL is about advancing the very type of political organization we need to win. Through their campaign, workers, students, and oppressed people have an opportunity to vote for and organize alongside candidates representing a party that is already fighting in their interests.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) provides a genuine political alternative for working people. Their program is rooted in fundamental working-class interests: peace, not war; jobs and resources directed toward people's needs; equal rights for all; and socialism.
PSL Participation in Ruling-Class Elections
Socialism is gaining popularity across the country because millions of people are recognizing a simple truth: political and economic power must rest in the hands of the many, not remain concentrated among a wealthy few.
For decades, we have been told to vote for politicians because they "look like us." Yet record numbers of Black and Brown politicians holding public office have not stopped our communities from experiencing poverty, displacement, police violence, unemployment, and exploitation.
Representation within a capitalist system designed to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a tiny ruling class is not the same as political and economic power for working people.
The PSL’s Vote Socialist campaigns across the country are about more than winning elections. They are about building an organized movement capable of challenging the system at its roots and creating a society in which Black communities and working people have the power to determine their own futures.
Learn more about PSL candidates and campaigns:
Joe Tache for Senate — @tache4ma
Andre Easton for the House — @andreeastonbx
Take Back The Power in Louisiana — @takebackthepowerla
We also recently ran Jasmine Brown for mayor of Pensacola.
Conclusion
Regardless of which party wins the 2026 midterm elections, the task facing the socialist movement remains clear. Truly defeating Trump requires confronting and defeating the capitalist system that gave rise to him. It means challenging the two-party system that protects and perpetuates capitalism.
The responsibility falls on us to build the political organizations, working-class movements, and independent political power strong enough to make that transformation possible.
If you haven't already, join the PSL Action Network and get plugged into the socialist movement!
THE WORKING CLASS HAS A WORLD TO WIN!
