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Electoral Focus of the Working Class in 2024 and Beyond

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Black Work Talk
Black Work Talk
Electoral Focus of the Working Class in 2024 and Beyond
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BWT co-hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers take time this episode to explore a few of the crises and challenges shaking the world and the Left in this moment. The recent demands by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and a few other national unions for a ceasefire in Gaza suggest an opening for a worker-led movement for peace. Bianca and Jamala discuss that possibility as well as how the Left is positioned for the upcoming 2024 elections.

Opinions on national electoral work vary among those identified with the US Left, but two perspectives stand out in this moment:

  • We should continue to support incumbent or mainstream Democratic candidates we ideologically disagree with, like Joe Biden, in the short term. This “harm reduction” strategy focuses on the need to block the authoritarian MAGA Right from creating untenable conditions for future organizing.
  • We should take big chances on more ideologically aligned candidates in hopes of building a new party structure from the bottom up. Severing ties with Democrats emphasizes the importance of gaining traction and excitement around a more representative populist movement.

The Biden administration’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel has been unequivocal and unending support for the aggressive military action against Palestinians by Israel and its far-Right Netanyahu administration. This has complicated the question of Left support for mainstream Democrats over the past few months. Bianca and Jamala explore the pros and cons of both of these strategies in the short and long term.

About the Host

Bianca Cunningham

Bianca Cunningham is Campaign Director for Bargaining for the Common Good at Action Center for Race and the Economy. A former Verizon Wireless worker, she led her coworkers in seven stores across Brooklyn, NY to join CWA in 2014, making them the first unionized retail workers in the company. She later led a 49-day strike to secure a first contract. Verizon fired her for organizing, and during the Verizon strike, picketers across the country chanted “Bring Back Bianca!” Bianca co-founded the DSA’s AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color caucus, a caucus for Black Indigenous and people of color within the organization. She also served as co-chair of the NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America for two terms. She most recently was on staff at Labor Notes where she sometimes wrote and more often facilitated training on Race and Labor.

Jamala Rogers
Jamala Rogers

Jamala Rogers is a longtime organizer in the Black Liberation Movement. As a radical feminist, she brings that lens to her political analyses and writings. She is the author of Ferguson is America: Roots of Rebellion (2015). Jamala is host of the weekly radio program, Voices from the Battlefield.