From Larry Holmes at Workers World.
The masses did not launch Obama’s presidential campaign—a section of the U.S. ruling class and its political operatives did. Some in the ruling class got behind Obama merely to advance their faction fight against the Clintons inside the Democratic Party.
But other forces in the U.S. ruling class have rallied behind Obama because they view him as better suited than Clinton or McCain to deal with a central crisis of U.S. imperialism. They need to find a way to halt the rapid deterioration of its position as the world’s dominant economic and military power.
All true, even if he does go on, as do many doctrinaire Marxists, to say this foreshadows the coming collapse of capitalism (“Marxists have predicted eleven of the past seven crisises”). Actually, it probably doesn’t. Capitalism got through the Great Depression and thrived. The current times are a blip compared to that. ( And Marxist glee in possible coming economic collapses hardly seems a good recruiting tool.)
His stated beliefs that the ruling class might be setting up a Black man to take the heat for the coming crisis seem paranoid. As does his view that the Rev. Wright affair was secretly a loyalty test by mainstream media for Obama. (Huh?) Marxists too often seem to believe that capitalists control and manipulate everything, when in reality they seem more like the Keystone Cops, hardly in control at all. Do you think that a secret cabal currently runs the world economy? If so, they’re doing a dismal job of manipulating events, aren’t they?
But Holmes’ basic point is quite valid. A part of the US ruling class has backed Obama from the start, quite rightfully concluding that war and the insanities of the Bush Administration are bad for the economy, the people, and for long-term good of the US. Now Obama may well be the next president. That would be a sea change indeed.