The Socialist Workers Party campaign is the only voice of the working class – The Militant

SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vermont — On a hot, muggy afternoon on July 9, Dennis Richter, the Socialist Workers Party’s vice presidential candidate, met with campaign supporters outside a Hannaford supermarket here. He met Robert Gray, a telephone repairman from Happy Valley, Pennsylvania, who had come to shop.

“Too many people believe that they cannot change anything. That those of us who are in favor of big changes are too small and weak,” Gray said.

“In capitalism, everything is geared towards reinforcing this idea,” Richter replied. “But when workers fight, we discover our abilities and our self-worth. Today, many workers are in a fighting mood.”

“The country is run by money, by people who don’t work,” Gray said. “They go to different schools than we do to learn how to get richer, to become another Rockefeller.”

“They are a class, they are capitalists,” Richter said. “They see it as their right to exploit us. The workers must take power from them to form our own government.”

“They are completely indifferent to the needs of the working people. They are facing a global crisis of their capitalist system, growing instability and conflict. They are all building up their armed forces. Imperialist rulers everywhere are clashing over competing interests that are intensifying today.”

In addition to the election campaign here, the SWP is collecting signatures on petitions to put Rachele Fruit, the party’s presidential candidate, on the ballot alongside Richter. The response has been excellent.

After the election campaign, Richter met with the Militant to share his experience of bringing the party’s alternative for the working class to workers here. He described an exchange outside a Walmart in Williston after introducing himself to a customer. “The first words out of her mouth were, ‘I’m a Republican.’ I said, ‘That’s fine. Do you have a few minutes to talk?'”

She used to be a cleaner who was injured on the job and is unable to work. “When she said she was only concerned about what was going on in Vermont, not the rest of the world, I said what was happening in the world affects every working person, including in Vermont,” Richter said. “From Russia’s war against Ukrainian independence to Hamas’ murderous attack on Jews in Israel on October 7, all working people must take sides to our Class and our allies.

“She immediately agreed that anti-Semitic attacks are increasing and must be countered.”

Not everyone with whom they discuss politics can sign the petition. One example are guest workers who have come here from all over the world.

“At Walmart, I spoke to a mother and her daughter from Bosnia who have settled in Vermont. The mother is watching international politics with concern because she sees parallels in Ukraine to the war that tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s,” Richter said. Until Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Yugoslavian conflict was the largest ground war on the European continent since World War II.

“I explained to her that the same forces that led to World War I and World War II are now driving the first guns of World War III,” Richter said. “While she has reason to be concerned, there is also reason to be optimistic that the working class can prevent the march toward a new imperialist war. We must build revolutionary workers’ parties in the United States and around the world. I told her that ultimately the working class must wrest power from the warmongers.

“She said that the majority of working people have good intentions – a source of optimism for the future. I agreed with her, pointing to the struggles of workers, from flight attendants to nurses in Vermont who threatened to strike, as examples of workers who have said enough and are fighting for working-class interests like higher wages, safer conditions and building solidarity in our class.”

“Break with the parties of capitalism”

Campaign supporters received a positive response in St. Albans, a city of 7,000 people 30 miles north of Burlington, an agricultural area. “We need to break with the parties of capitalism and form our own party – a party of workers,” Socialist Workers Party activist Beverly Benjamin told two farmers from nearby Bakersfield in the Walmart parking lot.

“We work hard on our farm, we both produce about 15,000 pounds of garlic annually. We can’t imagine voting for the Democrats or the Republicans,” said Marie-Danielle Saint Hilaire. She reached for the petition to sign for Fruit and Richter. Her husband did the same and took a copy of the Militant to learn more about the working class alternative.

Abby Ryea, 21, told SWP activists: “I worked six days a week and brought home just $300. That’s not how you can support a family of three and pay the mortgage on a truck.”

“Both Democrats and Republicans are undermining women’s choices and rights, including the right to abortion,” added John Greenia, who works at a counseling desk at a nearby medical clinic. “It’s important to consider all stages of family planning. You’re not ‘pro-life’ if you don’t care about a child’s life after birth.”

“Workers can solve these problems,” said SWP petitioner Abigail Rosen. “A workers’ party would fight for women’s emancipation by uniting and mobilizing working people independently of the employers’ parties to fight for jobs, good housing, child care, maternity care and safe contraception, and for the decriminalization of abortion.”

“I would like to read more about that,” said Greenia, taking the Militant.

Outside Shaw’s supermarket in Williston, Tony Lane approached an employee who was walking to his pickup truck and handed him a flyer for Rachele Fruit and the SWP campaign. The employee asked, “What is she? Democrat or Republican?”

“Neither. It is the working class alternative to both parties of the bosses,” Lane replied.

“No. You have to be one or the other,” came the reply. “I say there is only one choice: Republican.”

The worker said he is not a big supporter of Donald Trump, but is concerned about the Democrats’ politically motivated legal attacks on the Republican candidate. “The SWP candidates oppose all attacks on constitutional freedoms,” Lane said. “They are a deadly danger to working people.”

The answer: “OK. I’ll take the flyer and read it.”

Activists often explain that the SWP has a rich continuity that goes back to the Bolshevik Revolution under VI Lenin in Russia and the Cuban Revolution under Fidel Castro. Even if some people don’t agree, they can see where that continuity lies.

When Joanne Kuniansky, SWP candidate for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey, campaigned in Vermont for the national nomination, she hired a couple originally from the former Soviet Union.

“Rachele Fruit is a hotel worker and union member, and she is running for president to represent a working-class voice in this election,” she told them. “Fruit says that workers must break with the Democrats and Republicans and build a workers’ party that fights for the interests of all workers, that fights for workers’ power.”

The couple said they had experience in Russia of what Kuniansky advocated and “it doesn’t work.” They said uneducated workers had taken power and the results had been disastrous. Kuniansky disagreed, saying the anti-worker Stalinist regime was the product of a counter-revolution against Lenin’s course.

The couple left, but the woman returned, determined to have the last word. She told Kunyansky: “This idea of ​​housekeepers running the country, that’s Lenin!”

“At The “We agree,” said Kuniansky.

Well on the way to voting

In the first 11 days of a 16-day campaign to get the SWP candidacy on the ballot, supporters have spread across the state, purchasing 29 subscriptions to the Militant, 19 books by SWP leaders and collected 1,474 signatures.

Campaign organizers plan to collect several hundred more signatures to ensure they exceed the state requirement of 1,000 valid signatures certified by state authorities.

To join or contribute to the final effort to reach the summit, contact the SWP campaign at (646) 434-8117 or [email protected]

Joanne Kuniansky and Tony Lane contributed to this article.