Obama Won! What's Next? - Part 3: A genuine crisis of capitalism (X.) by X.

While the Obama campaign developed a brilliant electoral strategy which it executed almost flawlessly, it benefitted in the last month from a massive shift among “middle of the road” voters shaken out of complacency by the sudden collapse of the US economy (for a good primer on the causes and implications of the crisis, check out Keith’s latest article here). The ongoing economic crisis -the most severe the US has faced since the Great Depression- increases both dangers and opportunities in the years to come: Opportunities to grow the revolutionary democratic movement rapidly and make it possible for people to build and seize power (political, economic, cultural, social) as capitalist institutions fail to deliver (governmental administrations, businesses, undemocratic NGOs, etc.). Dangers such as counter-revolutionary attempts by neo-fascist forces behind the Cheney/Bush regime to reverse the verdict of the 2008 elections by taking advantage of a panic (among both the population and the capitalist class as a whole), plunging the world into more war and destruction. Which way the future tilts will largely depend on the role played by progressives and revolutionaries in the Obama Movement: Specifically, will we succeed in empowering the Obama Movement to consolidate itself and evolve from a largely spontaneous 21st century progressive class alliance tied to the Obama campaign to a permanent and independent revolutionary democratic coalition?