For what already seems an eternity, the 2016 presidential season is upon us. It has all the indications of being a crucial one in the history of our country. The serious economic crisis that engulfed our country in 2008 is still being felt in the everyday life of the society. The question of income inequality and the runaway profits of the biggest corporations remain the key issues facing the working people.

In this context, political forces are making their views known. The Republican Party is in turmoil. A billionaire television star and real estate developer is running a campaign of pure demagogy. He blames immigrant workers for the economic and social problems of the American people. He has advanced an immigration program that is dangerously close to ethnic cleansing, linking the Mexican people with criminal activity and calling for their forcible removal from the country. He brags that he has spent his career buying political leaders with his own money. He dovetails the anti-worker, anti-people rhetoric of the tea party leaders. In all of this blather, he conveniently forgets that he is among the leaders of the very system he is criticizing! His election would usher in an era of even bigger profits for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. He would also push wild, aggressive foreign wars that would make George Bush look like a minor leaguer. In point of fact he is nothing but a more charismatic spokesman than any of the other Republican candidates for the presidency.

On the Democratic side is a candidate in Bernie Sanders who has helped raise the profile of the income equality issue, whether he is nominated or not. Of course, the Democrats will find a candidate, but more importantly: a real and sustained opposition to the policies of the 1 percent exists. People of all national backgrounds, the organizations of the working class, and the progressive strata of the middle classes are in motion in this country. The content of this upsurge is clear and unambiguous. The 1 percent control too much of the wealth of this country. With their money and further burnished by the Citizen’s United decision, they effectively purchased the House of Representatives and several state legislatures. With this control comes a full right wing, anti worker program: continued tax cuts for the rich, gutting the health and social services vital to the well being of ordinary people, killing health care reform, privatizing education, negation of voting rights, unbridled aggression overseas, and the anti-science denial of climate change.

The working people need a program that helps ordinary people by taxing the 1 percent, and using the added revenue to build roads, dams and bridges. We need a program that addresses climate change without destroying jobs and communities. We must fight prejudice and bigotry, and in doing so broaden democratic rights. Further, we need to strengthen the organizations that protect the living standards and working conditions of the working people: the unions. None of these are easy goals, but unless we fight along these grounds we will find a situation where desperation and fear rule the day.

2016 is going to be a fight over just such vital issues.

Richard Lipsitz is President of the Western New York Area Labor Federation.