U.S. Labor Party
- See Labor Party (United States) for the modern party which has a similar name but is unconnected with the US Labor Party.
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The U.S. Labor Party was a political party formed in the early 1970s by the National Caucus of Labor Committees. It served as a vehicle for Lyndon LaRouche to run for President of the United
States in 1976, but it also sponsored many candidates for local offices and Congressional
and Senate seats between 1972 and 1979.
Party objectives
The USLP was described by its founders as "an independent political association committed to the tradition of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Henry C. Carey, and President Abraham Lincoln."
Electoral history
U.S. Labor Party candidates sometimes received unusually high vote totals in comparison with those garnered by other small ideologically-based parties,[1] although LaRouche's own vote total in 1976 was minuscule.[citation needed] LaRouche critic Dennis King claims that when the USLP sponsored LaRouche's 1976 campaign, the NCLC was still in transition from a far-left to far-right ideology[1] but by 1977-78 both organizations (which were really one and the same for all essential purposes) were advocating extreme-right positions. King described a typical post-transition USLP campaign in "Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism" (Doubleday, 1989):
In Baltimore, USLP candidate Debra Freeman appealed openly to racist and anti-Semitic sentiments in her 1978 campaign against incumbent Congressman Parren Mitchell, chairman of the Black Congressional Caucus. Freeman, who is white, described Mitchell as a 'house nigger' for Baltimore's 'Zionists' and an example of 'bestiality' in politics....She won more than 11 percent of the vote, doing especially well in several white precincts.[2]
Freeman's rhetoric was mild compared to what LaRouche himself was saying in the late 1970s, according to King, who states that the USLP chairman even advocated launching ABC warfare (atomic, biological and chemical) against the Soviet Union as well as the military crushing of Britain (which his newspaper described as the headquarters of something called the "Zionist-British organism").[2]
LaRouche presidential campaign
In 1978, LaRouche began a vigorous USLP campaign for the presidency in 1980, targeting farmers, small businessmen and Teamsters Union members in the Heartland states. By late summer of 1979, however, the NCLC and LaRouche had decided to join the Democratic Party so that LaRouche could run for that party's presidential nomination, and the US Labor Party was disbanded. LaRouche's politics were not shared by many in the Democratic Party, allowing him to occupy a niche with little competition.[2]
References
See also
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