https://www.cpusa.org/article/rise-in-unity-for-democracy-and-our-future/Rise in unity for democracy and our future – Communist Party USA
The following political platform has been submitted by the CPUSA Political Action Commission.
In 2025, our future and the future of our planet stand at a crossroads. This Labor Day, we need a political program to address the immediate needs of the U.S. working class and people. We demand:
ICE and troops out of our communities!
Restore federal workers’ union rights!
Pass a national reproductive rights act!
Defend and expand voting rights!
Restore Medicaid and SNAP!
Raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour!
Tax the rich and cut the military budget!
Pass a Green New Deal!
We stand for the defense of DEI and affirmative action, and the protection of LGBTQ rights, including gender-affirming care. We demand union rights, living wages, and a secure retirement for all. Healthcare, housing, and public education should be a human right.
Time for action
A narrow Trump victory in 2024 has emboldened fascist leaning sections of finance capital in their drive for total power and control. Their agenda — driven by Project 2025 and steeped in white supremacy and corporate greed — threatens the lives of millions and the survival of democratic rights for all. Wealth inequality is soaring to the extreme, threatening basic human needs. Health care, housing, public education, nutrition, and living wage jobs are out of reach for many working-class families and young people. Democratic structures and civil rights are being dismantled. Military takeover of Los Angeles, D.C., and threats to other cities with Black mayors are a frontal attack on democracy and a step toward fascist rule.
The entire system is steeped in corruption, with politicians bought and paid for by the banks, corporations, and the financial-industrial-military complex. Hatred, bigotry and racism, misogyny and targeting immigrants harkens back to slavery and Jim Crow. These are the tools of this billionaire power grab to divide and weaken the working class.
In response, millions are saying, “No! We won’t go back!” They are saying, “No!” to union busting. They are saying “No!” to gutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP in order to give billionaires another big tax break. And they are saying “No!” to the racist attacks on affirmative action and other gains won by long and painful struggles for equality. Today’s struggles are also preparation for the 2026 midterm elections.
Resistance is rising — from workers organizing unions and going on strike for wages, benefits, and job security, to extraordinary mass mobilizations to resist the terror tactics of mass deportation. Youth climate strikes and mass actions to defend Social Security, Medicare, and pensions are part of that rising resistance, too, as is the struggle for reproductive freedom. Our vision is of a deeper, broader, and more inclusive democracy where working people will make the decisions guiding our future.
We are in the fight of our lives, not only to build a broad unity that can defeat fascism, but also to come out of this historic moment stronger and more united, and go onto the offensive.
We must stop the biggest transfer of wealth from the working class to the billionaires. The wealth of this country, created by working people, must be invested into raising everyone up and ending poverty and inequality. Instead of tax cuts for billionaires we say, “Tax the rich!” and transfer funds from preparation for imperialist wars, a bloated military, and mass deportations into a green and peaceful economy. The resources are there to provide living wages, union jobs, and a more equal, just, sustainable, and peaceful future. We must put people, peace, and the planet before profits.
This platform is a call to action. It represents our commitment to defend and expand democracy — not only at the ballot, box but in every facet of life: in our workplaces, schools, hospitals, housing, and neighborhoods. We fight for systemic transformation that empowers working people, protects civil rights and civil liberties, dismantles structural racism, and makes real the promise of liberty and justice for all.
Protect and expand democratic rights for all
No military takeover or ICE terror!
Our first amendment rights to speak out, publish our views, and gather for protests must be protected and enhanced. That means stopping the unconstitutional presidential override of local governments to deploy military troops against the people and to take over local police. Home rule and statehood for D.C. must be affirmed and enacted. Abductions of by masked, unmarked agents, against immigrants in particular, must be prohibited and due process restored. ICE must be done away with. Instead, we need a comprehensive immigration act to expand rights, including voting rights.
Voting rights
Protect birthright citizenship! MAGA’s attack on voting rights and racist gerrymandering to control election results must be stopped. We need to end all attempts at voter suppression. Overturning Citizens United, enacting electoral reforms like proportional representation and ranked choice voting, and creating public campaign financing would curtail corporate and billionaire influence on elections, and make it possible for working class champions to run and win.
Fight racism and all forms of discrimination
White supremacy has been the major tool used by the bosses to divide the working class. That is why opposing the Trump administration’s attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and affirmative action — and expanding these programs — serves the best interests of all workers. Qualified immunity for police officers must be eliminated. We also need to build support for community control of policing, especially in communities of color. All discrimination based on race, gender, immigration status, and sexual orientation needs to be ended. LGBTQ+ rights and marriage equality have to be defended. We also demand equal access to a dignified life for people living with disabilities.
Reproductive rights and gender-affirming care
The CPUSA condemns the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. We demand Congress codify reproductive rights into law nationally to restore the right to choose. At the same time, the struggle to protect reproductive rights must be enhanced at the state level. We call on all to demand laws guaranteeing the right to gender affirming care, mental health services, and medical care that respects gender identity.
Workers over billionaires
Living wage jobs with union rights
The rights of all workers to union representation — including for undocumented workers — must be protected and expanded. The union rights of all federal workers must be restored. We oppose so-called “right-to-work” legislation and demand it be outlawed by Congress. We call on all to support programs creating new living wage jobs, and demand a $25 per hour national minimum wage with a cost-of-living escalator. In addition, we need a federally funded program for free, high-quality child care.
Retirement security
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid must be protected from privatization and dismantling. Congress should pass legislation to prohibit DOGE from stealing people’s personal data. Social Security benefits can be expanded by scrapping the cap on high earners so that everyone pays into the system. This would make it secure into the future. We must fight to protect workers’ pension funds.
Healthcare for all
MAGA forces are on a drive to maximize profits for the big insurance companies and other healthcare industry giants. Cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and the Veterans Administration are estimated to lead to the death of over 50,000 people. We demand an expansion of healthcare access, not cuts. A national, publicly owned and controlled health system is needed to serve everybody in need of care. We say: “Everyone in — nobody out!” Healthcare is a fundamental human right. The movement for Medicare for All is a necessary step toward a national healthcare service.
Housing for people, not profit
Housing is a human right which requires removing the profit motive. Affordable housing, built and maintained with union labor, must be created for renters and homeowners. Rents and mortgages should be immediately rolled back to no more than 30% of income with the goal of pushing housing costs below 10% of income. We need to enact national rent control with protections against evictions and foreclosures. More public housing must be built with first priority to the unhoused. Profiteering by banks and private equity firms must be stopped. The time to organize tenant unions is now!
Public education is a basic right
We demand an end to the attack on public education. Funding of public schools must be restored and enhanced. We need to end public funds going to charter schools and vouchers. The rewriting of U.S. history and the banning of books has to be stopped. We must cancel student debt, and make college education free at public universities and colleges. African American, women’s, and ethnic studies should be defended and restored. Affirmative action and DEI needs to be reinstated in all educational institutions.
Clean and sustainable environment
Climate change poses a major threat to the survival of humanity and our communities. Environmental racism must end. We demand that public officials promote legislation like the Green New Deal that will curb fossil fuel profiteers with a transition to renewable energy, earth friendly infrastructure, and sustainable agriculture. This will create millions of new, high paying jobs and a healthier environment. We need to defend the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and laws to protect people from contamination, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Funding a people’s program
Tax the rich
We need to reverse income inequality and make the tax system much more progressive. No taxes should be collected on incomes under $80,000 a year. We should expand the Child Tax Credit and make it permanent. The tax rate for corporations and the top 5% must be raised — to 90% for the richest Americans, as was paid in the 1950s, and to 53 percent for corporations, as was paid in 1968.
The loopholes and exemptions which lead to the super rich and corporations paying little or no taxes have to be ended. The inheritance tax should be restored and a wealth tax enacted on the richest Americans and corporations. The Billionaire Budget Betrayal slashed public programs to fund tax cuts for the rich and corporations, as well as mass deportations and military spending. It was the largest transfer of wealth in U.S. history and must be repealed. People’s programs that were decimated to fund tax cuts for the rich — like Medicaid, SNAP, and for clean energy — must be restored and expanded.
Cut the military budget
The trillion-dollar-plus military budget must be slashed by at least 50% to help fund social needs at home. We need to enact a foreign policy based on diplomacy and mutual respect. U.S. foreign interventions should come to an end. An immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza is urgently needed. Military aid to Israel has to be terminated. We stand for self-determination for the Palestinian people. NATO should stop expanding; we oppose its role as an enforcer of U.S. imperialism. Cuba should be taken off the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list.
Our future: Democracy, equality, socialism
In the rising mass struggles of today, we see a future in which the multi-racial working class and its allies abolish the corporate banks and corporations and establish a new system, socialism. The working class, all genders, all generations, African American, Latino, Native American, Asian American and white, the overwhelming majority of our population, will take ownership of the means of production, run the factories, the services, the research institutions and farms to benefit the people, a society free of war, racism, poverty, and oppression.
Image: CPUSA at the National Action Network March on Wall Street (CPUSA)