AMERICA Needs Labor’s Leadership

So, let’s recap here a bit for some context before I get to the main subject of this post, which is why the Democratic Party desperately needs to far more robustly tap the ranks of organized labor for new insight, support, and leadership in the fight for the future of our Republic.

We are in a very precarious and dangerous moment in our history and the immediate future (including the upcoming 2022 midterms), does not look very promising for those of us wishing to address Trumpism and the key shortcomings in our national trajectory. Here’s why:

In 2016, after almost 40 years of the scourge of Republican-driven “Trickledown Economics,” and 8 yrs of, stalemate induced by McConnell vs Obama, the national mood had swung from “Hope” to exasperation and broad-based disaffection. 10s of millions of people had been crushed by the 2008 meltdown and had seen nothing in the way of help or even focus on them. Just bitter gridlock.

Rather than running a candidate with no hope of going toe-to-toe with McConnell, et al, the Dems nominated Hilary Clinton who could give as well as take, running on a platform of toughness and competence; and, importantly, as a woman and therefore a potentially historic break from the same-old, same old inter-party dynamics.

Republicans, having lost to Obama twice, but also having successfully kept Obama and the Dems from leading any effort to rescue the millions of people crushed by the last straw that was the 2008 meltdown, nominated someone, Trump, who was not the embodiment of the status quo gridlock and inter-dynasty (Bush v Clinton) dynamic that had been playing out endlessly for decades.

This might have set the stage for an overwhelming Republican victory, but the candidate was Trump. So, along with an enthusiastic core of Hilary and Dem supporters, enough others held their noses and voted for the same-old. But it wasn’t enough.

After almost four years of Trump, the clear lesson for Dems for 2020, given how Trump’s presidency was playing out, was to nominate someone who could possibly beat Trump in the face of him having rallied those 10’s of millions of disaffected Americans to (for millions of them, at least) a refreshingly new style of politics (or actually anti-politics, which is the essence of authoritarianism) which broke the stagnant, ineffective mold and offered at least a lot of cathartic rallies and community gatherings and performance opportunities, if not any real actual improvements in the lot of the common people. But the promise of a better deal was there and remains.

And because Trump became ever-more narcissistic, self-absorbed, and crime-boss-like, there was an opening for the Dems win in 2020. They nominated Joe Biden, who by virtue of a lot of stuff I won’t go into here, was the Dem candidate with the best chance of pulling together a coalition of voters strongly motivated by fears of what a second Trump term might bring. Bernie Sanders did a decent job of presenting an alternative norm-breaking approach to put up against Trump’s autocratic inclinations, but he couldn’t garner the broad coalition of voters needed to win the primary.

Only because he was running against Trump, the aged and earnest Biden won in a real Electoral College squeaker but while also gaining only nominal control of the Congress. But, almost two years into his first term, he is broadly unpopular. Why? Because he can’t get past the gridlock. He can’t deliver bipartisanship; and he can’t deliver effective, meaningful solutions for our vast disaffected underclass. He can’t p[rovide the leadership that everyone, on all sides, knows we need.

At this moment, it is hard to see how Dems will not take it on the chin this November and likely in 2024 (assuming Trump, at least, is not the Republican candidate). Why?

• Despite the Jan6 committee’s extraordinary efforts, Jan6 is pretty much already ancient history for most Republican voters. While some obviously are working hard to extend and complete the coup, most are simply going to put it behind them (like an uncomfortable fight in the family) and move on, looking for the next leader who can show them a way forward in renewing their agency and priority as citizens. They see many such people vying for that chance.

• The SCOTUS Hobbs decision overturning Roe is energizing a lot of voters, but pocket-book issues continue to dominate voters’ concerns and priorities. Our inflationary issues right now only serve to greatly underscore for the vast new underclass how our normative politics and policies fail to adequately protect and advance their wellbeing. The pandemic and the still massive confusion around the federal response to it also contributes mightily to this.

• The bottom line is that, under the conventional, conciliatory Biden approach, FDR’s “Four Fears” are not being addressed. Biden’s popularity is in the low 30’s because he and the Dems are unable to deliver clear, decisive help or leadership on the most basic and fear-inducing issues: the ones that are found in the pocketbook.

The effort to hold Trump accountable will remain mostly a side-show for the vast majority of our new underclass of voters. And regardless of the inequities and injustices of Dobbs and its effects, these are not likely to become decisive in nationwide voting absent some black swan event(s) that can raise these above the decades-long oppression of pocketbook fears. Our new underclass is desperately seeking their futures and, regardless of what happens to Trump, and regardless of unpopular SCOTUS rulings, Trumpism has brought to them a sense of how they can see their agency restored as citizens and the pathways to a better life opened to them.

Bold assertion: Because of Trump modeling for the underclass a heady, heavy-handed authoritarianism and now because of SCOTUS really pissing-off the entire coalition of voters more to the middle and left, people on all sides are now more open, if not demanding of, bolder, more decisive, and more “heavy-handed” leadership that can “cut through the crap” and make a difference. Hold that thought.

Republicans like DeSantis and Abbott, and so many officials and party people through every layer of governance, the judiciary, etc., have been actively and quite publicly further developing and testing (states as laboratories of democracy, etc) the more heavy-handed authoritarian approach — and with quite a lot of success. They have adopted the Trumpist approaches of changing the rules, or if they can’t be changed, simply overriding or ignoring them with chaos, bluster, and increasingly, with the imprimatur of natural or Supreme law and a narrow vision of the values of equity and liberty.

Democrats, unfortunately, have yet to offer model of “effective” impactful governance and problem solving — on behalf of the vast underclass, not to mention on behalf of women, immigrants, and many, many others — that can compete with Trumpism.

All of this suggests, unfortunately for our democracy, that the Republicans have a huge head-start on deploying a new at least minimally disruptive but potentially maximally transformative governance model; while the Dems have so far been unable to get past the old model that continues to produce the basic gridlock and ineffectiveness that has been the source of so much damage to our middle class and our Declared American aspirations for liberty, equality, and Justice for all.

As a result, we are destined to have to go through some hard times, likely with DeSantis-type leadership, the ideologically blindered and captured SCOTUS and much more. This will continue until “The People” finally reject these approaches. This could happen more or less quickly (say a couple of presidential election cycles) depending upon the extent to which the Republicans overreach on any number of their assaults on women, the administrative state, the integrity of our voting and elections systems, the bullying of corporations over adherence to new orthodoxies, and so forth. Or we could find ourselves overrun by this growing thuggishness and without the capacity to get back on a progressive path.

And now to the substance suggested by the title of this essay:

America need Organized Labor’s leadership.

Yes, that’s it. That’s the solution. The Dems desperately need to produce and deploy a model of governance and leadership that can rival Trumpism. And quickly. When Dems think about this, we generally think about the next presidential election. It’s no surprise that polling shows the majority of Dems hoping that Biden won’t run for a second term and that a new leader will “arise” to become the new champion for democracy.

This is a rational reaction. The problem we have is, when we look to the places and people we generally look to, like governors, Congresspeople, and so forth, it is not obvious who has a bold vision and the leadership abilities to become this new champion; or who has the wherewithal, including the needed institutional support and experience. But, actually, we do have a great model of democratic governance that can be bold and is labor and “underclass” focused.

Yep: Organized labor.

What the Dems need to do is get with organized labor and identify and cultivate the labor leadership that can lead a new “Labor movement;” meaning big labor’s authentic, well refined and thoroughly-tested model for championing working people’s wellbeing, while dealing at the most sophisticated levels with the phalanx of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders and issues of domestic and international import. And when I say, “Lead a labor movement,” I mean that we need leadership from the highest and best ranks of labor leadership to help define and lead the Democratic Party into its next, desperately needed pivot to a party that centers the remediation of our underclass and the replanting of the flag of the American Promise.

So, Dems, widen the search for the best possible presidential candidates and candidates at other evils as well; widen it to the labor movement, much of which, for decades, has cultivated bold leadership and experience, and models of equity, hope, and dignity for working people.

The voice and the power of American labor is out there. Dems have undervalued and under-cultivated it for decades. It needs to be brought to the fore in the Democratic coalition so that America can be led to a better place.