The cause and effect of the labor movement rising up this past summer to demand better working conditions and wages is closely related to the grievances of the MAGA voters who backed Trump in 2016 and the continual decline in economic standing of America’s working class. These people are the forgotten Americans, the essential workers of the pandemic; the heroes we heralded when the economy came crashing down. It is this class of people who now feel as though they’ve been taken for granted by corporations and red-state politicians beholden to big money.
The unions got it right this time, not like the United Auto Workers under Ron Gettelfinger, during the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, in which UAW workers were asked to make concessions that they are only now demanding be reversed 16 years later. These are also the workers who have had their jobs taken over or threatened by technology, AI or automation, who now see the advancement of smart tech as an existential threat to their very livelihoods. As the current UAW president, Shawn Fain, said about the corporate executives, “They look at me and they see some redneck from Indiana. [They] look at you and see somebody they would never have over for dinner or let ride on their yacht or fly on their private jet.”
This is not unlike what’s happened before in the 1980s-1990s, with the off-shoring of manufacturing to Asia and Mexico with steel mills and appliance companies shutting down and disrupting entire communities and the workers left to grovel for survival, hate what their government allowed to happen and left the next generation dependent on welfare or opioid addiction — the states with the highest rates of overdoses just happen to be in the Rust Belt.
The fact that American workers get distracted by wars–whether in Iraq and Afghanistan, or Ukraine and Israel and Gaza strip. It only makes for a more divisive politics that divides the working class and others from the real villain — greed! And it has been so for generations of people who have been enlisted or drafted to fight unjust wars for “the Man.”
The union workers have got it right this time by taking on the corporate greed here at home, whether they are hotel workers at the DoubleTree in San Pedro, the Kaiser nurses, or the SAG-AFTRA workers in Hollywood and beyond. Everything falls from some form of economic injustice or equity in a society that values wealth above all else. You might wish it weren’t true but just look at how we lionize those with great wealth and take for granted everyone else — the functionaries who clean the rooms, the caretakers of the ill or dying or the gig-workers doing three jobs to make ends meet. That there are still places in this country where $7.25 is still the minimum wage and is still a defining characteristic of the divide between red and blue states.
It is easier to understand why workers in right-to-work states distrust the federal government. These workers who distrust the “elites” are kept ill-informed and continually keep getting tricked into voting for a man or a party and movement that protects corruption, greed and the elites at their expense. This is where the propaganda of the far-right Fox News and other libertarian ideologies promote their agendas and have completely warped the national debate.
This is where the labor movement on the left and the far right grievance politics of MAGA intersect. Both come from a common complaint but place blame on different culprits. This can only be resolved with some restorative economic justice and a reinvestment in actually doing something to make America great again and not just spouting off about it at rallies or on social media.
The kind of “strong man” rhetoric of Trumpmatic is straight out of the playbook of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy. And that same game plan is being used to challenge or destroy democratic institutions on every continent today including here at home. The Orange guy isn’t some genius media celebrity but a poor imitation, only made to look better because of his grievous political rhetoric pretending to be the voice for the common man.
Some white Christian nationalists believe him to be the second coming of Christ — the one who is going to “save this nation from non-Christians.” His idiot followers in Congress can’t even figure out how to govern. Just look at who they chose to be the Speaker of the House. People who don’t believe in government should not be in government!
And yet there’s anomalies even in some of the local unions, where some few higher paid workers like at the ILWU end up being MAGA supporters … For what? To protect themselves from higher taxes because their incomes put them in a higher tax bracket? Sure. Nobody “enjoys” paying taxes. And yes, it is aggravating that so much of what we pay goes to supporting the endless wars and not schools and infrastructure at home but that’s the reason why we need better government and better elected representatives — not corruptible flunkies, liars and cheats or Q-Anon shamans.
The minority progressive caucus in our government are the only ones who seem to grasp the left-right intersection — people like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who are the perfect foil against the MAGA nuts. People who will take on the far-right libertarians on their own turf and expose them for what they are: hypocrites at best, and corrupt demagogues and neo-fascists at worst.