A Time For Labor, For Us

American workers are for the first time in decades reestablishing their power.

Say what you will about the Bernie Sanders movement during the Democratic Primary in 2015 and ’16 and for a short time in 2019 and ’20, and feel how you want about Donald Trump’s four-year term as President. That isn’t really what this blog is about. It is more an acknowledgement that those voices brought a lot of people out of the woodwork and woke them up to the American political system. More than anything the reason those two individuals garnered so much popularity had less to do with their politics and more that they were anti-establishment.

On top of some of the ideas — such as socialized healthcare and free college, to name two — that drew the moniker “Crazy Bernie” from Trump himself and drew the ire of the Democratic Party apparatus as a whole, Bernie Sanders’s core message was that regular people, or “workers,” as it were, were and have been getting a bad deal. He wanted to orchestrate an FDR-style rainbow coalition that brought workers together. Ginning up union participation was going to be the future of America.

We will never forget that the United States economy was never stronger than when the billionaire class had a marginal tax rate around 90 percent — around 1960 — which is almost unfathomable in modern times. The middle class was a thing back then; it existed. CEO’s were doing exceptionally well, as they always have, but households were able to survive on a single income.

Such economic comfort for the middle class led to relative labor peace for the next couple decades. Medicare, arguably America’s most popular social program, went into effect during Richard Nixon’s Presidency. He was a Republican.

When Ronald Reagan arrived in Office in 1980 he and his capitalist buddies finally cashed in on the strong social net and labor peace of the previous 20 years. He cut the corporate tax rate from north of 70% to 27%; he gutted unions; and there has been a direct correlation between just how rich the rich have become and just how poor the poor have gotten ever since.

The Democratic Party had several chances to change course and grab back the power, but they changed their tune over the years because they were captured by the capitalists as well. Bill Clinton became President in 1992 his signature policy that everyone remembers him for was passing NAFTA — the North American Free Trade Agreement — that shipped off some of the best union jobs in the country overseas to places like China and Taiwan and other Southeast Asian countries, who to this day still manufacture so many of the things we buy and wear.

George W. Bush continued these policies, but what he is remembered most for — besides 9/11 and the War in Iraq — is the bank crash of 2007 and 2008 that saw something like $20 trillion in household wealth — houses, 401K’s, retirement funds of ordinary workers — vanish overnight. Barack Obama campaigned on prosecuting the bankers who crashed the United States economy, but once he made his way into the White House he continued Bush’s bailout policies, and it was taxpayers like you and I who paid for the banks that were Too Big To Fail to stay afloat.

As if it needed to be said, it didn’t matter which party had power. Both operated on the same terms. Essentially: welfare for the corporations, capitalism for the rest of us. Republicans like to pretend that everything wrong with the country is due to the Democrats, and Democrats like to pretend that everything wrong with the country is due to the Republicans. The reality is they all play for the same team, and that team happens to be the billionaires, or, in other words, the people who fund their campaigns.

The main positives from the Donald Trump presidency were that (a) people began paying more attention and (b) once COVID happened people saw where all the money was going. Lots of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching ensued because ordinary workers were getting like $600 per week in unemployment benefits, and once work resumed many of them realized that they were making more in unemployment than they were at whatever low-skilled jobs they had. So they stayed home, naturally.

In the meantime, corporations were receiving many millions and in some cases, such as Elon Musk with Tesla, billions of dollars worth of subsidies from the American government. It should be no surprise that Musk himself was opposed to workers getting their measly sum, even though he was the beneficiary and saw his wealth grow to a point where he blew Jeff Bezos out of the fucking water to become the richest man in the world.

The labor market began to tighten up, however, and this created another problem for the corporations. With so few workers available to fill the spots, companies such as McDonalds began to advertise that their starting wage was $15 an hour. When that didn’t attract enough people it went up to $16, then $17, then $18. And this was always kind of the idea of lefty economics, that corporations would actually have to start competing for the labor.

I say all of this as a minor history lesson, because currently the labor is realizing just how much power it truly has. UPS, fearing a strike, recently struck a bargain with the Teamsters on a new labor deal; since May 2nd the Writer’s Guild of America has been on strike for a better deal; and over the last two years more than 250 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize.

The struggle continues, of course, but the last time I wrote about labor — not including professional sports — was roughly five years ago when teachers all around the country went on strike. With the exception of only Oklahoma, I want to say, every state was victorious. I said it then, and I’ll say it again now, but when workers come together, they win.

This is virtually the only thing that truly makes me proud to be an American, that gives me hope for the future. Some people get that feeling when they see the United States dropping bombs on poor countries in the middle east, others get it when the National Anthem plays or when they see an American flag. I get it when people come together to accomplish something for themselves and for future generations.

Aside from labor politics, one of my main preoccupations for a time was the Russian Revolution. It is nothing but a minor blip in history at this point; some find it in retrospect to have been too violent, or too this or too that. But I — and in turn, you — should never forget that its failure historically was neither in planning nor in practice. It was in support, or lack of support, from Europe and the United States.

Leon Trotsky dreamed of an International Worker’s Party, one where worker solidarity would encircle the globe. Had Russia at the time of a hundred years ago had the backing of American workers and French and German and Canadian workers, it may very well have stood a chance. But that is not how it worked out. America was in the middle of its Roaring 20’s and more than a decade away from its own Great Depression — which is when unions became a thing, where Social Security became a thing, where FDR ended up getting elected for a third term and America had to invent rules where a President could only sit for two terms because FDR was so popular among workers — and by then it was too late for Russia.

Trotsky wrote in his book The Permanent Revolution that his vision of an International Worker’s Party would be doomed for perpetual failure until the United States — whom he conveyed a romanticism for — took the lead. Prescient as Trotsky ultimately proved to be, I can’t help but agree with him. As someone who doubts strongly and with sincerity the capabilities of Americans ever agreeing on anything, I am extremely pessimistic that we will ever get there.

But then I also oftentimes take matters to their logical conclusion, and I can’t help but think that the landscape of the country I live in can lead us anywhere else. The billionaire class has had a helluva run over the last 40 years since Ronald Reagan took over. It has seen their compensation rise to untenable levels and it has seen the working class be as poor as they have ever been and it has completely hollowed out the middle class. It is only when workers feel as desperate as they feel right now, at this specific point in history, that gives them reason to hold up picket signs in the streets.

The irony to it all is that the beneficiaries of the FDR policies, those who procured so much wealth during the post-Depression days, that accumulated their Social Security and got their Medicare and retired with dignity, mostly became conservatives in their latter years. Because by the time they got old, they had something to lose. They forgot that it was lefty economics that got them where they were, not tax breaks for the rich.

But those dinosaurs of dying off. The world as we know it will be inherited by people like me, and you, who are young enough to know of nothing beyond war, and income inequality, and the reality that there’s a reason why the saying “the rich get richer” became so prevalent. The battle in 2023 and beyond will never be red versus blue, left versus right, liberal versus conservative, white versus black or any other color. It is and always has been those at the top against everyone else. We can play the identity game and appreciate and help our brothers and sisters who come from different backgrounds and ethnicities, who might not share our god or religion, but we will never forget this struggle of ours. It is us versus them. But there are many more of us. They do not want to get in a fight with us. When we fight, we win.