Dems’ Centrists scold Progressives

 

Bill Knight column for 11-16, 17 or 18, 2020

 If a pastor announced that annual fundraising would depend exclusively on memorials from late members of the congregation and after contributions fell short he blasted the lack of weekly donations from current churchgoers, the minister would be a laughing stock.

But that essentially happened hours after the election, when Democratic centrists picked a fight with progressives who’d dutifully helped the moderate Joe Biden’s presidential run. The fight is an illogical, unnecessary spat accusing colleagues of complicity in GOP “socialism” attacks and failing to be moderate enough to win more. Such antics about being safe centrists and falling victim to dishonest attack ads spark memories of President Harry S Truman’s defense of the heart of Democratic Party principles.

Truman – an anti-Communist liberal who defeated fellow ex-FDR Vice President and progressive Henry A. Wallace for the White House in 1948 – in May 1952 said, “The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.”

Five months later, Truman said, “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”

However, in a three-hour post-election tantrum, moderates including Congresswomen Cheri Bustos of Illinois (chair of the Democratic Congress Campaign Committee) and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia blasted progressives, blamed polling, and generally avoided responsibility for not winning more House seats.

Bustos – who as DCCC chair in 2018 blacklisted consultants who worked for progressive candidates – this month barely beat relatively inexperienced Republican Esther Joy King, indicating her claim that she knew how to win in areas that voted for Trump was exaggerated. Bustos said she won’t seek the DCCC chair again.

Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s good more for learning than blaming. And these vocal House centrists apparently are avoiding key lessons, like progressive ideas are pretty popular. Polls show 49% of swing-district voters back a Green New Deal, 53% support Medicare For All and 57% support Black Lives Matter – all with little enthusiasm from more conservative Democratic leaders.

Progressive U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, re-elected in New York, said, “Not a single member of Congress that I’m aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding police,” instead uniting behind Biden. Plus, the House held almost three-fourths of Trump-carried districts they took in 2018, assembling a coalition of young, black, women and working-class people in Arizona, Detroit, Georgia, Philadelphia, etc.

Ocasio-Cortez suggested inferior online strategies and face-to-face organizing were factors, plus Democratic National Committee-picked candidates lacking such savvy or needed skills.

“All five of the vulnerable or swing-district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory,” she told the New York Times. “Every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.”

Progressive Democrats including Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley had defeated DCCC candidates, AOC reminded.

“If you are the DCCC, and you’re hemorrhaging incumbent candidates to progressive insurgents, you would think that you may want to use some of those [progressive consultant] firms,” she said. “Instead, [they] banned them.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders scoffed at the criticism, too. He said that about 100 candidates ran on a platform calling for Medicare For All and none lost, and he responded to Spanberger and others that “maybe the problem is that the working class of this country did not perceive that you were prepared to stand up and fight for them.”

            In an open letter, six Illinois officials involved with United Working Families said, “We voted for Joe Biden for president in the general election because we choose survival. We defeated neofascism at the ballot box so that we could survive to fight neoliberalism.”

And Chicago consultant Peter Cunningham, who served in the Obama administration, warned whiners and defended Democrats’ Big Tent of ideas, writing, “Progressive leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren didn’t translate beyond their base, but they softened the ground for big, bold policies.

“Calm down, Democrats,” he added. “Lighten up on the finger-pointing and policy debates between the moderate and progressive wings of the party.”

Everyday union members were key to Biden win

 

Bill Knight column for 11-12, 13 or 14, 2020

 The nation is used to hearing labor’s demands, which are supported by most Americans. According to a survey of union members conducted by the AFL-CIO, 95% of union voters want workers’ rights protected – that includes 93% of union members who cast ballots for Trump.

Workers and the public see dignity in work and want the right to organize and bargain collectively, fair wages and workplace safety, a voice on the job and secure retirement.

Election 2020 benefited from pro-Biden and anti-Trump figures as varied as Cindy McCain and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Stacey Abrams and Pete Buttigieg, columnist George Will and author Cornell West, women, young people and African Americans, plus a host of scientists, prosecutors, military and national-security leaders and disaffected Republican lawmakers.

A key part of the united front was organized labor.

The AFL-CIO’s post-Nov. 3 survey shows 58% of unionists voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Union members favored the Democratic ticket by 21 points, compared to the overall vote, which shows the electorate backed Biden/Harris by 3 points.

Many others helped, of course, some with greater fanfare. The Lincoln Project of anti-Trump Republicans got considerable attention for its creative political ads and social-media presence, but they didn’t budge much of Trump’s base. Trump’s popular-vote count increased 7 million from 2016.

On the other hand, labor had “boots on the ground,” getting out the vote in the key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, helping to restoring the Blue Wall and contributing to the highest turnout in decades.

UNITE HERE, the hospitality union, alone had phone bankers make 10 million calls and sent 1,700 canvassers to knock on 3 million doors in Arizona, Nevada, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

“This is what we do as a union – we organize,” said Nicole Hunt, President of UNITE HERE Local 634 in Philadelphia, “They had lost hope in the system so they did not vote last election, and they may not have this year either. But we went to them to help them find their voice.”

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking two days after the election and two days before Biden was declared the future 46^th U.S. President, commented, “Joe Biden’s firewall was union-made.”

And so far, every vote’s counted, whether early, mail-in or in-person ballots. In our country, voters decide elections, not candidates, judges, lawmakers or “faithless” Electoral College electors who betray their states voters.

Further, whether supporters of Biden or Trump, AFL-CIO members – progressive, moderate or conservative – 78% believe candidates should recognize the results, accept the outcome and cooperate in a peaceful transition of power.

“Let me tell you about what happened in Detroit,” Trumka said. “On Tuesday night, a chaotic scene erupted outside the vote tally room at the TCF Center. Protesters showed up. They harassed and intimidated nonpartisan volunteers who were counting ballots. They screamed ‘stop the votes’ and ‘stop the counts.’ The Michigan AFL-CIO put out an email Wednesday at 3 a.m. asking members to show up and protect our democracy. The outpouring of support was incredible. Union members showed up, peacefully defused the tension, and the count proceeded.

“That is who we are,” he continued. “That is what we stand for. That is what we are prepared to do.

“I have a message for anyone who would seek to prevent our votes from being counted,” Trumka added, “to prevent the electors we choose from being seated, to prevent the duly elected president and vice president from being inaugurated on January 20, 2021: We will not let you take our democracy away from us.”

The coming weeks, maybe months, may be as tough as 2020, when the nation lost jobs, livelihoods and lives to the pandemic.

However, it must be remembered that throughout the COVID-19 crisis, everyday workers – many of them union members – became essential and delivered for the country, from healing the sick, continuing government services, and moving people and products to teaching kids and serving consumers buying food, medicine and more.

So, we recognize difficulties ahead and concede that reform won’t be easy. It will be hard work.

We’re used to it.

Veterans’ jobs ought to be protected

 

Bill Knight column for 11-9, 10 or 11, 2020

 On Veterans Day this week, Americans will show our appreciation for fellow citizens serving in the military, either in solemn remembrances or livelier, red-white-and-blue celebrations.

Meanwhile, millions of vets working for municipalities, townships, counties and states as police and firefighters, clerks and inspectors, public-health personnel and so on may lose their jobs in the next few months.

Veterans make up almost 7% of all state and local government workers, and – like individuals and businesses – those units of government are sustaining dramatic financial losses.

“More than one million veterans –13.2% of all veterans – work for state and local governments and could be severely impacted by the Senate’s failure to provide timely federal aid,” reported John Schmitt and Naomi Walker of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “Because state and local governments are extremely restricted in how they can borrow, congressional authorization for state and local fiscal support is vital to prevent deep cuts in health care and education.”

The House of Representatives on May 15 approved the 1,800-page Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, which provided financial assistance to state and local governments, among other aid, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t let the Senate even consider the measure. Instead, Senate Republicans months later introduced the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act, which includes protecting business from liability stemming from workers infected by COVID-19 on the job but overlooks the needs of local and state governments.

“This intentional oversight threatens vital public services just when they are needed most, and could result in an additional 5.3 million public- and private-sector service workers losing their jobs by the end of 2021,” according to EPI’s analysis.

In a dramatic effort to compromise, the House in September introduced a revised pandemic relief bill that continues its attempt to shore up cash-strapped state and local government budgets by making the proposal more modest than the nearly $1 trillion sum contained in the original bill, according to StateScoop.com.

The new version of the HEROES Act includes $436 billion in financial support to state, local, tribal and territorial governments, many of which have had to begin making steep budget cuts and furloughing employees after months of shutdowns caused by the coronavirus severely slashed tax revenues.

Data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2017-2018 shows that there are 1,133,600 employees of state and local government – and more than 6.6% of them are veterans. That compares to 5.3% in the private sector and 6.1% of the labor force overall.

In Illinois – the Number-8 state in the country for veterans working in government – 40,500 vets face their jobs in jeopardy.

If the Senate fails to provide necessary aid to state and local governments, “there is no telling what cuts will have to be made down the line,” said Dawn Bundick, an AFSCME investigator for the Alaska Department of Corporations and a U.S. Navy Reserve vet. “I ask the Senate to take a stand for America’s communities and for the millions of veterans who work in the public service and depend on public services to help make ends meet.”

Bundick spoke along with William Attig of the United Association of plumbers and pipefitters (UA), director of the AFL-CIO’s Union Veterans Council, and Jacksonville, Fla., fire and rescue service technician Chris Woloscuk, a U.S. Air Force vet and also an AFSCME member – all of whom seemed to ask a simple question: Will the Senate show respect – or concern – for veterans?

Beyond Capitol Hill, will the American Legion or VFW or everyday citizens lobby McConnell and his cohorts?

Even in the midst of the pandemic – a worsening crisis, to be sure – the nation (and the Senate) should put its money where its mouths are, demonstrating Americans’ gratitude beyond mere recognition of a holiday, maybe a march or memorial ceremony, or patriotic speeches and easy displays of U.S. flags.