A bunch of Third Way wankers did a tour of flyover country and were saddened by all the negativity. For some reason, I decided to skim the article about their trip, and I liked where these unions guys were coming from:
At the Labor Temple Lounge in Eau Claire, nine gruff, tough-looking union men sat around a table. One had the acronym of his guild, the Laborers International Union of North America, tattooed on a bulging bicep. The men pinned the blame for most of their problems squarely on Republicans, from Trump to Governor Scott Walker. School funding, the minimum wage, college debt, income inequality, gerrymandering, health care, union rights: It was all, in their view, the GOP’s fault. A member of the bricklayers’ union lamented Walker’s cuts to public services: “If we can’t help each other,” he said, “what are we, a pack of wolves—we eat the weakest one? It’s shameful.”
But their negativity toward Republicans didn’t translate to rosy feelings for the Democrats, who, they said, too frequently ignored working-class people. And some of the blame, they said, fell on their fellow workers, many of whom supported Republicans against their own interests. “The membership”—the union rank-and-file—“voted for these Republicans because of them damn guns,” a Laborers Union official said. “You cannot push it out of their head. A lot of ‘em loved it when Walker kicked our ass.”
This made the Third Wayers sad:
Debriefing after this particular group, the Third Way listeners said they found the union men demoralizing. “I feel like they can’t see their way out,” Hale said.
“They were very negative,” Paul Neaville, another researcher, concurred.
They were so fixated on blaming Republicans, Hale fretted. “It was very us-and-them.”
Here’s the thing though: those union guys are fucking right. If the right-wing really is out to fuck you, and they are, you should hate them and see it as us-and-them.
Doesn’t reality count for anything with centrists?