But like Rahm Emmanuel, Pelosi and Schumer shmooze billionaires for DNC donations.
The core issue that Progressives and many Americans agree with is a major overhaul on campaign finance laws and term limits to major political positions. We suffer because the elites and billionaires don't want any policy or laws that will hurt their profit margins. We saw that with the Koch Bros. and climate change, Verizon and Net Neutrality, and we saw it with Humana and Aetna with Medicare for All or a public option. In short, abolish PAC money and corporate lobbying and push for an individual donor system and add term limits to the Senate.
Yeah. Campaign finance reform is key. I'm not so sure about term limits. We have that in California and while I see the upside, there is also a pretty significant downside. As long as corporations are "people" with free speech rights, we're in trouble. Getting an amendment through is harder than getting an adequate infrastructure and Covid relief bill through a McConnell controlled senate.
Let me be frank, organized labor is losing to organized corporate America. When Scalia died, they were right on the verge of banning agency fees. This essentially means that unions are required to represent non-union employees, but that non-union employees don't have to pay for the expenses needed to represent them (Janus v AFSCME). That delayed it, but because of McConnell, the SCOTUS ruled on it in 2018.
Let me also point out what may be an unpopular opinion. The leadership of organized labor are not always the most progressive people in the room and the focus of their agenda is often much too narrow. There are those who blindly kowtow to the Democratic Party no matter what and are afraid to endorse more progressive candidates during primaries because they are afraid of pissing off the establishment of the democratic party. There are some unions where this isn't the case. In particular, my union CWA and another union our local considered affiliating with when we were an independent, IUE are relatively progressive (IUE was even more so at that time). In fact, they strongly supported the civil right movement and have generally been in the forefront when it comes to supporting progressive policy. Those to unions have since affiliated and the IUE is the manufacturing arm of CWA. I could go on about the visionary behind CWAs organizing, Larry Cohen, but I'm getting a little far afield as it is.
My point is that many, many unions are not friends of the working class and I'll just leave it at that. Because of all of the above, labor is at a distinct disadvantage and the only way I see out of this is building a progressive movement without the Dems losing complete control because labor isn't going to win overnight. A right wing 3rd party presents both opportunities and dangers. My concern is that the democratic establishment "could" see progressivism as the bigger threat and either join the right rather than the left or, at least, not fully join with progressives in a partnership.
We're in a very tricky situation.
and wrt Pelosi and Schumer, it’s not just you.
