An old crook once told me a story about a house on the corner of his street, and how his grandfather told him never ever to play with the kids who lived there. He didn’t know why at the time, but later he learned that those kids also had grandparents, and those grandparents, sometime decades before, had crossed a picket line during a labor strike. Those kids were shunned because their grandparents, all those years before, decided to become scabs.
This kind of response to disunity used to be common practice among working people – betray us, and we will not forget. Cross a picket line, and your grandkids will feel the betrayal.
Sadly, the days when labor had that kind of power are long gone. Union density has dropped from near 40% in my youth to less than 6% today, and half of that 6% voted for Trump, the worst president for working people in our nation’s history. Sure, it’s still cool to be pro-union and all, but labor no longer has the ability to unite working people like it once did, and the billionaire class knows it. And with AI about to wipe out nearly all of what remains of organized labor as its leaders duck and cover just to make it to retirement, we are now faced with a new dilemma: Labor can no longer unite us, so how do we bring working people together?
I think we need new scabs. And given the massive number of Americans who, in the past decade or so have simply abandoned their working neighbors, we have lots of options. All of us know people who jumped on the Trump Train on day one and helped him turn America into the dystopian political nightmare it has become of late. And while some jumped off early, some late, and some not at all, each is responsible for the state of working people in America today, as they are the ones who gave power to the villains who currently hold the reins and control nearly all of America’s wealth. Some fell for the promises, some just wanted permission to hate openly, and some were drawn in by the twisted manosphere nonsense that has poisoned an entire generation of American men and boys. Some were and still are false Christians. But whatever their reasons, their offenses are the same as those of the scabs of old. They betrayed us to enrich themselves, and this time around, we can’t just let it go.
In my lifetime, American politics has been little more than a cycle of self-defeat. We vote Republican, and then Republicans destroy the economy. Then we vote for Democrats who start fixing things, but the fix takes time and we have no patience, so Republicans run on the disfunction they created and gain power again, only to once again send the economy into recession and send the American voters back to Democrats, only to see the voters abandon them once again when the problems don’t instantly get better. Rinse and repeat. From Reagan to Bush One, Clinton to Bush Two, Obama to Trump, then Biden and back to Trump. All because we no longer understand solidarity or truly care about anyone but ourselves or about any moment except the present one.
To break this cycle, we need two things – patience and solidarity, two things Americans have lacked in recent years. We’re about to absolutely blow the doors off the next election and secure real power for working people, but can we keep it? History says we can’t. History says we’ll elect democrats and then immediately turn on them when the world doesn’t instantly right itself. This time around, we need the grit to stay the course, and we need to perceive the very real threat that still lives among us and clearly understand how it will take back power if we fall into our old habits yet again.
Trumpism is dying, but it isn’t dead, and if we allow those who put us here to simply re-enter polite society – if we tolerate their betrayal – then they will do again what they always do, and we will end up right back in the right-wing cesspool where we currently reside. We need to dig in, see not only the current threat but the one on the horizon, and we need to develop both the grit and the patience to allow real change to happen. And I’m afraid we’re going to have to kick some folks out from under the big tent when we do it. I take no pleasure in saying this, but it’s time to shun some people, and it’s time to make their grandkids feel it.
It ain’t nice, but it is certainly necessary, because working families are on the brink, and our next “rinse and repeat” moment will be our last.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.