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Democrats must return to values

The U.S. Supreme Court announced it was unconcerned with workers and workplace safety by its recent decision striking down Biden’s business vaccine mandate. Surely, the anti-worker decision by a court stacked with 6 conservatives against 3 liberals came as no surprise. The conservative judges simply did a job they were appointed to do, namely suppress labor. Conservatives are delighted that this gang is not only loyal to the cause but is young enough to constitute a majority for years.

The conservative gang has other assignments and one of them, putting females in their place, will soon be fulfilled. After this court strikes down Roe v. Wade, women will have to come to grips with a new reality: You are baby machines, and your rights may be subordinated to those of a fertilized egg.

Liberals lament that Republicans were so successful in stacking the court with conservative hacks, but we allowed it to happen. The political writer Thomas Frank opines that Democrats lost power because the party over the last half century abandoned organized labor. During that time membership in labor unions dwindled from a high of 35% of the private labor force to the present rate of 6% mainly because Republicans gained control of state houses, as they did in West Virginia, and were able to pass union-crushing “Right to Work” legislation.

The common working person thus ignored by Democrats, gradually drifted to the Republican party, and acquiesced in the enactment of self-defeating laws. This is evidenced by the fact that a large portion of Trump supporters are average working people. The January 6 horde that attempted to overthrow the government was not composed of minorities, the unemployed or other down-trodden people. 85% of those seditionists were gainfully employed, average working people who are ordinarily the most loyal, patriotic Americans.

Working class people support issues like work-place safety and women’s rights. Yet here they are in a political party that is diametrically opposed to their interests, and they are there because the Democratic Party did not value them. It did not fight to protect union membership, minimum wage, and employee benefits. It did not strive to make the American worker the highest compensated, most secure worker on the planet.

The writing is on the wall. Either the Democratic Party returns to its Rooseveltian values and reclaims the working class, or this country descends into a right-wing autocracy.

Patrick Radcliff

Marietta

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