It’s Déjà Vu in 2022 but Workers’ Struggles Show the Way Forward

It’s déjà vu all over again. Welcome to 2022, a few days after the one-year anniversary of the insurrection in the Capitol that many thought would mark the disgraceful end of the Trump era.  Instead, 40 percent of the country still believe the big lie that the election was stolen and would support a coup.  

Remember all those corporations who a chorus of media pundits assured us would stand up for democratic norms and stop supporting lawmakers who sought to undermine our democracy?  Predictably, they have returned to business as usual and are pouring money back into the coffers of the American right.    

And what of the twin challenges of climate change and the pandemic?  In his Los Angeles Times “Boiling Point” newsletter, Sammy Roth sums up our moment well:  

• I wish I could tell you that 2022 will bring anything much different, but I doubt it. Even with record-breaking snowfall this month in parts of California — which may not bring the drought to an end but should at least alleviate it — I’m expecting next year’s top stories to look a lot like this year’s. Prepare for deadly heat waves, brutal wildfires and occasional COVID-19 surges, accompanied by a surge of lies that will make your blood boil with disbelief but will nonetheless be believed by a great many Americans.

Roth then wisely observes that climate change and the pandemic are long stories that won’t likely be addressed with sudden transformations and counsels his readers to “find joy in the people and experiences that make life worth living,” which is surely a good psychological survival strategy for those of us struggling in various arenas to forge a better future in the face of an onslaught of grim news and formidable obstacles.  

But after we take care of ourselves, we’ll need to keep fighting and push back against the forces that seek to kill solidarity and extinguish hope.  

As Bernie Sanders points out in his New Year’s Resolution column in The Guardian, 

• “The greatest weapon our opponents have is not just their unlimited wealth and power. It is their ability to create a culture that makes us feel weak and hopeless and diminishes the strength of human solidarity.”  

This murder of solidarity is one of the key aspects that the power elite has employed over the last several decades to undermine not just the labor movement, but all other aspects of public life that flow from the premise that an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us whether that be a lack of health care, adequate education, equal opportunity, affordable housing, a sustainable environment, or a real voice in the political arena.  

When we lose faith in the idea that we are all better when we rise together, then we are vulnerable to the forces of division that seek to pit us against one another in the service of justifying and maintaining our deeply inequitable social relations.    

Thus, Sanders is right to point not to any heroism on the part of our leaders but to the workers’ struggles of the past year as the most hopeful sign in an American political landscape littered with daunting threats. They are instructive because they show that millions of ordinary Americans still understand where real power lies, are collectively challenging it, and winning.  

The truth is that despite the disturbing number of angry, deluded right wingers, there are still more Americans who want more, not less democracy, starting in the workplace.  That impulse should be what guides us forward, against all odds, in these difficult times.