The Moneyed Interests Behind the Attack on Democracy Are Also Driving the Assault on Workers in the Midst of the Pandemic
...saving unfettered capitalism from too much democracy is the name of the game.
By Jim Miller
While many across the country have been rightfully horrified by the Republican Party’s continued embrace of offensive wingnuts in Congress such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, it’s important that we not forget who put the likes of Ms. Greene into power and helped fuel the fire of the insurrection. As I noted in my column on the coup attempt in the Capitol, behind the band of frenzied fascists and their Congressional enablers were the same old likely suspects.
In the wake of the Capitol assault Mother Jones laid it all out:
Dozens of major companies, from Amazon to Walmart, have rushed to distance themselves from President Donald Trump following last week’s mob attack on Capitol Hill. Some have done the same with other GOP politicians who behaved despicably by parroting the president’s election fraud lies, and then officially (and opportunistically) taking steps to overturn the results of an overwhelmingly fair and democratic presidential election.
The companies in question appear to have concluded that supporting a twice-impeached president and his minions is not the greatest look for their brands. Most have, at least temporarily, halted political giving to the so-called “Coup Caucus.” But it was the financial support of those same Republicans by corporations and dozens of individual billionaires that enabled this mess in the first place.
And while much has been made of the subsequent corporate mea culpas, it would be unwise to not remember that money speaks louder than words in Washington as Open Secrets has thoroughly documented. The same crew who couldn’t find it in their hearts to condemn Greene’s insanity got big bucks from major industry sources:
[T]hey also took in a collective $16.4 million and $9.9 million from the real estate and securities and investment industries, respectively. Registered lobbyists chipped in another $4.8 million, while affiliates of pharmaceutical companies added $4.5 million. The objectors also received $9.3 million from donors in the oil and gas industry, which is largely supportive of GOP candidates.
It would be awful enough if the bad behavior of our corporate masters stopped at funding anti-democratic Congresspeople, but it doesn’t. Indeed, after a brief cameo as lovers of our “frontline heroes,” corporate America has seamlessly gotten back in the game of screwing their workers.
As has been widely reported, Amazon launched a furiously anti-union campaign against its own warehouse workers for having the temerity to try to organize a union in the midst of the pandemic. The Washington Post headline says it all: “Amazon’s anti-union blitz stalks Alabama warehouse workers everywhere, even the bathroom.”
Here in California, the pivot away from honoring frontline heroes to eliminating their jobs if they have to pay them too much was brutally abrupt after the Long Beach City Council passed an ordinance mandating “hero pay”.
Long Beach residents who might have been naïve enough to appreciate their local grocery workers and cheer their well-earned pay raise learned that, “Kroger Co. announced Monday it is closing two of its Long Beach grocery stores in response to the city’s recently adopted mandate requiring local grocers to pay employees an extra $4 per hour in `hero pay.’”
The list goes on and on, from egregious health violations at meat packing plants to the shameless exploitation of gig workers to the relentless squeezing of worker pay while the super-rich raked in record profits larger than some state budgets.
Thus, it makes perfect sense that it was the $15 minimum wage that Republicans immediately focused on with laser precision as the big thing they had to strip from Biden’s relief package despite its overwhelming popularity with the public.
They know who they really work for, and it’s not American workers.
Thus, as we watch and cheer the battle in D.C. to finally bring some relief to ordinary Americans and attempt to raise up the status of workers just a little, expect the same folks who funded the assault on democracy to continue bankrolling the politicians who enable their ongoing assault on American workers. The fact is, the two go hand in hand.
If Biden and the Democrats continue to push the issue as they should, the economic elite will learn to love the lunatic fringe all over again.
Crazy rightwing fanatics in Congress may be embarrassing, but they are also necessary tools of the corporate elite. These elites don’t really care that much about democracy or whether most people can make a living wage, have good healthcare, or even stay housed.
For the billionaires and corporate interests who funded those who sought to undermine our electoral process, saving unfettered capitalism from too much democracy is the name of the game.
So, what’s the answer to this problem? Robert Reich nailed it in his column in the Guardian Sunday where he addresses how we can get out of the “monstrous predicament” left in the wake of Trump. Reich argues that one of the key strategies available to the Democrats to subvert the hold of the Trumpian right is to steal part of their base by providing real economic opportunity to blunt the appeal of the revanchist culture war:
White working-class voters without college degrees who now comprise a large portion of its base need good jobs and better futures. Many are understandably angry after being left behind in vast enclaves of unemployment and despair. They should not have to depend on Trump’s fact-free fanaticism in order to feel visible and respected.
A jobs program on the scale necessary to bring many of them around will be expensive but worth the cost, especially when democracy hangs in the balance.
Big business, which used to have a home in the GOP, will need a third party. Democrats should not try to court them; the Democratic party should aim to represent the interests of the bottom 90%.
In essence, Biden and the Democrats need to ignore the neoliberal voices in their ranks and continue to boldly provide tangible benefits for working people.
That means a big relief package, an equally bold recovery package, and supporting policies like the PRO Act which would reinvigorate union organizing. And that should just be the start of a dramatically different direction for the national Democratic party.
Counting on the good will of Wall Street and the corporate sector to check the current Republican embrace of authoritarianism is a fool’s errand. What is encouraging about the present moment is that it seems clear that the Biden administration and Congressional leaders may actually get that it’s time to abandon such delusions.
It’s up to those in the progressive base to keep pushing them hard in this direction and not settle for a return to “normal” otherwise known as the feckless approach that guided the turn toward neoliberalism and got us into this perilous situation in the first place.
Learning the lessons of the Obama administration just might mean that instead of waiting for Republicans and the billionaire class to meet you in the middle, you focus on the needs of ordinary Americans first.
Time to get back to being the party of the people.