To address your first 3 paragraphs…you’re acting like all I care about is O’Brien’s non endorsement. I guess I’ll spell out the thing I’ve said in every single comment on this thread: Not endorsing democrats = fine. Not endorsing democrats + speaking at the RNC and NOT directly calling them out on their bs = fucking stupid. You keep treating the non-endorsement like it’s in a vacuum. And you can disagree with my math, but if you continue to pretend that this isn’t what I’m saying, then you’re just straw-manning me.

Rust belt unions are less concerned with expanding union protections than they are concerned with their industry going bankrupt. A coal mining union isn’t concerned with having better legal protection for going on strike, they’re concerned that the entire coal industry is getting replaced elsewhere by renewables and wont have anyone to negotiate with.

Yes, it’s understandable that workers feel like they won’t survive if their industry dies…but in the specific case of coal, the solution isn’t to bolster that industry. Much of the solution is to create new jobs in growing industries that coal workers could transfer into, and to set guarantees that those new jobs aren’t exploitative. Democrats have fought, with real action, to do both the former, and the latter (I won’t source the latter again, read any of my pro-union sources).

I already said that the PRO act is an excellent bill, and that dems should be campaigning on it,

Yes, and not only do they campaign on it - they consistently vote in favor of it. But go on.

but that’s simply not why they’re losing union support in the rust belt. Millions of americans are afraid that they’re going to loose their livelihoods to changing economic priorities, and democrats are allergic to taking any action that addresses that fundamental apprehension because they’re terrified of being called socialist.

Yes, I get their fear. And that’s why the liberal solution to those fears is making it easier to switch jobs and to provide better childcare, healthcare, housing, food, unemployment, all on top of pro-worker reform…all LEFT-LEANING policies that the modern GOP will NEVER ENDORSE.

It sounds like you’re just trying to explain what many workers see as the solution. They think the tried-and-true solution is to bolster their industries, instead of all the stuff I just listed. But that’s a conservative solution to the problem.

It sounds like you want the democrats to have liberal policies in general, which is what I want too. But what, in your head, does O’Brien want? If he wants conservative industry-first policies, then AOC isn’t punching left at the guy, end of story. And if he actually wants liberal, boosting-quality-of-life-policies (the kinds of policies I want and you seem to want), then he’s an idiot or a coward, or both, for not getting mad at the modern GOP for spinning all of that negatively as socialism.

Because the democrats haven’t proposed anything that actually addresses their concerns, and they’re frustrated that the things democrats have proposed are targeted in other places of the economy and callously ignores their material interests. They’re convinced that democrats will never solve their problems - but the GOP is promising to preserve their industries by passing tarrifs, removing environmental protections, stopping the growth of renewables and tech that threaten to put them out of business…And those are simple, believable solutions to their problems. You and I understand that those are problematic in a million different ways, but from their perspective everyone else seems to be fucking over everyone else to get their bag, so why not them? Democrats simply don’t have a response to that, especially when they’re insistent on stopping short of breaking with neoliberal economic policy.

You’re not addressing the subtlety that while they feel democrats aren’t proposing good solutions, and while you seem to feel democrats aren’t proposing good solutions…your solutions and their solutions are different. You’ve said you want more of the kinds of solutions they’d call “radical socialism”. (I want those solutions too, but imo Democrats are already working on it, they just have an uphill battle against conservatives.) (And sure, many conservative workers probably just don’t realize that they’d love those solutions, too, but in the meantime they’re duped into supporting the GOP and their worse, pro-some-industries, anti-other-industries solution.) Are you under the impression that the reason O’Brien isn’t capitulating to democrats is they’re not embracing those solutions? Do you think that when O’Brien cozies to the GOP, that he’s secretly trying to get the GOP on board with those solutions? When there’s negative evidence of that?

I’m exhausted by having this same conversion over-and-over again. Moderate democrats have this way of middling their way out of grasping the underlying issues voters are experiencing and instead try to bandaid over huge gaping wounds, then cry bloody murder when voters don’t act as grateful as they think they should. Liberals are never going to understand why they’re losing support if they aren’t able to even conceptualize the concerns of the working class in small-town economies.

If you’re trying to say that pro-worker policy is the bandaid, and widespread policies that provide better childcare, healthcare, housing, food, and unemployment are your solution, then I don’t disagree, other than that pro-worker policy isn’t as much a band-aid at it is part of that solution. But if that’s O’Brien’s solution, then he’s a bad leader for helping the republicans who reject that solution. If that’s not O’Brien’s solution…then attacking his leadership isn’t “punching left”.