A surprisingly pro-labor article from the New Yorker. I am tired of the lie printed near the end of the article though: “Now, after months of store closures and firings, they understand that even a comparatively progressive Democratic Administration can’t—or won’t—do much to safeguard that organizing, either.”
We need to stop calling the administration of gulag builder and police militarizer Joe Biden “progressive.” It’s absurd and robs the word “progressive” of any meaningful definition.
I mean… it says it in the quote right there. “comparatively progressive”. Which is somewhat true comparing to the previous administration.
Although it is good to see the momentum shifting in the country. Even if Biden has been not truthful about his “laborer’s rights” stance he ran on, we can see that this sentiment is obviously flourishing in the country at its highest rates in over fifty years. Hopefully spells good news for workers as we continue further and that workers’ rights can stop becoming a left vs. right issue as we go into future elections.
It devalues the word. Reagan was “comparatively progressive” next the last administration. But we don’t make that comparison because we aren’t trying to trick Americans into thinking Reagan did anything good for workers. Like we shouldn’t call all right wingers nazis, we shouldn’t call any moderate right wingers “progressive.”
I also have to tell you, workers rights and power are the very basis of leftist politics. Has been since at least 1848.
I think the main issue is stopping at the trigger word of “progressive”, because the word itself has been warped into a lot of different meanings now. Progressive in terms of what?
So I agree with you, but think it is also a bit of responsibility on everyone to ask the questions beyond the tagline of “progressive”. Which will then lead into your last statement. With those questions you can truly see if they are moving towards the left with workers’ rights, or if it is just more of the old government machine churning and getting nowhere in the guise of helping everyone that supports it.
