THE GOP “WORM IS TURNING”, & NOT FOR THEIR BENEFIT

A new study shows that the American worker is waking up and making a change.

 

Well, it has taken way too many years, but there is finally a study from a well-respected organization, the Center for American Progress, a DC think tank that went beyond the conservative’s on-going diagnosis that blames today’s American worker’s economic woes on globalization and technology.

The new, comprehensive study, authored by a group co-chaired by former treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, has concluded that it was the conduct of major US corporations that is also to blame for what has been ailing American workers.

As the many of us that have been following the nation’s economy have been well aware, the gap between productivity gains and average American family income, is a gap that didn’t exist in the three decades following the second World War.  But the wage gap that had begun in the early 1970s has continued to widened ever since.

In a recent Washington Post article, it stated, “The only period during the past 40 years when economic gains registered in workers’ paychecks was the late ’90s, when the economy was close to full employment. But in the current recovery, the marked reduction in unemployment has been accompanied by falling, not rising, wages, with the gains in economic activity going to the wealthiest 10%, and mostly to the wealthiest 1%.”

But the conservatives and the Republicans in general will continue to blame the American workers issues on the workers themselves, saying that the US manufactures are void of having any responsibility for the aforementioned “gap”.

But this new study begs to differ.

Per Mr. Summers’ report, “Corporations have come to function much less effectively as providers of large-scale opportunity,” they wrote. “Increasingly, their dominant focus has been the maximization of share prices and the compensation of their top employees. In a world where mobility is always a possibility, they have become less committed to their workforces and their communities.”

As remedies, the study’s authors proposed extending profit-sharing to companies’ workers, enacting legislation protecting employees who seek to form unions, and making employers responsible for those workers they label as “independent contractors”.

The study showed that for the last decades, the Democrats have tried to represent both the business side and the labor side, wherever possible.  But it is now appearing that this party is beginning to return to their previous role of rewarding those that actually work for a living.  This newly renewed emphasis on the American labor force is starting to win back a share of the white working-class voters who have up to now, been re-electing Republicans.

The good part is that It initially won’t need to win back a big share of the defectors, as the Democrats don’t really need a big share to build an electoral majority.  The reason being, there are many more registered Democrats than Republicans, and with as divided as the current Republican party is today, a 10% conversion back to the Dems could be all that’s required.  The real key is then getting them all to the polls to vote.

Due to the weight of today’s money in politics, with the Citizens-United case allowing all the spending on campaign donations, it’s a good thing that the Supreme Court’s decision applies to both the Dems and the GOP.  And it should be noted, that the obvious signs of these new re-births for the Democrats are too numerous to dismiss.

This new focus of the Democrats started back with the Occupy Wall Street movement, the fast-food and Wal-Mart strikers, and the labor unions that injected Universal Health Insurance into the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.   As usual in this nation, just as it did with Martin Luther King Jr’s, Civil Rights Movement, it took those that finally decided to get involved.  Yes, those activists who have continued to expose the plight of the poor, the middle class, the veterans and the elderly, it was their activities that brought the problems so prominently to the surface. 

It is now becoming clear that tens of millions of Americans have experienced, but up to now, had yet to hear it actually and properly defined within today’s on-going political expressions.

This latest issue could easily put the Republicans and the conservatives squarely between a rock and a hard place.

The potential 2016 GOP candidates (including Mr. Mitt Romney), have said they have changed from ignoring Mitt’s famous 47%, to trying to focus on the 99% of the American middle-class.  But in attempting this, they will still need to support the ability of their wealthy investors and CEOs for claiming the lion’s share of Americans’ incomes for themselves.  That will continue to be a very difficult task as they are now trying to go after the support of the American middle-class.

If this latest experiment with the liberals is successful, and if the national attitude does turn to supporting the reversal of American economic inequality, the GOP, who is devout in its attitude against the claims of science and climate change, they will also have to deal with the validity of basic political mathematics. 

As stated, the key is keeping the conversion going, and in getting the converts to the polls for changing the mathematics of the current members of the US House and the Senate.

Let’s keep our eye on this situation and hope it continues over the years to come.

Copyright G.Ater 2015