Mike Johnston
Sep 5, 2018 · 3 min read

Why America Needs A Progressive Labor Party

I have been watching the administration of Donald Trump with the same sort of detached amusement with which I viewed the last Presidential election. I didn’t feel like either mainstream candidate was a good choice then so I voted for myself. It was a meaningless little thing to amuse myself, nothing more.

Since the election, Washington has had something of a never ending circus atmosphere. Not so much a traditional circus but more of a darker more menacing circus of the bizarre. One crazy scandal after another fueled by both the thirst for blood, any blood that Hilary supporters and the media have had ever since the Trump election blindsided them all, and the actual inner scandals of the Administration and the Trump clan.

Those of us that exist outside the circles of the powerful and wealthy are getting a wonderful glimpse into how things really work in this country. The consensus seems to be that the Emperor really has no clothes (too often and who really wants to see that anyway). As a result people seem to want something new and different. Something that neither the Republicans or the Democrats have been able to deliver ever since Reagan and maybe before.

The truth is that the lot of everyday Americans has not gotten better over the last 3 or 4 decades. In fact it has gotten worse. Many people still remember when a good job offered company paid benefits like health care and a retirement/pension as well as a good wage that was negotiated based on the value of the work that they performed.

Then those benefits ended for many jobs and the cost was moved from the employer onto the worker without any increase in compensation to cover them. Then, once those cost reductions were not providing the same advantage to companies the idea to further reduce labor costs by moving jobs into countries with much lower labor/operating costs could be had (under Bill Clinton and NAFTA).

This too hurt American workers by simply eliminating many blue collar jobs without replacing them with anything competitive. Americans are resilient though and we learned to adapt and cope with the changes. We went from one breadwinner per family to two. We went from home ownership to rental. We went from one job to two or three to try to hold onto the same lifestyle.

Now we have kind of hit rock bottom. We elected Barack Obama twice hoping for positive change. Then we voted for Trump because maybe he would offer something new and different, something that the mainstream would never offer. At this point I think that we are realizing that he can not really do that either and this is what makes it the perfect time for Progressives to bring their vision for a better America/world to the profile.

Bernie Sanders was a lightning rod for change in the last election but was effectively silenced by the Democratic political machine in the Primaries. But he was popular with a LOT of people because he was talking about different things than either Hilary or Trump. Things that could add to the bottom line of every lower and middle class family in the country. He had our attention.

If you look at the three elements of Capitalism (Capital, Management and Labor) in light of the natural inclination of human beings to work and be productive and to have goals to work toward then Capitalism seems to be the natural way for people to do business. People divide themselves into these three classes naturally and always have, at least since agriculture and settled living came to be.

The United States has only two political parties though; Republican which pretty obviously represents Capital/Capitalists and the Democrats which, at their core are left leaning and therefore I think can be equated with Management in much the same way that Communism can be seen as a government run by the Management class after eliminating the Capitalists.

Labor seems to have no direct representation then. Yes the Democrats are supposed to be the party promoting Labor unions but are they that now? It certainly does not seem so to me especially during the last 30 years. So, if Labor wants to get off the coattails of the Democrats and Republicans and have their own seat at the table of government then a third party specific to the Labor class seems like it is a viable option. I hope that more people come to this conclusion while the opportunity to explore new options still exists.

Mike Johnston

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Longtime freelance writer with a love of the road less traveled. Also likes using photos and video to tell a story. Member of MENSA.