Making Politically Effective Use of This Blog (and Others)

 Dear Readers,

I am very pleased that you enjoy my blog posts enough to continue to read them, and I am glad to see that my readership has grown over the last few months. Now, it is time for us to take the next step by using this blog to advance the cause of justice in our society.  In order to make our ideas effective, we have to spread them as widely as possible, and we have to make use of as many channels of communication and as many personal networks as possible. So, let's do that.

Here are a few things that we can do to increase the effectiveness abd reach of our ideas.

First, we can use the posts in this blog and others as bases for on-line discussions. If we comment on the posts, we will end up having discussions. We will not always agree with one another, and that is fine. In fact, it is the whole point. Lively discussions will help to spread our ideas and strengthen our cause not only because the discussions will be interesting but because when you comment on a post, your comment will be seen by your FB friends, and that will broaden the reach of our ideas.  If you are feeling energetic today, you can even go back and comment on previous posts.

Second, we can share the posts. Sharing is one of the keys to making effective use of social media. Sharing increases the number of people who see a post, and that allows us to spread our ideas. I post links to my posts on Facebook, and you can share those. You can also post your own links to blog posts that you particularly like. You don't have to agree with a post to share it. You can say that you think the post is terrible, is wrong, or fails to understand reality. You can even go back and share previous posts.

Third, we can use the blog posts as starting points for letters to the editor. If one of my posts gives you an idea that you would like to write about, please do so, and include a reference to the blog in the letter. If you would like editorial help with a letter, please send it to me at foxcitiesprogressive@gmail.com, and I will be glad to help with editing.

Finally, I invite you to write posts as guests of my blog. You can send them to me at foxcitiesprogressive@gmail.com. I may edit them, but I will not publish the edited versions without your permission. You can choose whether you want to be identified as the author of a post or not. If you don't want to be identified, I will say only that the post was contributed by "A Reader of the Blog."

These actions will help to spread our ideas and to make them politically effective. Local political candidates will pick up our ideas and use them in their campaigns. The ideas will become part of the broader political dialog in our state and our country, and that may lead to real, social change. That is really the point of doing this, isn’t it.

A Great American Invention is Endangered and We Must Protect It

 A Great Invention

The United States is the home of one of history’s greatest political inventions. We invented the idea of citizenship as a voluntary commitment. Anyone who comes to this country and accepts the responsibilities of citizenship can be a citizen, and we have no other legal or traditional definition of what it means to be American. This idea contrasts with the ideas of most other countries. Most countries have an ethnic or racial requirement for "real" membership. For example, I could move to the U.K. and become a British subject, but that would not make me an Englishman. The same would be true in Thailand or Mexico. I could become a Thai or a Mexican citizen, but I could not become a Thai or a Mexican. In the United States, a person who becomes a citizen does become an American.

The Invention Was Mostly Aspirational at First

At first, the invention was an aspiration more than a reality, even though it was clearly stated in George Washington's famous letter to the Jews of Newport Rhode Island:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

In spite of this clear statement, large groups were excluded. Native Americans were not accepted as citizens, and slaves were excluded. The Dred Scott decision said in 1857 that even free Black people could never be citizens. But the idea persisted, and it is fully expressed in the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution. Even after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 said that the amendment did not apply to Chinese immigrants. The Act was not repealed until 1943.

Today, however, anyone can become an American citizen either by birth or through naturalization. No races or religions are excluded. Today, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are members of Congress. Today, James Baldwin and Maya Angelou are recognized as great American writers. When Fiona Hill said at a congressional hearing that she was an American by choice, we all understood what she meant, and we agreed that her statement made sense. Unfortunately, we still have people who oppose the idea that anyone who accepts the responsibilities of citizenship is an American. Those people want to say that only White Christians can really be Americans, but they are a minority, and their ideas have no legal standing. Nevertheless, they endanger one of our most important inventions.

The Invention is Basic to Our Identity

Our definition of what it means to be American is basic, and it applies to every American regardless of race, religion, gender or ethnic origin. That does not mean that we do not have racial, religious or gender-based oppression, prejudice or discrimination. We have all of those things, but most of us never say that Black Americans, Native Americans or women are not Americans. We know that they are.

The Invention is a Basis for Struggles for Equality

Our universal concept of American-ness has provided a basis for the struggles of oppressed groups for equal treatment in our society. Black people say, “We are Americans, and it is wrong for us to be oppressed in our own country.” Our society has tried not to hear their cry, but in the end, we have had no answer to it. They are right. They are entitled to the “equal protection” of our laws, and we should not oppress them. Women have made the same claim, and again, we have had no answer. They, too, are right.

The Invention Has Made Us Strong

We have become a powerful nation in part because we have welcomed people from all over the world. Their labor has built our economy. At various times, German immigrants, Irish immigrants, Jewish immigrants, Italian immigrants, Mexican immigrants, Chinese immigrants and Japanese immigrants have built our economy and defended us against foreign and domestic enemies. (In the Civil War, regiments from Wisconsin had to have German-speaking officers because so many of the men spoke no English. In the Second World War, Nisei units fought heroically to defend our country. ) Agricultural products harvested by Mexican immigrants are a very large part of the exports that keep our economy strong. Native Americans have made a major contribution in high steel construction. Gangs of Mohawk workers built the skyscrapers of New York. Navaho code talkers played a key role in winning WW II in the Pacific.

Black immigrants and their descendents have contributed far more than any other immigrant group. They are a special case because they were forced to come here and enslaved when they arrived, but their enormous contribution to the growth of the United States cannot be denied, and their struggle for equal treatment and economic opportunity has been and continues to be a basic element of our history. They are undeniably Americans, and slowly, they are coming to be treated as such.

The Invention Makes Our Culture Diverse and Powerful

Our idea of citizenship is independent of cultural identities. Mexicans who come here do not have to give up their cultural Mexican-ness when they become citizens, as we can see from the continued vitality of the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe in this country. We do not even require prospective citizens to learn our language. We do not need such a requirement because every immigrant can see easily that a person who wants to get ahead here must learn English. Most immigrants work hard to learn our language, and they try not to pass their native languages on to their children. As a result, the grandchildren of immigrants to the United States are rarely able to speak the native languages of their grandparents.

Our willingness to separate citizenship from cultural identity has made our culture powerful because it has been able to absorb the cultural contributions of our immigrants. Our literature, our music and our food – which are imitated all over the world - are full of the influences of immigrant groups.  We listen to the blues, and we eat kung pao chicken; we love TV shows like Seinfeld that are saturated with Jewish humor, and we say "Adios" when we leave town. We know that all of these things are American.

The Invention is Threatened

Our definition of what it means to be American is threatened by White Christian Nationalists. They want to say that only White Christians are real Americans, and that other people can never be real Americans. One of the expressions of this idea is the so-called "replacement theory" expressed by Vivek Ramaswamy. The idea that only White Christians can be real Americans would destroy what has made our country great. It is un-American in the most basic sense.  It denies the genius of our ancestors who invented the idea of citizenship as a voluntary commitment, and it denies the most basic facts of our history. We must oppose White Christian Nationalism with all our strength if we wish to preserve the country that we love.

An Opportunity for Democrats: Promoting fair Treatment of Wisconsin’s Workers

Democrats Must Again Be the Party of American Workers 

The Democratic Party has lost its position as the party of American workers. The reasons for the loss are complex, but there is no doubt that a large part of the American working class now votes Republican. This is a tragedy for American workers because the Republican Party's claim to represent their interests is entirely fraudulent. The party represents the interests of rich people and big business just as it always has.

The workers' shift to the Republican Party is also a tragedy for the cause of social justice in our country. In a time of increasing inequality and increasing concentration of wealth, the party of the rich will never promote the cause of social justice. That party promotes only ever lower taxes and ever decreasing regulation of business. We can see an example of that attitude in Wisconsin's failure to protect workers from exploitation by the misclassification of workers as independent contractors rather than employees.

Misclassification is Illegal Exploitation of Workers and Taxpayers

Many employers in Wisconsin are inflating their profits and defrauding Wisconsin’s taxpayers by misclassifying their workers as independent contractors rather than as employees. This allows the employers to avoid paying their fair share of the cost of workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance, and Wisconsin’s workers and taxpayers suffer as a result. This situation presents Democrats with an opportunity to ally our party with the needs of Wisconsin’s workers. The widespread practice of misclassifying workers provides our party with an opportunity to work as allies in workers’ struggles for fair treatment.

Misclassification is a Serious Problem

Misclassification of workers as independent contractors is a serious problem in Wisconsin. According to Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development (DWD), workers who are misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees are denied benefits like workmen’s compensation and unemployment benefits. Misclassification also causes workers to lose wages and benefits. A worker classified as an independent contractor may be paid less than the minimum wage and will of course not be paid for overtime at overtime rates. The lower pay caused by misclassification undermines the whole economy by reducing workers’ purchasing power. 

In addition, contractors and other employers who misclassify workers avoid having to pay their share of the costs of programs like workers' compensation and social security and are therefore able to offer lower bids on contracts. They “out-compete” their competitors by breaking the law and exploiting their workers. Finally, the practice of misclassifying workers costs our state government millions of dollars in lost tax revenue because of underreporting of wages. That cost is passed on to all of Wisconsin’s taxpayers either in the form of higher taxes or in the form of lost services that cannot be provided because of lost revenues. In effect, contractors and other employers are increasing their profits by breaking the law, by exploiting their workers and by short-changing the majority of our state’s taxpayers. 

Contract workers are often paid in cash "under the table," and that allows some unscrupulous workers to cheat on their taxes and on their responsibilities to their children. A union official told me that when a contract worker at a large construction site in the Fox Cities was asked why he didn't work as an employee of the construction company, he answered, "Why should I work for the company? If I worked for the company, I would have to pay child support?" Thus, he gains a personal advantage by exploiting the taxpayers and the pain of other workers. 

How widespread is the problem of misclassification? A 2022 report by DWD’s Task Force on Payroll Fraud and Worker Misclassification, the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Division of DWD conducted 1,709 audits and identified 3,365 misclassified workers in 2021. Those findings generated $780,000 in UI taxes and interest. In addition, there is a cost to the Uninsured Employers Fund ((UEF). The fund pays worker's compensation benefits on claims filed by employees injured while working for illegally uninsured employers. Payments vary substantially from year to year depending on the severity of claims accepted. The annual average for the last 10 years is $2.5 million.

Support Our Workers' Fight Against Illegal Exploitation

These numbers show that there are many employers in Wisconsin who are willing to increase their profits by exploiting Wisconsin’s workers and defrauding our state’s taxpayers. We should not allow that. Our state should step up its enforcement efforts as Gov. Evers has recommended.

If we Democrats want to recapture our position as advocates for working Americans, we can begin here at home. We can take advantage of this opportunity to provide real support for working-class people of all races and genders. The difference between the real support that we offer and the fake support that Republicans offer will be obvious to everyone.

Let’s get to work! Contact your state legislators and tell them that you want to see our state increase the amount of money devoted to the proper enforcement of the laws against the illegal misclassification of workers. 

A Challenge and an Opportunity for Democrats

 The Challenge

The Republicans recently won all of the statewide electoral offices in Louisiana, and Charleston recently elected its first Republican mayor since the 19th century.  These victories show the consequences for Democrats of having become the party of the patrimonial middle class, and if we Democrats do not pay attention, we will lose in other places. 

To win back our place as the party of working Americans, we must regain our focus on inequities of class as well as those of race or gender. We must become again the party that created Social Security, Medicare and many other programs that redistribute wealth from the very wealthy to ordinary Americans of all races and genders.

The Opportunity

We can begin by becoming an ally in working-class struggles. Pres. Biden understands this as he showed recently in his support of the United Auto Workers' strike against the big three auto companies. Now, the UAW has begun a broader campaign to organize workers in non-union automobile plants, and that gives Democrats an opportunity to speak out publicly in support of the campaign. We should take advantage of that opportunity if we want to rebuild working-class support for Democrats. We should also use this as an opportunity to campaign against so-called "right-to-work" laws at the state level.

We Must Remember that the Status Anxiety of American Workers is Legitimate

American workers suffer legitimately from status anxiety due to their increasingly precarious financial situation.  Wealth and income are being concentrated more and more in the hands of a tiny minority, while ordinary, working people are finding themselves more and more insecure financially. Naturally, this leaves them feeling anxious. 

It has been claimed that workers are anxious not because they are financially insecure but because they feel threatened by the rise of Black people. That may be true for some, but far more suffer from status anxiety legitimately because their social position is endangered by their financial insecurity.  They are anxious because their incomes have stagnated in a time of rising prices of the things that they must buy: food, housing, clothing, transportation, health care.

We Have an Opportunity Now

In our increasingly unequal economy, people of all races are suffering. White people in the steel towns of Ohio or coal towns of West Virginia are suffering, and Black people in rust-belt cities like Detroit or Milwaukee are suffering, too. Working class women are suffering even more than the men. This has given us an opportunity to build a class-based coalition across the lines of race and gender, and now is the time to seize it.  We can begin by supporting the UAW's organizing drive.

We Can Offer Real Support Instead of the Republicans' Fake Support

The Republicans like to claim to be the party of working-class Americans, and our focus on the problems of middle-class women and minorities has made the claim seem credible. The Republican claim is of course completely fraudulent. The Republican Party’s policy positions continue to favor the interests of wealthy people and corporations, but at least the Republicans say that they care about working-class Americans, while we do not even appear to do that. Now, we can change that. We can follow Pres. Biden by offering public support to the UAW.

We Can Promote Redistributive Policies That Really Help Working Americans

We are surviving as a major party for the moment because the leader of the Republican Party is completely disgusting, because the Republican Party is in disarray and because millions of women have become activists to preserve the right of a pregnant woman to choose an abortion, but this situation will not last forever. The right of a woman to choose will gradually be preserved by action in most states, and Mr. Trump will be gone from the stage eventually. If we want to be a strong party in the future, we will have to regain our focus on redistributive policies that really help working-class Americans of all races and genders. We will have to be passionate about things like the wealth tax proposed by Elizabeth Warren; we will have to work for things like affordable child-care or Medicare for All; we will have to support a way of paying for higher education that does not leave young people with crushing debts; and we will have to support our labor unions. 

We will not be starting from scratch. As I said in an earlier post, "Our party does not lack for redistributive ideas. Democratic leaders like Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders have made a number of redistributive proposals, but they have not generated the kind of grass-roots enthusiasm that would be needed to turn them into major planks in the Democratic platform."

We need to pick up our party's redistributive proposals and run with them. We need to return to our roots.