I’ll have what she’s having
Michael Podhorzer offers a thread of observations on why unions are gaining public approval where other institutions are losing it:
You may have heard that public support for unions “has been increasing”—but you probably haven’t heard just how big a deal that is in the context of the last 15 years. Since the Great Recession, we’ve seen the credibility of, and approval for, just about every major institution plummet—yet we’ve seen support for unions substantially increase.
Why is this happening? I call it the “fuck yeah factor.” A lot of us who strongly support unions already have at least some agency in our working lives (like good pay and benefits, the ability to telecommute, and so on). We might read about a successful UAW strike and think, “Yay! Good for them!”
That’s not the experience of most working-class people in America, especially if they do not belong to a union. They and their peers often have little or no agency in their work life—unpredictable schedules, no paid leave, dangerous working conditions, and the ever present threat of being fired at will.
When they see other working-class people like them standing up to their bosses and winning, it’s a game-changer. They don’t think, “Yay! Good for them!” They think, “Fuck yeah! I want that too!”
The “fuck yeah” factor is exactly what scares plutocrats like Musk and Trump the most. It’s the seed of social proof that blossoms into meaningful solidarity and powerful collective action.
As Frederick Douglass famously said, “power concedes nothing without a demand” – and a true “demand” is much more than, say, a preference revealed on an issue poll.
Entrenched power will only respond to demands that are wielded by a countervailing power. For ordinary people, that means collective power.
To be clear, voting is an essential democratic freedom, but it’s not the collective power I’m talking about.
Voting is like going to a restaurant and choosing between entrees on the menu. Collective power is like sitting at the table deciding what’s on the menu.
The Great Recession taught America’s nuevo poor a valuable and painful lesson, one former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm cast bluntly at the DNC convention in 2012 in attacking Mitt Romney, Republicans’ presidential candidate:
He loves our cars so much, they have their own elevator. But the people who design, build, and sell those cars?
Well, in Romney’s world, the cars get the elevator; the workers get the shaft.
She didn’t have to tell them. They lived it. The contrast in 2024 is even starker, writes Podhorzer:
On one side: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris walking the picket line with striking UAW workers, and Harris launching her campaign in Milwaukee declaring her support for the freedom of working people to join unions. On the other side: Trump and Elon Musk gleefully cackling about firing striking workers, as Musk and other plutocratic Trump supporters hope for the Federalist Society (FedSoc) Supreme Court justices to declare the entire NLRB, if not collective bargaining itself, unconstitutional. As this post will show, their hostility to unions is a prerequisite for the success of their broader political project.
Unions are one of the two institutions left with equalizing power for ordinary people. The other is evangelical churches that have “taken over the Republican Party and fueled the MAGA movement.”
Podhorzer cautions:
If you (like many Americans) think Project 2025 is just a right-wing extremist fantasy that can never become law, think again. Many of its wishlist items have already been enacted in RTW states, such as banning abortion, eliminating DEI programs, and undermining the independence of our elections. Trump can try to distance himself from Project 2025 all he wants, but there’s no question that he and Vance are deeply linked with it, both in terms of personnel and ideology, and that Project 2025 is likely to serve as a playbook for a Trump-Vance administration.
Unions as democratic institutions help ordinary workers offset the power of the power-hungry. When they win against the growing strength of America’s oligarchs, unions “fuck yeah” inspire others to want some of that. Social proof. Not simply “what do people like me think?” but “what do people like me do?”
As in, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Americans love to see the little guy win against the powerful. And the powerful have won quite a lot in the 21st century. Unions are growing in public favor because they demonstrate we don’t have to live in a world of, by, and for plutocrats.