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I'D LIKE TO BEGIN by asking a question that has probably occurred to you already: How come despite the biggest economic downturn since the 1930s, and not withstanding the Obama victory which was supposed to have created a center-left realignment, American public opinion has veered to the Right; not the Left? Why have middle class and some working class people been attracted to the Tea Party; not towards progressive organizations; or towards organized labor? According to Gallup and Pew, support for organized labor has actually fallen sharply. In their polling history, it's never been lower. Gallup's been polling since 1936.
I don't think the answer is that the American people reject Left solutions to societal problems - like single payer health care. Or wider Left perspectives, like anti-capitalism. On the contrary, the sole piece of encouragement from recent polls, is the lack of support for capitalism. Only a 53 percent of Americans clearly prefer capitalism to socialism. Among people under 30, Rasmussen reports, it's essentially even.
One reason for the shift against unions that followed the downturn may be the De Tocqueville syndrome. Explaining the hostility of the French towards the aristocracy prior to the Revolution, the French historian observed that the aristocrats' loss of power was not accompanied by a decline in their fortunes. As organized labor shrinks in numbers, it seems more and more like a powerless labor aristocracy. The comparatively high pay and benefits won by workers over the years offer targets for resentment, which the Right, if it knows anything, certainly knows how to motivate.
Another possible reason for the Right's ascendancy is that the Left - particularly organized labor - doesn't offer broad channels for popular opposition and the Right does. In the Tea Party we see what labor hasn't been for generations: a social movement. The ratio of paid to unpaid participants is low; formal organizations are bypassed by mass action from below; individual fear is channeled into collective indignation; and a common purpose is achieved. Today, about a quarter of the U.S. electorate identifies with a very militant, albeit malignant movement.
Consider by way of contrast, organized labor's response after the Upper Big Branch Mining disaster. The AFL-CIO's Rich Trumka issued what his press people called "a blistering...