Paradigm Shift Dems / Progressives / Leftists Turn on Working Folks
- Thread starter GURPS
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Can the GOP Become the Party of the Working Class?
Of the many ways that Donald Trump drove a bulldozer through the party of Ronald Reagan, the one most likely to reshape the GOP for decades to come was his embrace of populism. The 45th president walked into the party of the Laffer curve and announced that it would henceforth be the party of “craftsmen and tradespeople and factory workers.”
Critics from the right and the left insist that Trump’s economic populism was, like so many things about the president, just bluster. But the message of economic populism he hammered on the stump has now become a litmus test for any Republican hoping to win over the party’s base—and possibly the White House.
Marco Rubio—the son of a Las Vegas bartender and a maid—is one of them.
Last week, the Florida senator, together with Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana, introduced a new bill that would require companies with profits over $1 billion—think Amazon and Google and Walmart—to give workers the opportunity to elect a representative to serve on their corporate boards. The bill, called the Teamwork for Employees and Managers (or TEAM) Act, would also allow the formation of voluntary organizations with employers and employees “for the purpose of discussing matters of mutual interest, such as quality of work, productivity, efficiency, compensation” and more. In other words, a collective voice without the clout—or baggage—of a union.
“Federal labor law prevents workers from organizing outside of the formal union process,” Rubio said when I asked him what the TEAM act would look like in practice. “The TEAM Act creates the legal framework to allow them to do that.”
Can the GOP Become the Party of the Working Class?
Marco Rubio is betting on it.
bariweiss.substack.com
