While the GOP has long been at war with labor, its assault has increased in ferocity and brazenness in recent years, with the actions of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as just the most conspicuous example. In response to this attack not only on working people but on the party as we know it, Democrats, Edsall finds, have been half-hearted at best. “Democrats are happy to get labor’s votes and money,” Edsall writes, “but they have done little to revitalize the besieged movement.”
You can see the terrible impact this has on the party just by keeping your focus on Wisconsin, where Walker, despite presiding over a weak economy and being quite uncharismatic, has managed to win election not once or twice but three times. If you want, you can write off 2010, the year of the Tea Party wave — but that still leaves Walker’s triumphant recall victory in 2012 and just-as-easy 2014 reelection. In both those latter cases, the state’s public unions were the engine behind the opposition; and in both of those cases, despite being much of the reason Walker was in trouble, they saw Democratic candidates run while keeping them at arm’s length. There were times, in fact, when Walker and his most recent Democratic challenger, Mary Burke, were strangely simpatico when it came to public unions.
Burke ended up losing to Walker, and it wasn’t particularly close. Much of that can be attributed to the bad political climate and public anger toward the president. But the inconvenient truth for Democrats is that the nondescriptness of Burke likely played a role too by dampening the base’s enthusiasm. There are downsides, no doubt, to being seen as the party of organized labor. Still, it brings plenty of benefits, and it’s an identity — and that’s something the Democratic Party is rapidly losing.
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