Realignment

[beej]

the republican party is a fragile coalition IMO. I wonder how this will play out in the long term


Senator Hawley introduces Pro-union legislation

He was the first president to walk a picket line. And he crowed regularly about being the "most pro-union" president ever. But after four years as president, Joe Biden could not stop a growing working-class coalition, one that increasingly includes rank-and-file union members, from flocking to Donald Trump.

Reflecting on election night about the coalition that returned him to the White House, Trump called it "a historic realignment." John McLaughlin wondered if it would endure.

While Republicans celebrated in the weeks after the election, Trump's longtime pollster looked to the future.

"Right now, these Trump voters – the GOP is just renting them," McLaughlin told RealClearPolitics. Speaking of the coalition Trump cobbled together consisting of disaffected Democrats and traditionally liberal constituencies, he added that Republicans "need to make a decision if they're going to make them permanent."

Enter Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican emerging as the right-of-center pro-labor leader.

"Look at what Donald Trump achieved. He achieved victory based on this coalition, and he deserves tremendous credit for making it possible, and he knows it," Hawley said in an interview before picking up where Trump's pollster left off. Hawley is asking his Republican colleagues whether they want their new-found working-class support "to begin and end with Donald Trump."

His framework for pro-union legislation amounts to something of a downpayment. It is a set of proposals to reform the way businesses interact with organized labor, from requiring worker rights to be displayed on a job site to prohibiting "unsafe work speed quotas." And soon Hawley will introduce legislation mandating accelerated negotiations between unions and employers.

A 2022 Bloomberg Law analysis found that the average time between workers voting to unionize and reaching their first contract with employers was 465 days. The Hawley bill would mandate that once workers vote to form a union, the employer and employees must begin the negotiations process within 10 days. It is a significant reform, which unions have wanted for years. Two Democrats have already promised to co-sponsor: Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Gary Peters of Michigan. But its author is unusual in that Hawley comes from a party traditionally more favorable to corporations than workers.

Hawley has embraced the heterodoxy. Last year he abandoned his support for right-to-work laws, policies which bar unions from requiring workers to pay dues as a condition of employment. Before that, Hawley introduced legislation that could have easily come from the desk of socialist firebrand Bernie Sanders. One was a bill to cap credit card interest rates; another sought to overturn the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision, Citizens United.

[YoDoug]

Meaningless. The rank and file union members may have shown a trend towards supporting Trump, but in large unions have become pay-for-play money laundering operations between unions leaders and Democrat politicians. If the unions don't change leadership and loyalties, I doubt this legislation will change anything. 

[beej]

Meaningless. The rank and file union members may have shown a trend towards supporting Trump, but in large unions have become pay-for-play money laundering operations between unions leaders and Democrat politicians. If the unions don't change leadership and loyalties, I doubt this legislation will change anything. 

you might be right about that. I don't really have an opinion whether this is good or bad, but I am fascinated by the realignment that seems to be taking place.