Democrats’ strategy for winning union voters is broken

Less narrow pandering, more taking positions people agree with

Probably one of the most insightful things I heard about Biden-era politics was from a shop steward for an industrial union in Pennsylvania who I met pretty randomly at an event in Reading.

I don’t have the exact quote recorded, but he said that if the White House wanted his advice on how to win the votes of more of his members, he would tell them that Democrats need to be more moderate on immigration, guns, crime, and “trans stuff.” But the Biden political affairs team wasn’t asking for his advice on immigration, guns, crime, or LGBT issues; they were asking for his input on policy directly related to labor unions. And obviously his job as a union official is to ask for union-friendly policy, and he was often getting it. It didn’t move the needle with his members, because most union members aren’t super-ideological labor activists. But it’s what was on offer and his job, as a union official, is to secure wins for the union.

And this, I think, perfectly encapsulates Democrats’ iron cage on labor issues in the Biden era.