Summary
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign failed to connect with low-income workers due to a perceived lack of listening, according to AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US.
While union members largely supported Harris, many low-income voters backed Trump, swayed by his messaging on economic insecurity.
Despite Biden’s pro-labor policies, including infrastructure investments, the AFL-CIO now faces challenges under a likely Trump presidency.
AFL-CIO emphasized labor unions’ resilience and commitment to fighting rollbacks while advancing organizing efforts.
With public approval for unions at a near 60-year high, the labor movement plans both defensive and offensive strategies to protect workers.
“we have a concrete plan for helping you” - crickets
“my plans will hurt you but I’m pretending otherwise” - “what a brilliant businessman!”
That’s not the message working people heard. They heard, “we are the establishment whose theories have been fucking you over for fifty years, but in our infinite wisdom and benevolence we have decided to make some changes that WE have determined will make your lives better, and so you must vote for us. After all, we are your intellectual superiors.”
Yes. Incredibly theoretical, difficult to understand, highly abstract plans like “raising the national minimum wage”.
Wrong plans, they’re referring to the joke ‘50k small business loan with a bajillion strings attached’, ‘a maybe tax hike for the wealthy, but no transfer to middle/lower income’, ‘here are two tax credits half of which only impact parents and together dont break even on inflation’, ‘absolute refusal to commit to keeping khan’, in short dems to working Americans: fuck you, and here’s some genocide on top. Vote for us because we think we’re the only option.
Did she, though? All I remember is something about a “new small business” subsidy fund, which is… good, I suppose, but didn’t address any of the probkems the average American is facing.
Okay, there was also the suggestion of Medicare for all, which would put a dent in things, but I only heard it casually mentioned once and it sounded like something she was “open to discussing,” not a core part of her platform.
Aside from that, there was nothing directly addressing the core daily problems the majority of people are experiencing, like overpriced living expenses and underpaid wages.
“We have a concrete plan to help you! For example, higher federal minimum wage!”
"Okay, take my vote!
Four years later
“You’ve been in office for four years. Where is the minimum wage hike?”
“Turns out we can’t actually do it unless we have a supermajority of government. And then it’s still questionable if we will. Vote for us some more in your state and presidency. Hope that others in other states do too. Also stop bitching, we are moral and the other people are fascists, do not fail us, you must defend women and minorities by keeping us in power etc etc.”
“I had more money under Trump, fuck off.”
Tldr choosing to believe Republicans when they cause problems and blame them on others
Oh yeah, definitely, it’s all just Republican propaganda that both of the two parties in a two party system are co-responsible for national and international policy disasters. For sure. Biden definitely wasn’t a lame duck president who decided not even to fight for major proposals he promised and instead squandered political capital to defend Bibi and kill babies. Yup.
Have you not looked at what Biden accomplished even without a majority?
The IRA was a bipartisan effort
Had Trump been president a similar bill would have been pushed through due to a post-COVID consensus and a concern over falling behind China. Everything else were accomolishments around the margins outweighed by serious damage to public trust, international stability and affordability.
Biden’s abysmal approval ratings are not a failing of Americans to give him proper credit. That’s the same argument Reoublicans made during the boom economy of 2017-2019.
her plan involved helping people get a home loan with no plans to raise the minimum wage
what did Harris say she was going to bring to table that would attract any voters other than high middle and above class?
She backed a plan to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/kamala-harris-says-us-must-raise-federal-minimum-wage-2024-10-21/
The much bigger issue I see is that policy choices are simply not communicated by the media. Half of this discussion complains about Kamala not adopting policies that were in fact in her platform. Only stories about the horse race and Trump outrage make the news (even in this community which is supposed to focus on policies). How can you get your message across in such a media environment?
That home loan was fucking worthless to boot. You know what would save Americans money? Directly building homes and selling them at cost.
Building new homes was part of the campaign plan right?