Lots of the talk about the Republican Party becoming a “multi-ethnic workers’ party” has been a little premature, even if I’ve been hoping for it all my life. The great populist GOP president passed a corporate tax cut that wasn’t even popular when it passed. Everyone can recognize that affluent and educated voters are moving en masse into the Democratic Party, and some downwardly mobile people are trickling in to the GOP. But what does it mean? All this talk of workers has been met with taunts from liberals in the media: “Fine, but when will the GOP ever take the side of workers against an owner?”
Marco Rubio has done just that in an op-ed today, supporting the unionization drive among Amazon’s workers in Alabama. Rubio’s critics have been quick to point out that he doesn’t offer a pro-worker rationale and doesn’t even seem to like unions. All the rhetorical emphasis seems to be on spite.
“For decades, companies like Amazon have been allies of the left in the culture war,” Rubio writes, “but when their bottom line is threatened they turn to conservatives to save them.” Rubio is looking down and whispering “No.”
And listen, it’s high time that conservatives recognize that corporate America is not a friend. And Rubio is right to recognize that this enmity isn’t just over culture-war issues — like censorship of conservative views — but also at an international level, where global corporations feel empowered to push around democratically elected governments at home, while serving the interests of dictators like Xi Jinping abroad.
I also think Rubio’s instincts are generally sound on the need for finding and organizing new voting blocs for the GOP. The Republican Party in his state makes conscious efforts to reach out to new voters and has benefitted handsomely from that.
But there’s a crucial step missing in this move. In surveys, about one in four public-school teachers consider themselves Republicans, or vote for Republicans for high office. But public-school teachers’ unions don’t support Republicans. Not with their union dues, and not with their time.
The workers may hate the cultural radicalism of the Democratic Party. But they support it every working hour of their lives.
Any plan for to make the GOP support unions needs to be joined to one making sure unions support the GOP. It’s called politics.