Kellogg workers ratify new contract – sounds great – bravo to my old union (I worked at the BM baked bean plant in Portland Me.)

The outpouring of anger at Joe Manchin’s decision to bale on Build Back Better is perfectly understandable. But his decision, if something good is going to come out of this, should be a wake up call for the bill’s supporters around the country. What it should tell them/us is that a transformative piece of legislation, which BBB is, requires the public intervention of a people’s movement/coalition, especially when Democrats have an advantage of one in the Senate. And that didn’t happen anywhere on the scale needed. That said, the battle isn’t over.

Any measure of class understanding and development of the labor and working class movement has to account for the fact that a substantial section of organized workers – in the 40 per cent range and more – voted for Trump in the last election. And that includes trade unionists in the midwest states. The current strike surge that goes back to 2018 is reflective of a new level of class militancy and confidence, but it isn’t yet clear to what degree it expresses a new level and scale of class consciousness across the working class. The elections next year and then two years later will in many ways provide a rough answer to both questions as well as the degree to which the working class and labor movement is politically bifurcated.

I have no problem with the decision to separate the infrastructure bill from Build Back Better. Tactically it made sense then and even more sense now. And as for Manchin, his decision comes as no surprise, although I was a bit surprised he would announce it on FOX. Is it time to consign Build Back Better to bed? Is it time to permanentIly write off Manchin? Not yet. Things can change, including a repackaging of the bill. What has been missing from this fight from the start has been the footprint of millions. And that is a subject that I’m addressing in a much longer post that will appear either later today or early am tomorrow. I’m sure you will wait for it with bated breath!

I come across appeals to build a “United Front Against Fascism.” Such appeals are radical sounding at first glance, but on closer inspection are misguided and diversionary. The very practical and political task at this moment is to deepen and broaden the “existing” anti-Trump/Trumpist coalition. Not abstractly, but in the context of the immediate political/legislative, democratic/voting rights struggles and the midterms elections next fall. Of strategic importance in this regard is the building out of support, politically and organizationally, among white workers in the Midwest states.