The interesting thing in the Economic Policy Institute report is that the surge in strike activity this fall is a continuation – perhaps on a new level – of a trend that began in 2018. No less interesting is the challenge to link the strike surge with struggles in the political/electoral arena. The energy of one would amplify the energy of the other. It seems to me that the leadership of the AFL-CIO is positioned to play a special role in this regard.

A big challenge in the coming two years is to convince people that the future of democracy, as we know it, will likely hang on the outcome of next year’s midterm elections and the presidential elections two years later. The existential threat to democracy posed by Republican rule may seem evident to you, but it isn’t in my experience evident to lots of other voters – tens of millions I’m afraid. They don’t necessarily see the existential threat to democratic governance and democratic rights were Trump and gang back in the driver’s seat.

How to change their perception isn’t so simple however. But I know one thing for sure. It won’t happen if Congressional Republicans, along with the help of Manchin, Sinema, and a few other Democrats, are able to block the main legislative initiatives of the Biden administration.

Joe Manchin’s refusal so far to sign onto Biden’s reconciliation bill blocks the passage of transfomative legislation that breaks from the old governing orthodoxy of the past 40 years. It would, if passed, make the lives of tens of millions much easier as well as address climate issues and much else.

On the other hand, if it doesn’t make it through Congress, the political, not to mention economic, fallout could be severe if tens of millions come to believe that democracy and democratic governance can’t “deliver.” And thus not worth defending.

Usually after a defeat – and last night was that – it is wise to let the air clear for a day or two or three and then take a sober inventory of what happened and why it happened. There is no reason to immediately rush to judgement, press the panic button, feel dispirited, or shift to the right as Bill Clinton did in 1994. If the sky were falling in, I might think differently, but it isn’t. Not yet anyway.

Moreover, the overall political-economic environment will likely be more favorable to Biden and Democrats next year and a year provides more than enough time for the White House, Democrats, and the larger coalition supporting them to correct whatever mistakes – big and small – that cropped up in this election and in the first year of Biden’s presidency.

If I worry about anything at this moment, it is what immediate effects will last night’s results have on the Manchins in the Democratic Party. Will they walk away from the reconciliation bill now? Voting rights? Will they turn further to the right?

The support of white workers without a college education for Trump and the GOP – evidenced once again this week in the Virginia elections – constitutes a major obstacle to progressive politics as well as a counter movement to the present turn toward class, anti-Trump politics by other sections of the working class. How to address this section of white workers in a way that moves them in a progressive, anti-racist, class struggle direction will take great political skill, creativity, patience, and persistence. Evading this task isn’t an option.