A New Popular Front
A New Popular Front
What has happened to Craig Becker illustrates why progressives are disappointed by the first year of the Obama administration—and why they should not stop supporting it. A year ago, Obama nominated Becker, a distinguished lawyer who has worked for the SEIU and other unions, to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board. Normally, the Senate confirms nominees to the NLRB without much fuss. The party that holds the White House gets a three-to-two majority on the board.
But John McCain held up Becker’s nomination for months; then not a single Republican voted to let it go forward. GOP lawmakers made clear that Becker’s decades-long advocacy of unionism should be enough to disqualify him. A labor lawyer had no right to serve on the labor board. Without the magical sixty votes to cut off debate, the administration’s only option was to appoint Becker during a congressional recess. But the president, so far, has declined to take that step.
One could view this story as an example of Obama’s political ineptitude. The man who ran one of the most brilliantly designed and executed presidential campaigns in history could not find a way to circumvent a minority of senators bent on repealing the Wagner Act, in fact if not in name. Unionists whose time and money were essential to recent Democratic victories were incensed. “We’re used to the Republicans playing the role of Lucy and yanking the football away each time Charlie Brown tries to kick it,” wrote Rich Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. “President Obama has to end this farce.”
But Trumka did not declare he had lost faith in the president or was exploring an alternative strategy. He knows Obama’s failure would also spell a major defeat for the liberal Left.
Conservatives—freed from the incubus of George W. Bush—have resumed their long march against the welfare state, protecting the environment, gay marriage, and a foreign policy that views terrorism as a solvable problem and not a cause for endless war. They traffic in lies about “death panels” and wink at hints that the president is not a citizen. Their disciplined unity against any compromise with the enemy is one the Bolsheviks would have admired.
Faced with this potent danger, a realistic Left should revive the notion of a Popular Front, shorn of its Stalinist pedigree. Criticize, prod, and pressure Obama and his advisers to live up to their stated goals—and more. But recognize that the Left has neither the institutional clout nor the credibility to set out on its own. Every era of reform in America has been brief; each has depended on the alliance, however troubled, of clever politicians and left-wing activists. Liberals and leftists need to build and rebuild movements that can help counter the surging right and force Obama to advance changes he still believes in. But the insiders and the outsiders need one another. The only real alternative will be a government led by the likes of Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin.
