Due to role of the labor bureaucracy treachery, the Working Class has had a stedy decline in their standard of living for the last 50+ years. This delined continue to decline under President Biden.
The Working Class Has Never Recovered From the 2008 Crash! The rich have gotten richer and the 99% have gtten poorer! See Graphs Below)
Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through October 2024, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.4 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)
Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.4%
From The US Presidential Election: Part One – The Economy I would argue that the reason for this is two-fold. First, the US real GDP may be growing and financial asset prices booming, but it is a different story for the average American household, hardly any of whom own any financial assets to speculate with. Instead, while rich investors boost their wealth, under the Trump and Biden administrations Americans have experienced a horrendous pandemic followed by the biggest slump in living standards since the 1930s, driven by a very sharp rise in prices of consumer goods and services.
A Decling Economy has a negative effect on incumbant presidents. The 2016 election was no exception. When the economy goes worst, and sithout aclass concious leadership, the 99% vote on other issues, such as race,
The following quote about Trump regaining the presidentcy by Alan Woods, helps explain how Trump used Berrnie Sander rhetoric to get workers to vote for him. He also use Blacks, Immigrents, minorites, as scapegoats for the present economic decline of the 99%.
For a long time, the Democrats were able to pose as the political representatives of the working class. But decades of bitter experience has convinced millions of workers that this is a lie. They are looking for a radical alternative. This might’ve been provided by Sanders, if he had decided to break with the Democrats and stand as an independent. But he capitulated to the establishment of the Democratic party, and that disillusioned his base. This left the road open for a right-wing demagogue like Trump, who seized the opportunity with both hands. It is not generally known, but in 2015, Trump privately told Yale business school Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld that he purposefully copied the anti-corporate messaging that Bernie Sanders’ campaign had shown was effective. In the absence of a viable left-wing candidate, millions of people who felt alienated and politically dispossessed took advantage of the opportunity to deliver a well-aimed kick against the establishment. The truth is that the working class of America feels betrayed by the Democrats and totally alienated from the existing political parties. For them, Trump appeared to offer an alternative. And they rallied to his support.
A Decling Economy has a negative effect on incumbant presidents. The 2016 election was no exception. When the economy goes worst and without a class concious leadship, the 99% tend not to on other issues, such as use Blacks, Immigrents, minorites, tce., as scapegoats for the present economic decline of the 99%.
The following quote about Trump regaining the presidentcy by Alan Woods, helps explain how Trump used Berrnie Sander rhetoric to get workers to vote for him. He also use Blacks, Immigrents, minorites, as scapegoats for the present economic decline of the 99%.
For a long time, the Democrats were able to pose as the political representatives of the working class. But decades of bitter experience has convinced millions of workers that this is a lie. They are looking for a radical alternative. This might’ve been provided by Sanders, if he had decided to break with the Democrats and stand as an independent. But he capitulated to the establishment of the Democratic party, and that disillusioned his base. This left the road open for a right-wing demagogue like Trump, who seized the opportunity with both hands. It is not generally known, but in 2015, Trump privately told Yale business school Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld that he purposefully copied the anti-corporate messaging that Bernie Sanders’ campaign had shown was effective. In the absence of a viable left-wing candidate, millions of people who felt alienated and politically dispossessed took advantage of the opportunity to deliver a well-aimed kick against the establishment. The truth is that the working class of America feels betrayed by the Democrats and totally alienated from the existing political parties. For them, Trump appeared to offer an alternative. And they rallied to his support.
From my 1998 Essay The Fall of the Trade Union Movement .:
“At this point in history, it is important to make an accurate assessment of the trade unions. They are in the final stage of the institutionalization of the unions as organs of the state. The hope of the Teamster strike victory over UPS, as the antithesis to this process, had been temporarily dashed by the removal of Carey by the government. “The whole process of stratification of the unions that was begun during World War II, delayed after the post-WWII upsurge (1945–46), then accelerated by the Cold War-based witch hunt of the late 1940s and the 1950s, including elimination of radicals and militants from leadership of the unions in compliance with the Taft-Hartley Law, is becoming complete or will be completed in the near future. During the period of the witch-hunt, the concept of partnership between capital and labor was solidified by the Democratic Party becoming the political party of the trade union leadership. 1. The United States is one of the few countries in the world where the leadership of the unions openly belongs to and has an allegiance to a political party of the ruling class.”:
…During the 1980’s. labor union leadership made a deal, brokered by the Democratic Party, to form a ‘Partnership with the Boss’ to police any workers or unions that fought for a better life. (The Labor officials even signed written contracts with the employers’ associations to do that.)
“The bureaucracy acts in place of the union as a whole. The membership just pays dues, through the dues check-off system, with no control over how the unions function. The union bureaucrats have been in the forefront of organizing the decline of the standard of living of the whole working class as part of their “partnership” with capital, with the bureaucrats receiving regular payment through the dues check-off system.”
This is the ‘partnership’ that the trade union bureaucracy has been creating to police the working class. We have to understand that this has been done behind the backs of the working class and that the working class has suffered the consequences of the decline in its standard of living without a fight due to its systematic atomization.” This ‘partnership’ gave birth to the one, two, three, three ect. .. wage tier system! Selling out the futures of future young workers entering the labor force. And, since the lowest union wage is the immediately the highest non-union wage, this wage tier system cut the wages of the entire working class! When I was a union official, I called this system labors rush to the bottom! Due the Labor Bureaucracy’s collaboration with the Boss, Real Wages Have Been Cut Over 100% Since1974! — Wages Have Not Kept Up With Inflation!
Since the Neoliberal Labor Bureaucracy declared itself to be in a (Domestic) Partnership With the Boss’ (‘Bedding the Boss!’)! was fully institutionalized starting in the mid-1980s, this ‘partnership’ gave birth to the one, two, three, etc. .. wage tier system! Selling out the futures of future young workers entering the labor force. And, since the lowest union wage is immediately the highest non-union wage, this wage tier system cut the wages of the entire working class! When I was a union official, I called this system labors’ rush to the bottom! As shown in this Shadow Government Statistics Graph.
In order to regain what has been lost and win equal rights for all, we must stop supporting those who are oppressing us — the US capitalist class and their Democratic and Republican political parties. And go back to what made all movements powerful — opposing all capitalist parties and relying upon ourselves to build our own economic and independent political power.
That means organizing in our own interests as the working class majority and the oppressed national minorities to unite the protectors of humanity’s habitat, anti-war fighters, all those opposed to the injustices of capitalism, to stop the unending ‘war on terrorism’.
For the good of the working class, it is time for this leadership to resign or be replaced along with the ‘partnership with the boss’ and created a partnership with social movements, the Black and oppressed minorities — their natural allies!
To begin anew the policies that won our basic rights in defense of our standard of living — through our own actions, independent of the tiny minority minority, that own this country and the Democratic and Republican Parties. To follow the example of France and take our opposition to the streets!
The labor movement could then use its wealth, not to support Democrats, but to start our own national newspaper and media formations, to counter the Media Monopoly and its lies, in defense of the rich.
We will then able to act in our own interests and build our own political party in opposition to the exploitation and oppression by the 1% rich, as the Sons of Liberty did at the original Boston Tea Party in opposition to British Capitalism/Colonialism!