What the fuck is going on in the comments here?
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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It's even worse here.
Literally the topic of the OP article is "If you look at what the economic situation is for workers in the US, it's almost as good as it was pre-Covid which is a goddamned miracle. It's not perfect, still a lot of people are struggling, but $15/hr being the new more-or-less entry level minimum wage and some increased union membership has produced real progress especially at the bottom end of the scale, when a lot of first-world economies are still struggling to dig themselves out even back to normal. Wage inequality is down, unemployment is the lowest it's been in decades, etc etc, Biden deserves some credit for that. Here are detailed citations to back all that up. It's weird that that's not the popular perception."
Then, go look at the comments and read them through. It's literally a nonstop tide of rando user accounts saying "but inflation stacks year on year, they don't know basic math" and "they just think stocks going up means the economy's better, they don't care people are hurting" and "my grocery bill is high things are real bad, I'm suffering, this article's not true." It's almost impossible to read the comments front to back and hold on in your head to the fact that they're objectively wrong. It's like Goebbels's propaganda theory in real time -- if you grab out one individual comment and analyze it and really think about it, compare it to evidence, it falls apart. But looking at them all together it really looks like there's this groundswell of opinion. It also makes it more or less impossible to actually have a conversation about the article because it gets swarmed with people talking discouraging nonsense and being apparently incapable of absorbing anything different.
holy smokes ur right, it’s so bad (or maybe im so weak willed) that i genuinely can’t tell if you are the one full of b.s. or not (no offense to you im just trippin out over this)
I am biased, because I think I'm right and they are wrong, but to me it is instructive to look at an example like this
It removes it from that flood-of-unopposed-propaganda world and puts it into a more manageable context, like here are questions, and here's how people answer the questions or not.
thanks, i do see what you are saying
after much lip biting and teeth grinding i posted a comment which represents my position which i hope isn’t too enlightened centrist. you at least seem good faith so i’d appreciate your opinion lol
i am afraid
There has been controversy before where Unions endorse a candidate, and then a few days later we find out it was just union leadership picking a favorite.
The union’s endorsement was the culmination of a months-long process that included surveying USW members regarding their top priorities. The union also sent prospective presidential candidates in both parties a detailed questionnaire to determine where each of them stands on key issues affecting working people.
"Our members told us that they value retirement security, affordable health care and labor laws that support our ability to form unions and negotiate strong contracts,” said McCall. “President Biden’s record on all these issues speaks for itself. He also laid out a strong plan for building on this momentum well into the future.”
https://m.usw.org/news/media-center/releases/2024/usw-endorses-joe-biden-for-reelection-as-president
So basically all this means is Biden gave the right promises.
Lots of Republicans when asked about specific issues are a lot more progressive than Biden. They just will never vote anything besides R.
So this feels less like an endorsement from the 1.8 million members, and more of an advertisement to them.
How could it be anything else? A union that forces its members to vote a certain way would be illegal.
I might not have done a good job summarizing, here's an old article
https://www.labornotes.org/2019/09/members-demand-voice-their-unions-presidential-endorsements
So in 2016 a bunch of unions endorsed Hillary and everyone celebrated.
Then a few days later we started hearing about the only union members who wanted her in the primary was the heads who had been getting wined and dined by her campaign.
There was a large public outcry and unions said they'd do better.
They're now asking for a sample survey on issues, taking candidates at their word, and then making ng an endorsement.
It's better than it was, but nowhere near as good as letting union members submit a vote if they want and whoever gets the most wins the unions endorsement.
I don't know how you thought at any point I meant unions could force their members to vote a certain way. What I meant is these endorsements are supposedly to literally be the union as a whole endorsing the candidate that represents them most, rather than u ion leadership trying to sway their members vote
Which is what this is.
your expectation for how this should work is flawed and totally unrealistic?
yes, what happened in 2019 with Clinton was unacceptable.
but the methodology for determining this usw endorsement seems totally standard and has precedent. like, this isn’t new or strange at all.
edit: oclabor.org is the orange county labor federation. the linked pdf is a candidate questionnaire from 2021.
I don't know what weird thing you linked because I'm not downloading random files from someone without a shift key, and I highly recommend no one else download random files either
But consider the fucked up part was 2016, and there's only been one election cycle since...
It feels like you're trying to argue that because shit got a tiny bit better, we're not allowed to ever ask for it to keep being fixed
Which is pretty much the neoliberals national slogan.
Stuff was worse once, so nothing can get better until it's gets worse again
Sorry For Not Using The Shift Key I Hope This Is Better.
You Are Simply Asking The Union To Give Up Its Power By Having It Just Host Another Unsecure Election Based On Publicly Available Information Its Constituents Already Know. The Union Is Able To Provide A Service By Using Its Power To Get Answers Directly From Candidates Without Needing To Rely On Fallible Media Channels. (edit: think of the service debate moderators provide)
And, As You Admit Yourself, The Union Is Comparing Candidate Answers With Their Voting Record. So It’s Not Like Candidates Can Just Lie On The Questionaire.
tldr it seems like you are spreading FUD or something, unions have been doing this exact thing for ages lmao.
Clever progression
- Union leadership doesn't always represent their members well (true)
- Union leadership didn't represent their members well in this case (not proven, just asserted)
- They obviously didn't look at what Biden actually did, including some specific things listed in the article, because they wouldn't care about that kind of thing or deal with it as part of their working day (false)
- Republicans are more progressive than Biden (the total-nonsense statement that serves to throw a smokescreen of confusion around any factual discussion surrounding the earlier more coherent statements)
yeah wtf was that astroturf ass top comment?
thank you for this breakdown 🙏
Biden made it illegal for rail workers to strike, fuck this DNC shill nonsense. I will not be voting for Democrats or Republicans ever again.
He later got them everything they wanted, and they have since endorsed him.
Edit: he later got them the sick days they wanted, on top of pushing through the contract that only a handful of the 12 unions hadn't ratified. I guess it's not technically "everything they wanted" but it's certainly more than the unions that ratified the agreement were expecting.
He did not. You are supporting our important rail workers only getting 5-7 sick days PER YEAR. Fuck your privileged liberal ass
IBEW do not represent rail workers, only a small amount. Railroaders are not happy with the deal they got.
There were 11 other unions involved. Their members (the site said they combine for over 100k workers) got these benefits too, they negotiated together for a deal that would affect all of them.
I get hating Biden, I really do. He's not nearly far enough left for me either. But do you have anything to back that claim up besides your word?
There were 11 other unions involved
Then why haven't they made the same statements praising Biden? IBEW represents a small amount of rail workers and their leadership is corrupt. Most members on r/railroading are not happy with the deal they got, but you don't care about them.
they negotiated together for a deal that would affect all of them.
Which is?
But do you have anything to back that claim up besides your word?
Hypocritical you would say that after claiming 11 unions back the deal. https://www.reddit.com/r/railroading/comments/16sclgc/are_we_still_upset_with_biden_for_our_contracts/
kid named spoiler effect: