interviews
Labor and the White House
by Dave Weigel
March 31, 2021
This interview with Dave Weigel, national reporter covering politics for the Washington Post, was conducted and condensed by franknews and Payday Report.
DW | The White House's involvement in the Amazon union drive was a big surprise. I mean, we know where it could have originated, the union talked to the White House; they have kind of an open door with Biden that they didn't have with Trump. We know that Faiz Shakir, Bernie Sanders’ campaign chairman, and his group, Perfect Union, got involved. So, there was public pressure.
The fact that the White House and the president released that video was a big deal to people. And, he made this decision to get involved very early on in his presidency. It was within his first 50 days. He decided to do what hadn't been done before and give a message in support of the union. It was a very careful message. The new labor secretary, Marty Walsh, when asked specifically about Amazon, responded in more general tones.
But, no matter what happens, if you are in for a penny, you are in for a pound.
A lot of previous presidents, including Barack Obama, said a lot less about these union drives and, in doing so, limited their own exposure. If the drive didn't work, people didn't say that the president supported something that didn't work. The fact that Biden made a statement, early on, when it wasn't clear how this was going to go, is a real political statement of what they thought was important.
frank | How do you think his background plays a role in this?
He's always leaned in really hard and identified with workers in the same way he's tried to identify with different civil rights movements. Joe Biden has always wanted to be seen as the kind of person who is coming from Scranton, who has lived through the sixties, and who wants to jump to the front of the march if there is a struggle happening.
He frames everything in terms of fairness. He's not as natural as other members of the party in talking about this. When Bernie Sanders talks about this, for example, he talks about greed, he names CEOs, he says nobody deserves that much money, he talks about a maximum wage and how there should be no billionaires at all. Biden doesn't go that far. Biden has never gone after Jeff Bezos. He's never gone after individual heads of companies the way that Sanders does. He does this sort of a "Hey man, these guys are under assault, somebody needs to stick up for them."
That is something that he has always wanted to be part of his brand. Even when he was voting for trade deals like NAFTA as a Senator, he was never really comfortable. He had the same ideological mindset as a lot of the Democrats in the eighties and the nineties. He did it because he saw that that was the way things were moving and he voted strategically. But, the stuff that fired him up was when he could side with workers. It is the same thing with the projects he took on under Obama when he was Vice President.
During the Democratic primary, he didn't get the same amount of labor support that Hillary Clinton did, but, Sanders didn't get it either. There wasn't the same sort of a landslide of labor to get in early and say, this is our candidate. Instead, they were demanding more of the candidates.
I would cover presidential primary events with the Teamsters in Cedar Rapids or the Building Trades in DC and you would kind of look to the level of applause as an indicator. The interesting thing is that at those events Sanders would lay out the things he did and what he wanted to pass. Biden would go on at length about non-compete clauses and about wage theft and things like that. It was less, "I have studied all of the papers on this and I've decided this is my policy," and more of "this seems unfair and I'm against this thing."
I think the Democratic Party is increasingly understanding what labor can mean for them strategically.
Republicans have gotten kind of tangled up on labor. They have done better with union households, but they are basically the party of deregulation still. They've never really moved on the labor part of their messaging. That makes it easier for Biden to compete for these workers. When it comes down to it, Republicans want “right-to-work." Josh Hawley, who branded himself as a working-class candidate, for example, supports a national right-to-work.
Biden was very concerned with winning back more union households. Union workers were saying, “Democrats had the presidency for 16 years. What do they do for us?” Biden didn't have all the answers that labor wanted, but he was making a lot of specific promises about how he was going to act. He talked about infrastructure spending and about how he was going to run the NLRB and how he was going to approach employers. It was less than Sanders did, but that's way more than Democrats had done in the past.
I mean, the McCain/Romney era Republicans had no appeal to the sort of voters who voted for Obama twice and then voted for Trump. Biden only peeled back maybe 10% of them depending on where you're talking about, but it has made life easier for Democrats.
This fight has in large part been framed in the context of continuing a battle for civil rights. Do you see Biden lean into that messaging?
Biden did not really lean to the racial justice aspect or the civil rights legacy aspect of this labor fight. When the congressional delegation here came down a couple of weeks before the vote, they were much more explicit. Someone like Jamal Bowman or Cori Bush is much more comfortable saying that than Biden. That is the thing about Biden. He basically sets boundaries. He says what his position is and backs off and lets the action happen without his constant commentary. It's very different than Trump in that way too. And that's different than the Sanders position. And it's different than what Warren said her position would be as president.
Can you give us context on how or why you started covering this story?
I started covering the Amazon drive because of the president and members of Congress intervening. I mean, labor decided to get involved months before, but the fact that Democrats were getting involved was new. It has been interesting to monitor their investment in this over other Democratic Party causes.
There's a little bit of intervention from the Democrats, but not, I'd say equal to what Amazon is doing. They are not the advertisements on TV. We all know the Democratic party is kind of involved, but it is not the same political project that I've seen in other places.
There are two stories that kind of were happening at the same time; they have merged, but not completely. One is this labor drive, which is smaller than most drives that have succeeded. It is not overwhelming. You don't see labor signs everywhere you go. But, on the other hand, the level of national involvement is kind of new.
Had Biden said nothing, there would have been a story, but it wouldn't involve the White House, it wouldn't involve the Democratic Party, and it might not involve the PRO Act.
And I think that's going to change because of this.
New interview w/ @daveweigel @PaydayReport
— frank news (@FrankNewsUS) April 6, 2021
"The White House's involvement with the Amazon drive was a big surprise ... Previous presidents, Obama comes to mind, said a lot less. The fact that Biden did that early on is a political statement of what they thought was important." pic.twitter.com/MwYlmqE4xQ
That was a big decision Biden made to be a part of this.
Right. And that political story is interesting. The story here is much more independent. A lot of the people who've come in to help canvas are from smaller groups. You have Black Lives Matter and DSA groups from the area, but you don't have the Democratic Party getting involved in a huge way. I think that is something that people will revisit after the vote.
Should the Democratic Party, like most left parties in the world, be very involved with labor? Should they always take the side of labor?
Most social democratic parties are labor parties and they build up from there. Their coalition includes labor unions. In the British Labour Party, for example, labor has a role in electing the leadership. That is not the case here. That's the conversation I think they're going to start having when this votes over. For example, if there are, and the union says there are, hundreds of people around the country calling them saying, "Hey, I have some questions about what I can do at my fulfillment center in my town," that will be a question for Democrats.
And if Amazon wins, do you get spooked? Amazon has been very punchy in their PR. They might say that a bunch of elite Democrats stood with the union and the workers stood with Amazon. That is very comfortable turf for Amazon to be on, and that leaves a big question open for Democrats. If the union succeeds, throw all of that out the window. I think the lesson that everyone would take in that case would be that if it takes less than a three-minute video from the president to get momentum for something like this, then we should keep doing that. As we talk, I don't know the answer to that question. I think that is something that is going to be answered when the votes are in.
interviews
Losing Our Religion
by Lonna Atkeson
October 14, 2020
This interview with Lonna Atkeson, professor at University of New Mexico, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
Lonna Atkeson | I study political science, election science, and election administration, and have been studying these subjects for a very long time. I like to think of myself as someone who has elections in my DNA. When I was a very little girl, around seven years old, I set up my own ballot boxes around my neighborhood. I have always loved elections, and see myself as having a long term connection with these questions and interests.
frank | How do voters establish their perceptions of election integrity? How does rhetoric affect the perception of integrity?
In political science, we measure the perceived integrity of elections with a couple of questions. How confident are you that your ballot was counted correctly? How confident are you that all the ballots in your state were counted correctly? In the nation? From these questions, we can assess how people feel about the legitimacy of the process.
This election year is obviously complicated with COVID, and the election process itself is much more complicated this time around for voters. That can lead to confusion, and confusion can go on to affect how voters ultimately feel about this election's integrity. The way people perceive the election is largely rooted in their own experience.
We have also been presented with two very interesting narratives about election integrity— one on the left and one on the right. On the left, you hear concerns about the potential for voter suppression. On the right, you hear issues about voter fraud.
Is there legitimacy to those narratives? Is voter fraud something to be worried about? Is voter suppression a legitimate thing to be worried about?
To begin thinking about this question, I think it is important to ask — what is the goal of an election? There are three pillars: integrity, access, and finality. These pillars work in tension with each other. The more accessible the system is, the more open it is to mischief. The more you tighten the system to prevent mischief, the lower access is, and the more likely you are to prevent some people from getting the opportunity to vote. You can make changes to both integrity and access, but then you change the finality of the election — when is this process going to end? We need some sort of finality, and finality is almost certain to be affected in this election as we expect to see a longer counting process.
So the way people perceive the election is going to be in part affected by the narrative that they're placed in, as well as whatever experience they have with their own ballot and their own election system. Does their ballot get rejected? Do other people's ballots get rejected? How many ballots get rejected? People are seeing all these things on social media where people are receiving someone else's ballot. These are all new experiences for people, and they're having to evaluate them individually. What does that mean for the integrity of the process? We haven't talked about these things very much, but they could be very important in this election, and they're important in elections generally.
The conversation seems very specific to the United States. Why do you think that is? And how does the public perception of elections affect the democratic underpinnings of the U.S.?
I think it's about the affective polarization going on in the US — voting is just another space to be polarized. Again, the left and the right see things differently. Integrity and access are both natural things to look at when looking at an election. You can be more concerned about one or the other, depending on what your experience is, or depending on what the narrative of your party is.
The question of how the public is going to view the legitimacy of this election, is really the major question at hand.
The aftermath of the election is also going to be hugely important. Obviously, if it's a blowout election, then things are going to be easy to resolve. But if it's a close election, and there's a lot of rejected ballots due to people engaging in a process that they're inexperienced with, how does that affect the perceived legitimacy?
In May, in a local New Jersey election, there was an average of 10% rejection rate across all of the counties. If we see that kind of rejection rate in a close state like Pennsylvania or Florida, how is that going to affect our perception not only of the legitimacy of the election, but the legitimacy of who takes office?
It's one thing, to feel like, I voted in this process and I don't like the people who got elected, but I believe that they're legitimately elected. It's another thing to feel like, I don't like the people in office and I don't even think they belong there — in fact, I don't even think we elected them. That has the potential to undermine democracy. That is what is scary about this election.
What can people do to prepare for a disputed outcome?
If you're concerned about the post office, then drop your ballot off. Most states allow you to drop your ballot off at an early voting location or the county election official office. People should be primarily concerned about securing themselves. I think that's fundamental, because if I'm in control of my process, if I know what's happening, and if I have some sense that other people are doing the same, then I am going to have greater confidence in the election.
A lot of people are looking to the 2000 election and to Florida. It seems that the difference is, both candidates were prepared to walk away based on the result. How does this moment feel by comparison?
Gallup polled people's perspectives on the legitimacy of both the 2000 election and the 2016 election. The public response was the same in both elections. Despite all the loud rhetoric, most people accepted the legitimacy of the election, no problem.
Sometimes I wonder how much the voices, and the extremism of social media, enhances fear, outrage, and anger in an outsized way. If you were to just look around your own life, it's not that dangerous. But when we look at images, we have these mirroring neurons in our minds that make us feel like we are there too — that's why we like watching sports and dancing. And of course, that is a problem in politics, because it enhances the extremism in our society. No one's going to get away from social media, but, probably, that is what we should do.
How should the media participate in the narrative about the election's integrity and legitimacy?
I think that's really complex because, again, there are two, rather extreme, narratives circulating. And everyone seems to be embedded in these narratives in a way that I have not seen before. Historically, we have not seen high levels of attitude constraints — the level of consistency between attitudes within an individual belief system. However, in the last decade, attitude constraint has increased. That is largely because we are embedded in systems, the media being one, that encourages us to create more constraint among our belief systems. It aligns everybody into much clearer tribes and camps than we have seen before.
People on both the left and the right clearly feel that the government is unresponsive, but their solutions and policy preferences are distinctly different. And we have gotten much worse at being tolerant of each other. I teach political behavior, and I added a moral component to my class where I actually try to teach intellectual humility. I think that we have lost a reasonableness.
We have such a tendency to see such undesirable traits in each other.
I live in a home where my sons are Republicans and I'm not, so I have to deal with this all of the time. Living in a home that is divisive makes me have to be not divisive, and I don't think we're living in many places where that's an opportunity anymore. I live in this unique home, in a unique environment. I come from a working-class family — I'm very educated and my family's not very educated. My family could be considered more Trumpian right now, and we have to be really tolerant of each other, but most people don't have to be.
As a professor, I go out and talk to my community all the time. Even eight years ago, I could go out into the community and have a discussion about interesting ideas. Now when I go out in the community, I feel like people mostly want me to tell them what they want to hear. That's a switch. It wasn't like that a decade ago.
Regardless of the result of this election, I find it hard to think about what happens beyond November 3rd. The polarization seems hard to overcome.
I'm expecting a whole barrage of litigation regarding the integrity of ballots or arguments about the counting of ballots on November 3rd, but I can't think much beyond that either. If I try to think about what a different administration would look like under COVID, is it really going to be much different?
Between the parties, there are push and pull factors. When you think about how working-class Americans have turned to the Republican party and turned to Trump, that is not just a pull factor. The Democratic party has made a huge effort to push those people away. It's part of the rhetoric these leaders use as well. Both Clinton and Obama spoke about working-class voters in a certain way that sent a message to working-class voters that they were not wanted in the party.
It seems to me that we only ever focus on the pull factors, and we don't think about how it's both a push and pull system that works to move people into different camps. That is much more dynamic and a much more complete understanding of what is going on in our political system.
I think if we are adamant Republicans admit the failure of their party lies in race, we should be equally staunch about Democrats acknowledging the failure and abandonment of the working class.
My family is all working class, they're all out there in the grocery store, while all of my professor friends are locked away in their houses, Zooming along. To me, this moment seems like such a class issue, but we don’t seem to be talking about it in that way at all.
Our conversations in the political realm seem to consistently fail to get to the root of people’s needs. There is an underlying feeling in this country that the government is unresponsive. I mean, I have heard politicians talk about bringing businesses together for cheaper health care and lowering the cost of prescription drugs for basically my entire life. I've heard the same messages, from both sides, over and over and over again. People have experienced this over and over again, and who is or isn’t in power hasn't mattered much to their bottom line.
There are many reasons why people could find Democrats unattractive and Republicans or Trump attractive. We all think that politicians are liars. The thing about Trump is that he wears that all on his sleeve. He’s honestly dishonest. Do you know what I mean? I think for some people, they look at him and think, well yeah he's dishonest, but so is Biden, so is my Congressman.
Right, and when people operate under the guise of morality and ethics, it feels more evil.
Morality is something that worries me so much in politics. It results in equating politics with religion, because moral authority is what religion has. If you have a moral reason to do something, you can't and won’t compromise. There is no ability to compromise — if you claim moral authority, there's a line in the sand.
The whole design of the American government is to try to compromise — to thwart majoritarianism, to thwart the passions of the people, and to thwart moral authority. Madison was obsessed with the possibility of the majority being tyrants, and the whole system is designed to stop that and to enforce incrementalism.
But now, I hear politicians regularly use the word moral – easily, which is dangerous because morality prevents them from compromising. It leads the people to believe there is only one right outcome. And as we see the decline of religion globally, is politics the next religion? We tried hard in this country to remove politics from religion, but it seems that as political ideology becomes more constrained and more important in people's lives, we are moving to a place where politics is our religion. Especially on the left, because people on the right actually have another religion that they are attracted to. That is very worrisome.
Promoting politics as religion is dangerous, and promoting politicians as idols or celebrities is dangerous too. It makes it easy to forget they work for you, because celebrities have fans, fans act as a congregation, not as a critical electorate.
It's too affective. It's not rational. Where's the rationality? We've been moving away from rationality towards affective politics, and that is problematic.
When I think about candidate campaigns, I think of them as love affairs. I think it is a really great metaphor for the way you are introduced to a candidate. You can think about this in the context of 2008, where there is this love affair with Obama. And what happens in a love affair? You project onto a person and see yourself in them — they believe this, or they are just like me on this. And over time, you come to realize, well, no, they're not just like me. And the love affair starts to change. But because politics is a collective love affair, not an individual one, the projections can remain longer. In a collective world and as a collective person, I can continue to project onto them because what is the real impact on me?