This is very telling: The Washington Blade’s top story this week is about the DC mayoral Democratic primary, which incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty lost to City Council Chair Vincent Gray. The story is headlined: “Activists hail Gray’s stunning win over Fenty.” The subhead (at least in the print version): “But mayor carries precincts with high concentrations of LGBT voters.”
That is, gay voters went one way, while the city’s “progressive” LGBT activists went the other.
In a nutshell, Fenty and Gray are both liberal African-American Democrats, but Fenty challenged the entrenched unions by supporting modest school reforms, which included firing teachers who failed to meet basic performance standards. That infuriated the teachers’ union, which strongly backed Gray, as did the rest of the public sector employee unions. Sadly, despite improved student test scores (and lower crime) under Fenty, Gray won the day.
LGBT “progressive” activists are joined at the hip with public sector unions and other elements of the “progressive” statist, entrenched big government coalition. Gay voters, however, cast their votes overwhelmingly for Fenty. This is a local story, but this November, and in November 2012, American voters will, I believe, rise up against not just ineffective big government, but the entrenched power of public sector unions, whose members’ salaries and benefits (that is, for federal and state and local workers), paid by taxpayers, are now far in excess of what taxpayers themselves earn for the same jobs in the private sector, not to mention the near-impossibility of firing public sector workers despite their lack of performance.
LGBT activists are showing that they will be on the wrong side, fighting tooth and nail to defend the privileges of their Service Employee International Union allies, and that’s not going to be good for gay people.
More. From Michael Barone, Public Unions vs. Gentry Liberals:
“Gentry liberals and public employee unions were allies in the Obama campaign in 2008. But now they’re in a civil war in city and state politics. This raises the question of whether the Democratic Party favors public employee unions that want more money and less accountability, or gentry liberals and others who care about the quality of public services. Right now the unions are winning.”
That would seem to mirror the split between gay voters and LGBT progressive activists over public union power.
Furthermore. From Reuters: “Now that most European countries are burdened with high deficits and debt mountains due to the financial crisis, the ‘big government’ left is not seen as offering a credible answer to the question of where and how to shrink the state. In many countries, public employees are the biggest bloc of socialist party members and constitute a brake on reform.”
There, as here.
16 Comments for “Which Side Are They On?”
posted by Bobby on
It’s amazing how the progressive cancer is spreading, even advocate.com has a section called “The Progressives” about gays in the green movement. However, I’m glad not all gays fall for the progressive lie.
posted by Jorge on
I assume you mean the environmental movement, not the opposition movement in Iran.
I am very unimpressed by the quote by someone in the article that it’s sad the gay vote was apparently divided along racial lines. Race is divisive, period. The gay community isn’t united in the first place, so that’s no tragedy.
posted by Amicus on
Some other LGBT activists are missing the details, too, in pursuit of ideological bent instead of results, maybe?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/TRS/
posted by Richard Rosendall on
I’m afraid the truth is more complicated than what Steve has written. Here is a link to some insightful pieces:
http://tinyurl.com/dcprimarywrap
The Washington City Paper has a good piece on Fenty’s failure to sell his reforms here:
http://tinyurl.com/cponfenty
For those who don’t know me, about 65 articles of mine were republished on the old IGF. Here’s a recent blog post of mine that gives a sense of my perspective:
http://tinyurl.com/35gq2fr
I have found in 30 years of local activism in D.C. (in which, among other things, we soundly defeated the National Organization for Marriage in its efforts to punish D.C. officeholders who supported our marriage equality law) that avoiding caricatures and finding something to give people credit for is more productive in the long run. It is hardly plausible, for example, that vast numbers of teachers don’t give a damn about the children they have made a career of educating. It is just as implausible that Michelle Rhee is so faultless that she can ignore community stakeholders and that every single one of her hundreds of personnel decisions is beyond reproach. She was unnecessarily highhanded in her dealings with all concerned. Given that elections come regularly, she and her boss ought to have had the sense to sell their reforms. Instead, they seemed to relish offending as many people as possible. If Fenty had not so badly damaged his brand by making it clear that he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought, he would have been re-elected and his and Rhee’s reforms would be more secure. As it is, however, Vince Gray helped move the reforms forward as Council Chair. Yes, some of his supporters are opposed to them. But Vince Gray is no Marion Barry.
Remember Ben Franklin’s answer to someone who asked what the Founders had wrought? “A republic, if you can keep it.” Adrian took too much to heart his 2006 victory in which he won every precinct in the city. As so often with pols who reach the top too quickly and too easily, he thought his program would speak for itself and he could ignore the rules and the legislature. His attorney general, police chief, and schools chancellor were as arrogant as he was. That was his corporate culture. So the voters turned him out. Supporters of reform can behave as badly as Rhee has since Tuesday if they put their need to prove they were right ahead of the kids’ welfare. Or they can try to work with Mr. Gray.
I am a D.C. activist and I am not in the pocket of any union. My colleagues in the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (which may sound like Steve’s caricature, but is much more reality-based and effective) give credit and criticism where due, and we pay attention to the details. The far-right fanatics who are driving the Republican Party off a cliff may, thanks to G.W. Bush’s recession and voters’ short memories, win the midterm election; but a GOP-controlled Congress will if anything improve Obama’s chances in 2012.
Obama has accomplished a number of significant (if inevitably imperfect) reforms despite scorched-earth politics in which Republicans pretend they are small-government conservatives despite not having governed that way when they were in power, while some of their supporters cry “Keep your hands off my Medicare!” to Democrats. Meanwhile, McConnell and Boehner reject even Republican policy proposals that have made the mistake of being embraced by Obama.
This isn’t about principle, which is being endangered within the GOP by know-nothing fanatics of a distinctly non-conservative stripe. It is about old-fashioned partisanship. There are indeed some silly leftists, and within the gay rights movement they have been a good deal noisier than those of us who have done most of the productive work. But those lefties have nothing like the level of influence within the Democratic Party than their right-wing counterparts have in the GOP. This truth is concealed by the habitual caricatures of people like Barney Frank as if they were Kropotkinites. But historically, some of the strongest anti-communists were Democrats. (Republicans had a high old time several years ago noting that then-Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nominee Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s godfather was Joe McCarthy, with whom her father Bobby had of course worked.) But it is easier to portray Democrats as traitors, just as it plays well to people frustrated over the recession to talk as if the stimulus bill that CBO says created or saved 3.3 million jobs had no effect whatsoever. And so it goes. But LGBT activists are not all the caricatures that Steve has long enjoyed painting, certainly not at the local level here in D.C.
posted by Thorne Cassidy on
This is terrible. I liked him. T changes in city population and crime rates are Fenty magic, exceeding the rest of the country in both. His critics say the better test scores are merely the result of teaching to the test. How exactly is there more teaching to the test than before? At least now there is some very small standard–while leaving room for those teachers who actually try (60%?) to add to it without undue pressure. This wasn’t luck. I’m no liberal like Fenty, but Gray will steer the city back down an irresponsible leftist economic road, putting the city back where it was. This is terrible.
posted by Rick on
Whoa! I logged on here and was surprised to see the union bashing that I’ve seen mostly on Fox News. Are there any actual statistics that show that public sector employees are making more than those in the private sector with equal qualifications? Union busting has been a goal of the Republicans for years and since their hero Regan, they have been successful in dismantling most of the unions in this country, leading to jobs being outsourced and the current economic crisis we are now facing. Teachers, nurses, and public sector employees are basically the only ones who still have unions to protect them from privatization, greed and profit seeking CEOs who don’t really care about their employees. Caution on going on the bandwagon on this one. It’s not a road I think we as Americans really want to travel down. We should be heading the other way – stronger and more union jobs and fighting for the rights of ALL workers.
posted by Jorge on
I am also surprised. Union-bashing is not Stephen Miller’s usual fare.
Are there any actual statistics that show that public sector employees are making more than those in the private sector with equal qualifications?
Let me get back to you on that.
posted by another steve on
Public workers unions have set themselves up as a political force at odds with working class Americans. That’s the way it is; labeling Miller a “union basher” doesn’t obscure the fact that private sector American workers — including what Barone calls “gentry liberals,” are rising up against this outrage. As Miller, asks, “which side are you on?” If it’s the golden-rice-bowl public sector unions, you’re on the losing side — and rightly so. I hope you don’t drag down the gay equality agenda with you and your SEUI buddies.
posted by Bobby on
Here’s an article from USA Today about how federal workers make more than private workers.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm
posted by Jimmy on
“Public workers unions have set themselves up as a political force at odds with working class Americans.”
This is odd since the vast majority of unionized workers are “working class Americans”, regardless of whether they are public or private sector employees. The fact that they have political power, though at an ever more decreasing level, will always be a threat to the Right and its oligarchic supporters who desire a Ruling Class, and see themselves among the rulers.
Having worked in both unionized and non-unionized businesses, it is clear that the private sector has been quite successful in driving pay down and keeping wages stagnant. The middle class has been under assault for the last 30 years by a corporate culture that has seen record profits, yet feels justified in paying paltry, near poverty level wages.
Those working class/middle class Americans who are fortunate enough to work in a unionized environment are doing better than those who don’t. The Right wants to play its intra-class warfare by pitting the middle class against itself by demonizing workers who have good contracts and decent wages and benefits that allow them to live the “American Dream”, or some version of it, send their kids to school, and of course, be good consumers.
I wonder how many Tea Party members are actually members of some sort of union, benefitted from union wages, or were raised in a union household.
posted by BobN on
OK, let’s just be cravenly political here for a moment. Stephen Miller — as usual — derides liberal gay people for, well, being liberal. He points to a case where LGBT progressives support public sector unions. Now, you can make arguments as to whether the union positions in DC are defensible or not. I’ll leave that to locals from that basket case of a city.
But let’s just focus on the issue of alignment. We wouldn’t have a gay rights movement in this country without the left. And it wouldn’t have gained any traction without making alliances with other Democratic left-leaning groups. The right-leaning groups never wanted anything to do with us, NOR DO THEY TODAY.
So, the reality of politics is that you sometimes stick by your allies, because they have stuck by you. I’m not particularly fond of that reality because it is sometimes odious. But I have to wonder why Miller in particular finds it so utterly wrong. He does the same thing in spades, with one glaring difference. The party he supports and the movement he tries to get others to join has NEVER done anything to help on gay issues. Never lead one charge, never took a chance, never advanced LGBT issues. In fact, it has done the opposite.
In the 70s, America was poised — as was much of the West — to start taking our issues seriously. Up until that point, gay rights was a mostly American development, with other countries following our lead. Then the GOP discovered how useful opposing us could be and they’ve been crapping on us ever since, leaving the U.S. gay rights movement trailing behind that of other countries where the right wing wasn’t so smarmy.
And to get back to the point, maybe it’s foolish to maintain political alliances, but it’s not like we’re the only ones who do it. And it’s certainly more foolish, indeed insane, to do it when you have never gained anything from it.
posted by Amicus on
BobN,
Well reasoned.
It is counterproductive to be a “fickle ally.”
However, consider this about the importance of new alliances and how important it is to watch (and attempt to shape?) what is going on in the Rightwing of the country.
True or false: Gay “rights” – equality at law and full protection – will not be achieved in America until enough on the right concur, because progressivism/liberalism (and libertarianism?) in America is just too weak to do it alone…
Therefore, one must keep talking to the hand, in its language.
posted by Jorge on
But let’s just focus on the issue of alignment. We wouldn’t have a gay rights movement in this country without the left.
No one denies that, and it’s well that you remind us. I’ll go one further: the engine that powers the gay rights movement and gives its powerful moral compass is still on the left.
I do not agree with your reasoning, but I do feel obligated to give credit where it is due. The people who protested Prop 8, the people who demanded action and held Obama accountable on Don’t Ask/ Don’t Tell come from all backgrounds, but we all know who made it happen.
So anyway, the union deal. I’m in civil service. I was interviewed for a promotion to a $54,000 position which requires 30 credits toward my MSW. An entry level Social Work position in most non-profits is maybe $40,000 max as of 2006-08. Well, no, there’s a statewide civil service social work position, too. That one paid $45,000 as of 2007. Logically, if public sector unionized position paid *less* than non-unionized private positions, I’d question what the use is of unions in the first place.
The problem with unions is that they cannot win at collective bargaining without political power and influence. Thus are the seeds sown for political corruption and dealmaking.
posted by Jorge on
In other words, thanks to the union, I’m making more money underemployed than I would be making if I were hired to my full qualifications in a non-profit organization.
posted by Houndentenor on
With both candidates having very good records on gay rights, gay issue weren’t a factor in the DC mayoral primary. People voted on other issues. If only that were what elections were like in the rest of the country.
posted by customartist on
Hi all! First time reader here, drawn in by the site name “Independent”.
Hopefully further articles will balance this one. I’m with BobN.
There is nothing in my thinking that places me with either political party’s tennants categorically, however, it is categorically the Democratic Party that has supported rights of Gays predominantly over Republicans. This is fact.
To suggest that conservatives are now “coming around” erases nothing in their history which has been extremely painful to gay society. AND, the rationale for conservatives has nothing to do with an emerging conscience but with the emerging fact that public opinion, upon which candidates are elected, is changing. This is the bottom line, this is my bottom line, conservatives still fight us tooth and nail, and they have sealed their fate in my book Not because of a completely ineffective overall agenda, but because they have steadily opressed gays by pandering to bigots, to the Religious, to the rich, and to polls keeping themselves seated. They do not serve Gays, and they do not really serve the American People. I find it very difficult to forgive this behavior. Gays know fully well of the opressions we suffer. Can we forgive the Nazis?…if they have not yet ended but do still continue their policies and procedures??
If this makes ma a “Liberal” then paint me a liberal. I am all about all issues, not only mine, but until and unless Gays have full rights, this is the most important issue of our times.
I’ll keep reading for a while.