The Midterms: Democrats “Can’t Right the Ship”
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Perhaps the most talked-about political event in the US mass media today is the November midterm elections. Given that a majority of Americans have expressed unfavorable views of Trump and his presidency, the elections are widely being discussed as an opportunity for major gains by the Democratic Party.
It is almost impossible to gauge what will happen. Trump’s erratic behavior and constant threats, including his threats against Iran and the deployment of another aircraft carrier to the region, keep people on edge. In an interview published this week, he said he had not ruled out using the Insurrection Act of 1807 or declaring a national emergency around the elections because of the possibility of civil unrest. With ICE at his disposal, there is certainly reason for concern.
We are clearly living through very volatile times, and the mood in general is somber, to say the least. Trump is so hated outside his hardcore MAGA supporters that many people feel a Democratic victory is crucial.
What about organized labor?
Michael Sainato, who writes on labor issues for the US edition of The Guardian, appears very excited about the midterms. “The US labor movement is having a banner election year,” he wrote on September 19 in a piece titled Revenge of the Labor Movement.
The title caught my attention because organized labor, with millions of members in critical industries, has the potential to change the balance of class forces in the US. I got a little excited myself until I read the remainder of the title:
“Democrats with union backgrounds aim to retake Congress.”
Sainato points out that more than three dozen nominees for open House and Senate races across the US have backgrounds as labor union representatives or members.
Unfortunately, having a union background, while certainly not a bad thing in itself, doesn’t guarantee much when it comes to US politics.
US workers have no political party of our own. The Democratic Party has therefore been the main electoral alternative for marginalized groups, environmental campaigners, gender-rights groups, organized labor and others, and these forces tend to populate its left wing. But the Democratic Party’s power base is on Wall Street. The same billionaires we witnessed at Trump’s inauguration would just as easily attend the inauguration of a Democratic president.
As OCAW’s Tony Mazzocchi * used to say, “They have two parties; we have but one.”
The Democratic Party is more accurately described, in my view, as the party of the labor bureaucracy. Its proponents are finding it increasingly difficult to push a party that millions of working-class people abandoned years ago after realizing that their living standards decline regardless of which party is in power.
In addition, the Democratic Party is a bridge to political office for some union activists, labor officials and union staffers seeking a career as a politician “of the people.” That may not be the intention of everyone involved, but this political vehicle is not the means through which working people can achieve economic or political freedom and choices will have to be made, sides taken.
In 2022, Joe Biden, who claimed to be the most pro-union president ever—a claim repeated by many union officials—joined with Nancy Pelosi and Congress to impose a settlement on railroad workers and prevent them from carrying out a legal strike. There was apparently no problem “reaching across the aisle” on that one.
The House passed the legislation by a vote of 290–137, with 211 Democrats voting in favor and only eight voting against.
As Rampant Magazine reported at the time, the legislation was passed after business groups demanded congressional action to prevent a railroad strike. Biden called on Congress to intervene and impose an agreement rather than allow workers to strike.
The majority of House Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley, voted to impose the contract. Rashida Tlaib voted against blocking the strike.
Organized labor’s role
For readers not familiar with US politics or the organized labor movement, Michael Sainato’s headline is misleading. The railroad workers and Biden is an example of how weak the Democratic Party’s support for organized labor and the US working class can be when workers' interests come into direct conflict with those of business.
The Democratic Party is a capitalist party. Nancy Pelosi made that point herself when she responded to a rather naïve young man at a town hall meeting. Good capitalists, she said, make decisions that encompass everyone’s well-being. She called it “stakeholder capitalism.”
It has been a few years since Pelosi made that point, and the Democrats have not exactly won the hearts and minds of young people.
Liz Shuler’s Labor Day Message
In the video above, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, tries to boost morale on Labor Day 2026 in preparation for the November elections. For me, it is nauseating to watch.
Shuler repeats a message that older trade union activists like me have heard many times, and there is nothing in it that would inspire young people or the millions of workers outside organized labor.
“The economy is not working for working people,” Shuler says, citing surveys conducted by the unions. Then she asks her audience:
“But how do we build a better one?”
“Growing the power workers have,” she says, answering her own question, “building numbers so we can demand more.”
There are numerous references to “worker power,” but power to do what?
What does this worker power consist of?
Building numbers and getting more workers organized into unions is certainly a good thing. But how do we bring them into the unions, and on what basis? More importantly, what are we going to do with the power we have built?
Shuler says it is very difficult to organize workers into unions because of the “rigged” labor laws. But it is here that the strategy of the leadership of the AFL-CIO becomes clear when she stresses:
“If we don’t right the ship, in November, it gets that much harder to build an economy that works for all of us.”
There you have it.
We have to elect Democrats in November to save ourselves.
She offers working people a remedy that has failed to cure the disease time and time again. What Shuler is incapable of grasping is that the ship is sinking. It can’t be righted—or, to put it differently, the Democratic Party is incapable of righting it.
This failure of the Democrats to produce the goods is one of the reasons we have seen a shift to the right and the rise of Trump.
Shuler can’t deny the truth on the ground. She admits that workers are “sick and tired of both parties,” but she is still calling on workers to put the Democrats in control of Congress.
Her excuse is that “some” Democrats are the problem—“too many,” apparently. It is a little like Netanyahu’s “bad apples” explanation for settler violence in the Israeli-occupied territories.
When Shuler talks about a robust plan for labor to get “two million more workers into unions over the next five years,” the goal is essentially the same as the reason five unions left the AFL-CIO in 2005: recruit more members, increase union strength and increase worker influence at the ballot box.
But the idea that workers should rely on their own power in the workplace and their ability to stop production—or develop an independent working-class political party—is not on the table
The 2005 split involved disagreements over organizing and how unions should build their membership and political influence. But breaking the political dependence of organized labor on the Democratic Party was not on the table then either.
Even so, the possibility of a major split in the AFL-CIO shook the Democratic Party, which relies heavily on the labor movement for money and manpower on Election Day. Organized labor has provided billions of dollars and countless foot soldiers for Democratic candidates over the decades, manning phone banks, walking precincts and knocking on doors.
The Democrats were “anxious,” said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia at the time.
But what has all this electoral activity produced for working people?
Millions of Americans are disgusted with the political situation in this country and, when it comes to national elections, many have simply opted out. More than one-third of eligible voters did not vote in the 2024 presidential election.
At the same time, dissatisfaction with the two major parties remains widespread. Gallup found in 2025 that 62% of US adults said the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job representing Americans that a third major party is needed. That figure was 63% in 2023.
This is the dilemma.
The era in which the two major capitalist parties have dominated US political life is not necessarily coming to an end because a third party already exists. It is coming under increasing strain because millions of people no longer believe either party represents their interests.
Can the Democrats right the ship?
Given the extremism of the Trump administration, and assuming he doesn’t use legislation, ICE or other means to derail the electoral process, a Democratic victory in Congress could reverse some of the administration’s more odious decisions.
But what is paramount in my mind is that in an era of capitalist decay and as the influence of US imperialism on the world stage continues to decline, the more dangerous the US ruling class becomes. The offensive at home will continue under a Democratic administration.
War On Iran
I watched some of the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing where Democrats grilled Hegseth about the Trump administration’s war in Iran. Jon Ossoff, a liberal Democrat, attacked Hegseth ferociously over the war but, as I understood his remarks, did not openly oppose the war itself. His criticism was directed largely at the administration’s handling of it and its failure to achieve its stated objectives.
This distinction is important.
The Democrats can criticize Trump’s conduct of a war without challenging the broader foreign-policy assumptions behind it. They can attack Hegseth as a liar and condemn Trump and his administration for failing to win the war or develop a clear strategy, while still accepting the basic framework of US military power and imperial conquest.
That is not an alternative foreign policy.
The reason the Democrats cannot offer a serious program that meets the needs and desires of US workers and much of the middle class is that the Democrats are a capitalist party and will defend the interests of the class it represents.
The heads of organized labor have the same problem. They cannot mobilize the power of their members against the capitalist offensive because they share the same basic worldview as Pelosi. They believe that the capitalist system is the only possible form of social organization and ultimately look to the market to provide the answers.
To mobilize the potential power of working people to act in our own self-interest can only lead to chaos in their minds. This worldview is the primary source of their class collaboration and concessionary policies.
What are the alternatives?
Here are some statistics from recent years, and I doubt the fundamental situation has changed much. If anything, it may have become worse.
Providing solutions to the problems represented by these statistics is impossible for the Democratic Party because doing so would undermine its power base.
Gallup found in December 2024 that 62% of Americans said the federal government should ensure that all Americans have health coverage.
Nearly four times as many voters supported increasing public transportation funding as supported reducing it.
A 2023 survey found that 70% of respondents agreed that providing people with more transportation options was better for health, safety and the economy than building more highways.
Housing is another example. Investor purchases accounted for almost one in four homes sold in 2021, while rents have reached record levels and millions of renters spend 30% or more of their income on rent.
Another survey found that 82% of Americans favored policies designed to make housing more affordable.
These figures don't mean that Americans have suddenly embraced a particular political program. They do, however, demonstrate that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the existing situation and substantial support for policies that address basic needs such as healthcare, transportation and affordable housing.
Sanders had an opportunity to lead a break from the Democratic Party ten years ago, but instead chose to remain within it and continue recruiting people to its electoral campaigns.
The alternative cannot simply be another appeal to vote for Democrats every two or four years.
It will take a mass movement on the ground—in the workplaces, working-class communities, schools and universities—and an independent working-class political formation born out of that movement to change course.
Such a movement could begin to change the balance of class forces in the US and open the door to a different future for working people here and internationally.
*Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers
Subscribed
