Today's union workers continue to be haunted by those "Reagan Democrats" who abandoned the Democratic Party in the late 70's. After all, empty platitudes make you feel so much better, right?
When the Democratic Party did the right thing and embraced the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the stampede began. As some of my more Neanderthal relatives said, "They want to give everything to the N******s." My own father couldn't bring himself to vote Republican in 1968. Instead he voted for George Wallace. As the 70's progressed and we paid the price for the Vietnam fiasco, inflation was out of control. My husband and I were newlyweds, living in Germany. Things were expensive, but there was not the out of control inflation there.
Jimmy Carter was a totally uninspiring President at the time. The hostage crisis in Iran sealed his fate as a one term president. He gets blamed for high interest rates. Let's not forget the reason for those high interest rates: runaway inflation. Carter appointed Paul Volcker who raised interest rates until it was practically impossible to get decent credit rates. The idea was to choke inflation. It worked. In the meantime, the Democratic Party seemed to be dominated by an extreme left wing contingent that brought political correctness to a new high.
Along comes Mr. Sunshine - aka Ronald Reagan. I remember someone saying to me "Can you feel the energy?" Yeah, right. Among the first things Reagan did was to crush the Air Traffic Controller's Union. This set the stage for union busting and the continuous weakening of the union movement.
Now southern Republicans have made it official: they want to break the backs of unions everywhere. The refusal to give any kind of help to American car manufacturers, while the taxpayers have helped foreign automobile companies take advantage of cheap labor in this country. How's that for irony? Are we the next "third world country?" In the meantime, other countries are more than happy to help their own struggling manufacturers. They do whatever it takes to keep as many high paying jobs possible.
The GOP has ALWAYS been the party of the wealthy. Now they are not even trying to hide that anymore. The Democratic Party can NOT afford to make ANY mistakes. Working people need a voice. They're not getting from Republicans who have done nothing but feed them pap in the form of religious platitudes and scare tactics.