One hardly need point out that a proposal to wipe out union rights, and then "reinstate" them:
a) makes no sense: either it's a good idea, or it's a bad idea (and it's a horrific idea), and that it would:
b) work exactly like the Bush tax cuts. Once in place, these rights will never be restored, as the same interests will press against them, and the status quo is always easier to maintain in politics. Which is precisely why this maneuver is both being attempted, and is so crucial both to those interested in the rights of workers, ordinary middle-class people, against the increase of income inequality, and who oppose what communist Teddy Roosevelt called the malefactors for great wealth:
Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country.
Teddy knew what he was talking about. Gov. Scott Walker may have fatally weakened his case in his television appearances yesterday, as Josh Marshall suspects Walker is in trouble and his own party is bolting from the bad press.
Walker's position was best captured by the litany he used in his appearance this afternoon. He threatened that over a thousand state employees would need to be laid off if the budget bill isn't passed. He accused the Democrats of shutting down the government. And on and on. He's not acting like someone who thinks he has the strong hand.
Political opinion is often more driven by power and impotence than we believe. On the merits, I think Walker's probably on the wrong side of public opinion in his state on the collective bargaining issue. But quite apart from that, he's out giving press conferences daring his opponents to come back to the state and give him what he wants. But they're not. And his top legislative ally seems to be signaling that he doesn't have another card to play. Whatever you think on the merits of the question, that makes him look weak. And weakness is demoralizing. He's lost the initiative.
George Will says Walker is a Reaganesque figure who holds all the cards in his hands. He sees him heading toward a Reagan with Patco type moment. And the audacity of such a step might perhaps help him. Unfortunately for him though the dynamics of this situation don't give him the opportunity for such decisive action. He's lost the initiative. I confess without more polling information, I really have no more to go on than my gut. But I think Walker's political hand is a good deal weaker than Will thinks.
I'd have to agree. Wisconsin Senate Dems say they want to come back to negotiate. Wisconsin Senate Republicans say they want to negotiate. But Gov. Walker says there will be no negotiations, period, calling them a "non-starter". Early last weekend I would have said Walker had the upper hand. Now, he has a major problem. In a month where democracy is spreading across the dictatorships of North Africa and the Middle East, Walker is showing that his idea of democracy is dictatorship.
He's losing this battle, and deservedly so.
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