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High Crimes and Piss-demeanors - Pod Save America | Wave AI Podcast Notes

High Crimes and Piss-demeanors

Sun Jun 01 2025

Elon Musk is back in the news, with a New York Times investigation detailing his rampant drug use right as he hightails it out of Washington. Lovett and Dan compare notes on their own White House drug tests, then dig into Trump’s most recent comments on his Big Beautiful Bill, the legislation’s fate in the Senate, and Sen. Joni Ernst’s psychopathic consolation for people being kicked off Medicaid. Then Lovett sits down with author and history professor Erik Loomis to talk about whether the U.S. is still capable of mass mobilization—do liberals actually care about workers? How do we meet people where they’re at? And are we all too individualistic to show true solidarity?

Summary

Pod Save America - Episode: "High Crimes and Piss-demeanors" (June 1, 2025)

Hosted by Crooked Media's Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor, "High Crimes and Piss-demeanors" delves deep into the tumultuous political landscape of 2025. This episode navigates through sensational news, legislative battles, and the evolving dynamics of the American labor movement, providing listeners with insightful analysis and historical context.

1. Elon Musk's Controversial Revelations ([02:08] – [07:56])

The episode kicks off with a heated discussion about a groundbreaking New York Times exposé on Elon Musk's personal life. According to the report:

Musk’s drug use is more severe than previously acknowledged, involving substances like ketamine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms.
Chronic ketamine use has reportedly led to bladder issues, including incontinence.
A photo revealed Musk carrying a daily medication box with about 20 pills, some resembling Adderall.

Dan Pfeiffer expresses skepticism about the trustworthiness of insiders sharing such personal information:

Dan Pfeiffer ([05:30]): "Tommy also made the point to me this morning that if we were a different party with a different media ecosystem, we would use Elon Musk's rampant ketamine use to the point of bladder failure as an argument to undo all the Doge cuts that they would be. They're illegitimate for that reason."

Tommy Vietor further critiques Musk’s behavior and the repercussions of his actions:

Tommy Vietor ([07:56]): "But I didn’t notice the first lady of France. I didn’t notice."

The hosts collectively question the bro code and the trust among elites, highlighting Musk's breach of personal boundaries by discussing his health issues publicly.

2. The Tax Bill Showdown and Senate Stalemate ([11:54] – [26:15])

The conversation shifts to the tax bill being negotiated in Congress, emphasizing the high stakes involved:

Trump's Position: Threatens a 68% tax increase on 68% of Americans if the bill isn't passed, highlighting the potential default on the debt ceiling.

Tommy Vietor ([12:03]): "That number nobody's ever heard of before. So that’s not right."
Senate Dynamics: With key Republicans like Rand Paul and Ron Johnson opposing the deficit increase, the bill faces a precarious path in the Senate.

Dan Pfeiffer ([12:55]): "Are they really going to reject Trump's bill and allow us to default and have taxes go up? That seems unlikely."
House of Representatives: The potential for the bill to falter in the House due to dissatisfaction among Freedom Caucus members and possible opposition from moderate Republicans.

Tommy Vietor ([16:28]): "I think that we have to fight to make the Democratic Party as pro labor as possible."
Democratic Strategy: Dan Pfeiffer advocates for Democrats to capitalize on opportunities to raise awareness about the bill's negative implications, especially leveraging figures like Elon Musk to sway public opinion.

Dan Pfeiffer ([17:27]): "We need a better Democratic Party as well to show the American working class that this is the party of the worker."

3. The State of American Labor and Union Movements ([28:33] – [90:00])

An extensive segment focuses on the American labor movement, its historical challenges, and current struggles:

a. Interview with Labor Historian Eric Loomis ([31:19] – [90:00])

Tommy Vietor introduces Professor Eric Loomis of the University of Rhode Island, author of "History of America in 10 Strikes." Their conversation explores pivotal labor strikes in American history, drawing lessons for today's political climate.

General Strikes of 1919 and 1946:
- Seattle General Strike (1919): Initiated by longshoremen seeking wage increases post-WWI. The strike demonstrated union solidarity but ultimately collapsed due to fear of radicalism.
- Oakland General Strike (1946): Driven by post-WWII economic adjustments and pent-up demand, it led to significant wage increases and laid the groundwork for a prosperous middle class.
Air Traffic Controllers Strike (PATCO, 1981):
- Led by Ronald Reagan, who fired over 11,000 controllers for striking, marking a turning point that weakened the private sector's union power for decades.
- The strike underscored the importance of public support; without it, the strike failed disastrously.
United Farm Workers Boycott (1960s-70s):
- Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta spearheaded a nationwide boycott against table grapes, building broad public solidarity and achieving major labor victories.
Lessons for Today:
- Public Support: Essential for successful labor actions. Strikes that engage and educate the public can lead to meaningful change.
- Discipline and Clear Goals: Strikes must have specific, achievable objectives to maintain unity and effectiveness.
- Government Role: Supportive government policies can make or break labor movements.

b. Current Labor Challenges ([78:19] – [90:00])

Declining Union Membership: Only 6% of private-sector workers are union members, concentrated in a few northeastern states.

Dan Pfeiffer ([84:15]): "We're not very close to that yet. Only 6% of private sector workers are currently in a labor union."
Political Barriers:
- Anti-Union Presidency: The current administration is actively undermining labor rights through policies and appointments at the NLRB.
- Democratic Party's Stance: Despite historical ties to labor movements, recent actions by some Democrats (e.g., Governor Jared Polis of Colorado) show reluctance to fully support unions.
  
  Dan Pfeiffer ([85:48]): "If you don't believe in union rights and you don't believe in the power of unions to transform the American people, then I don't think you're a Democrat."
Organizing Efforts:
- Recent Starbucks union campaigns and teacher strikes demonstrate a resurgence in union organizing, but face significant resistance from corporate America.
- Communication Gaps: Effective messaging and propaganda are crucial. Unlike historical movements that successfully conveyed their message, modern efforts often lack the cohesive narrative needed to galvanize widespread support.
  
  Tommy Vietor ([89:58]): "When corporations have unleashed violence against organizers, it has blown back against them."
Future of Work:
- Automation and AI: These technologies threaten job stability, making the role of unions even more critical in advocating for worker protections and fair wages.
- Changing Labor Landscape: The traditional factory jobs that once symbolized dignity and stability are dwindling, replaced by service and gig economy roles that offer less security.

4. Reflections and Call to Action ([90:00] – End)

In concluding remarks, the hosts emphasize the urgent need for:

Rebuilding Union Strength: Encouraging participation and solidarity within unions to counteract political and corporate opposition.
Educating the Public: Highlighting the intertwined nature of economic justice and political movements to foster a more informed and active electorate.
Policy Advocacy: Pushing the Democratic Party to adopt more pro-labor policies and unequivocally support union rights as a cornerstone of their platform.

Dan Pfeiffer underscores the importance of viewing policy victories not just as isolated achievements but as part of a broader, cohesive strategy to empower workers:

Dan Pfeiffer ([87:49]): "The March on Washington had economic demands that included a $2 an hour minimum wage, which in the contemporary economy of 2025 is something like $18 or $19 an hour. So they're pushing for widespread minimum wage legislation as well. All of that is totally erased from our memory of civil rights."

Conclusion:
"High Crimes and Piss-demeanors" serves as a compelling exploration of the intersections between personal controversies, legislative battles, and the pivotal role of labor movements in shaping American society. By intertwining historical insights with contemporary challenges, the hosts advocate for a reinvigorated approach to unionism and political activism as essential tools in countering authoritarian tendencies and fostering a more equitable future.

For more insightful discussions and in-depth analysis, subscribe to Pod Save America on your preferred platform and join the conversation with Crooked Media.

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Transcript

Jon Lovett (0:00)

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Dan Pfeiffer (1:15)

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Tommy Vietor (1:43)

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Dan Pfeiffer (1:43)

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Dan Pfeiffer (1:44)

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Tommy Vietor (2:08)

Hey everybody. Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Levitt.

Dan Pfeiffer (2:11)

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Tommy Vietor (2:12)

It's a crossover. It's happening. So we have a lot to get to today, but we wanted to start with this. New York Times broke a story today, we're recording this on Friday reporting that Elon Musk drug use has been far more intense than the occasional use previously reported. Here's what the Times said, and I quote, musk told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it. Also, the Times went further into the bladder issue, saying that Musk publicly endorsed Mr. Trump in July. Around that time, Mr. Musk told people that his ketamine use was causing bladder issues, according to people familiar with the conversations. You know, Dan, you think you can trust somebody? You think you can show them your box of pills and tell them about the fact that the ketamine you're taking has led to incontinence? And then they go and tell fucking Megan Toohey. What happened to the bro code?

Dan Pfeiffer (20:06)

I guess I'd say I think there's a chance that Democrats can make the bill so politically toxic that Republicans will have to trim back some of the cuts. Right. They can make them like we maybe get some of the food, the food stamp cuts back. Maybe they make the Medicare cuts worse, maybe get the funding for Planned Parenthood back or take the provision that defunds Planned Parenthood out of the bill. There are some things you can do around the margins, but really what we're trying to do here, we can't stop the bill from passing like that is not. We don't have the votes to do that. And I'm operating the assumption that they have to pass something. Our goal is to make sure that every person in this country knows how bad a thing they just passed. And there's been. So we're recording this on Friday. It's only been a few hours since the Joni Ernst clip made the rounds on the Internet. This would be in a different media environment, different world. A gigantic story like this is the whole thing. Republican senator does not care. That bill she's about to vote for will kill people. And earlier this week, Elon Musk said that criticized the bill because it exploded the deficit and undid the work of Doge. Those are two different arguments against the bill, both of which could be used with a very aggressive strategic communications operation to really undermine the bill and increase the political pressure and use as an opportunity to raise awareness on what's happening. Because there was this Navigator poll that Faz and I talked about a couple weeks ago which showed that only 25% of people were closely following the Medicaid cuts. Most people had no idea they were happening. And so here you have Elon Musk, one of the famous people in the world, Trump's buddy, like Kato Kalin, as John called them, on this, with a very outdated reference on our most recent podcast criticizing Trump's signature legislative initiative. And the Democratic Party and everyone trying to fight this bill should make sure every single person knows about it, because Elon Musk saying the bill is bad will be very persuasive with a segment of people, and it makes it look worse for Republicans. And the hope is, to date, that Democrats did not leap at the Musk opportunity. I hope they leap at the Joni Ernst opportunity to really put political, real political pressure on Republicans. We have not done that to date, Dan.

Tommy Vietor (31:19)

And we're back. With me today is Eric Loomis, a professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. He wrote a book called the History of America in 10 strikes. I read it because I was really interested in moments when movements were able to galvanize public support, not just to make changes in a company or an industry, but to make broader political change. And as we think about this fight against Trump, as you watch this rising authoritarian movement, the answer has to be some kind of mass mobilization, a democratic movement big enough to meet this right wing one. And throughout history, labor has been central to that. And there have been moments when we've seen organizing succeed and we've had moments when organizing failed. And I was just interested to learn about what lessons we can draw. And the book was really helpful to do that. And this conversation was really helpful to think about that, about getting public support, the balance between radicalism and pragmatism, the ways in which violence can harm a movement and how much it matters when you have political leaders who are supportive of organizing and labor movements and when they are hostile to them. So there's a lot of lessons, I think, for us right now, which is why I was so eager to talk to Eric Loomis about it. And it was a great conversation, runs the gamut from a pageant of striking workers in which many were jealous that they didn't get the parts they wanted, all the way through Reagan's decimation of the air traffic controllers, unions, and the lessons we can draw from that. But all in all, a really great conversation. Eric Loomis, thank you so much for being here. I want to start with the General Strike of 1919, which I thought was an interesting moment where you saw basically an intersection of the radicalism of some parts of the labor movement and people who did not view themselves as radical, did not view themselves as political, were not part of the iww, the Industrial Workers of the world, which is was seen as more socialist and communist, but members of the AFL and over the course of several days basically shut the city of Seattle down. And so maybe you could just start by telling us a little bit about what led to that moment.

Dan Pfeiffer (33:51)

So in the early 20th century American workers engaged in strikes of all kinds. Some of them were radical, some of them were not radical. A lot of the biggest issues were around politics, right, for union members, for workers. Are we engaged in some sort of radicalism or do we really believe in like an American capitalist system that maybe needs some adjustment, but is something that we can generally work with? And you know, there's very few general, quote, general strikes in American history for a number of different reasons, where workers from across multiple industries, across a city, never really across the nation, have come together to say, shut down a particular city for a given time. In Seattle in 1919 is one of the, the most important and interesting ones. And you know, one of the fascinating things about this strike and about the other limited general strikes is how rarely they've actually come out of self proclaimed radicals, whether it's the iww, the Communist party, et cetera. And that was the case in 1919 as well. It really just started with longshoremen strike. Shipyard workers had gone two years without a pay raise. You had 35,000 workers walk away from their job. They thought they were going to get a raise after the end of World War I, it didn't happen, etc. Etc. They go on strike, a couple of weeks pass, pressure's really growing on the workers. For the Seattle labor movement and the labor movement more generally, they really see this as an attempt to roll back gains that the labor movement had, had won during World War I. And so the general strike of Seattle begins with the Metal Trades Council, which were just traditional American Federation of Labor, non radical unions, because they just felt like they all had to come out in order to support these workers. Because an attack on these longshoremen workers, that was an attack on everybody. And over the next few days they basically shut the city down, but also engage. And this is an important thing, I think throughout the way we talk about these, these things in terms of the relevance for today, they engaged in the social movement, unionism, where they made sure they were able to feed the people, where they made sure hospitals were staffed, where people were having fun, where it wasn't, you know, essential workers may still be working because the city has, the people of the city have to continue to be able to live there and support that strike and it's able to succeed more or less until national labor leadership, scared of the potential radical implications, shut it down. And in fact that becomes a disaster. Seattle labor movement falls apart in the aftermath. But that's one of those moments in which you do see unions come Together across ideological lines to support a larger principle of unions surviving, of workers having dignity, and of trying to move a fight forward in which all of us can come together to make a positive change.

Dan Pfeiffer (37:33)

Okay, first of all, to your first point, you're absolutely right. I mean, I often get people emailing me stuff and say, oh, what do we need to do to get the general strike? And, you know, there's a lot of sort of fantasies in the political world, I think, of what I would call politics without politics, right, where, like, people come together in some way, without the messiness and dirtiness of organizing and the. The complexities of dealing with real people. And just like, good things are going to happen. It's like the general strike requires, like, the workers that you hate to also be part of the strike. It requires Trump voters to be part of the strike. It requires your racist uncle on Thanksgiving that you can't stand to also be part of the strike. Right? It's. It's going to be messy. And I think that's really a really, really critical point to not romanticize the strike or romanticize labor or romanticize change, but rather to understand what it really takes to create that change. And that leads to your second point about the public. I think a lot of people would like to think. I mean, there's a kind of a. Of a messaging around the labor movement today in Inside the Labor Movement that I don't think is very helpful. And basically it is the kind of quote that gets thrown around a lot, is the strike gets the goods. Like if we just go on strike, it always works and only the union can sell us out, you know, from our power going on strike. But historically, that is not the case, and nor is it today. Strikes could be an Amazing political tool. Or they could be a complete disaster. And it depends in no small part on that issue of public support. Okay. General strikes are actually technically illegal in the United States now as part of the Taft Hartley act of 1947. So it would be really hard to actually have a general strike take place in this country. Cuz it would be an illegal act. Okay, that doesn't mean it can't happen. But it, it, it would be illegal. But you have to have public support in some way or another. And when unions have had broader public support, when they've engaged in a kind of unionism that builds support through the community to understand that what's happening here is that we're going on strike and inconveniencing you in many cases for the benefit of us all versus we're doing that for the very small benefit of our personal desires and needs. It leads to two very different kinds of outcomes.

Dan Pfeiffer (40:44)

The famous story, and some of your listeners may be familiar with this, is that in the beginning of 1937, autoworkers in Flint, Michigan took over one of the plants for General Motors and sat inside and refused to leave. To force GM to come to an agreement with this brand new union they were forming called the United Auto Workers to bring unions into the auto industry for the first time. And workers were scared, right? I mean, like because GM basically controls Flint. That was common in the auto industry. Ford controls the town of Dearborn, for example. And that meant control of the police forces. And so, you know, this small sort of vanguard, I guess, of workers decides to sit in, in this one factory and they're able to do so. And the idea Is in part that, you know, if you're going to get. If the workers just go out on strike, they'll be able to. The GM will be able to bring in replacement workers. This makes that impossible, right? So they're sitting down on the job. And there's been kind of a myth that forms around this in a sense, that part of the strategy was GM would not have wanted the cops to destroy their own facility. But in fact, GM was fine with the cops destroying their own facility. They want to do anything to keep that union from forming. So you have men inside and then you have their wives, sisters, daughters, mothers on the outside in what was called a ladies auxiliary, providing support services, giving talks, you know, making sure food got to these guys, etc. And this begins to build a kind of community solidarity where people are coming out in support of the workers. And then one night, gm, you know, tries to get the cops to come in and tear it up. And gm, you know, the workers inside start throwing stuff at the cops and the cops retreat. And this happens in front of everybody. And, you know, there was a lot of outreach, but the critical thing that they did actually came the previous year. And this is an important point in terms of thinking about the relationships between unions and politics. The most important thing that workers require to win strikes is to neutralize what tends to be a frequent corporate political alliance where the state supports the corporation in whatever is going to happen to bust that union. And workers in Michigan had elected a guy named Frank Murphy to be the governor. And Murphy had campaigned on never using state forces against the unions. And so GM is calling out Murphy to send in the National Guard. And Murphy, who's a very nervous guy, basically has an anxiety attack over this and disappears for a day or two.

Dan Pfeiffer (44:32)

The reality is people don't necessarily care what happens to workers very much. I mean, I think that's, that's. If they don't see it, they don't necessarily think about it, but they do often care if they see it. I mean, basically you have janitors who were, you know, kind of at the forefront of a lot of the terrible work situations that are now incredibly common. In this case, subcontracting, where basically the owners of these gigantic downtown office buildings were ending their direct employment of janitors and instead using subcontractors to bring in the janitors for much lower wages. And seiu, Service Employees International Union, which today is one of the largest unions in the country, in part by organizing this kind of worker is able to bring a lot of these workers together. A lot of them had escaped places like El Salvador and Honduras. So they're like fleeing right wing paramilitary violence. And so they're not really that scared of the LA cops in comparison to what they had dealt with, with, say, you know, US supported militias in El Salvador, right. One day, right. The cops just start, I think in 1990, the cops just start beating them in the streets. And you know, I think one woman who's pregnant, miscarriages, I mean, it's, it's, it's ugly. And as you point out, you know, if you're a company that's renting a floor in an office tower, all you care about is that the garbage cans are empty and the bathrooms clean, like you don't care about anything else. And all of a sudden these, these people are watching like Salvadorans get beaten by the LAPD on the streets. And they're like, what on earth is going on here? And it was a huge mistake by the. Well, by the LAPD and by the, the, the corporate leaders. And it leads to a big victory that spreads across the country and sort of brings a lot of janitors and other low wage service workers into SEIU and makes it the powerful force in American labor unionism and American progressive politics that it is today.

Dan Pfeiffer (54:44)

Yeah, I mean I think a great example is the United Farm Workers boycott of grapes in the 60s and 70s. Right. I mean this is an epic legendary struggle that really is from a very small set of workers. I mean these are pretty disempowered, mostly Mexican American, but some, but at that point still a lot of Filipinos as well out in California who are picking grapes and asparagus and lettuce and other crops in really awful terrible conditions. People are dying of heat stroke, pesticide poisoning and all kinds of other terrible things. And you know, there's some pretty serious organizing going on out there. Going back to the legendary organizer Saul Alinsky who sends some of his people out out there, guy named Fred Ross Ross brings in a couple of local people named, named Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and they eventually start leading a different kind of a movement, a workers oriented movement that eventually becomes the United Farm workers beginning in 1965 gauges in a nationwide boycott against, against table grapes because the grape growers were so anti union. This sort of galvanizes liberals across the country. It becomes a national movement. People volunteer for this and they live in like UFW houses in various cities around the country, working, flyering, getting people to support the movement, getting stores to not buy these grapes and it becomes a national movement that eventually, eventually leads to some pretty major victories for the farm workers and really like solidifies Chavez and Huerta as legends of American organizing and American progressivism. They were able to take a really small group of workers and make it a national cause by building on a kind of a broader sense of solidarity that existed at that time where people, you know, in New York or LA, or, or, or you know, where I live in Providence saw these, you know, workers out in California they barely knew existed and learned about their conditions. And people were horrified about this and it, and it leads to, you know, enormous changes in the law in the state of California leads to this big time social movement, leads to a lot of major victories for these workers. So I mean that's one good example from the not too distant past.

Dan Pfeiffer (57:19)

It was the appeal to a broader sense of justice that was a big part of American life in the 1960s and 70s. You know, that if this was a way in which everyday people. Let me think about it today, right. Like, you know, there's a lot of people out there who, no doubt, listeners of this, this podcast who really don't know what to do right now. Right. I mean, they're flummoxed, they're flustered, they're horrified, they're angry, but they're. They're anger other than like, you know, got to make sure we win the house in 26 and try to find somebody else. They don't know what to do necessarily. And that's been kind of a theme, I think, since the election. Well, you know, part of what the UFW boycott does is give people something to do, right. It gives them a way that they can become invested in a movement by handing out flyers, by, if nothing more, by like taking the flyer and then saying, I'm not going to support buying these table grapes, right? I'm going to boycott a store that is selling these grapes. I'm going to engage in me, you know, I'm going to engage in a solidarity action that might slightly inconvenience me because I don't know, my kid likes grapes and, you know, I like this store or whatever. But I'm going to put pressure, using my consumer power to live by this boycott. That that then means that I am actively helping these workers out in California who I've never seen because I've never been to Fresno. And I'm going to use my little bit of power to do something to help these workers. So I think it's. It's not just like, I mean, look like workers are in horrible conditions today too. I mean, the pandemic and like the meatpacking workers who are dying of COVID on the job because they're considered essential workers are an example of that. And we didn't necessarily have actions to support them per se, but there are ways to build bigger public support by. By doing the work of organizing in a broader general public to have an ask of people to do something concrete to help support of labor rights or immigrant rights or the other horrible things that are happening to this country today. There are ways that we can learn from the past to engage people to do real actions. They're not going to dominate their lives, but to do something concrete that leads to a bigger, broader set of social changes. What we need for that, though, is the organizing capacity and the leadership to make that happen. And that's not easy to do. That's the kind of infrastructure that has to take place in the organizing world first to be able to engage people who are, you know, not going to come out to a million meetings, but get them to do something.

Dan Pfeiffer (60:33)

Yeah, that's a really outstanding point. I mean, I think that so often in our world, our liberal left, progressive worlds, however we want to define these, these terms today, we've often lost, I think, the, the first core tenet of organizing, which you have to meet people where they're at, not where you're at, right? And so if your ask is the revolution, like, people are not going to be there for that because they don't know what you're talking about. Right? That, the idea. And you saw this a little bit with like, I mean, you know, say Occupy Wall street, right, which is now quite, you know, 15 years ago and was a really important moment in rebuilding progressive capacity to do anything at all after the long 90s and 2000s, where like people just weren't really on the streets. And it's a very important moment. But, you know, look, I mean, when it becomes about just occupying the space for a long, long time, people are not going to really see that connection. Connection, right. And that begins to sort of people start cleaving off of that at that, at that moment in time. And I think you see this in a lot of other cases today where organizers end up having kind of maximalist demands that are not. Don't seem realistic. Right. The organizers themselves have to have discipline. And the United Farm workers. Let me tell you something about the ufw. You, as a volunteer, you didn't have autonomy over your life. You couldn't choose when or how to engage. If you were working for Chavez, he was the boss and you knew it and going against that meant you were out. Discipline actually matters and like today, I feel like we are in. That includes much of the labor movement, all these like super hyper powered individualists that do not submit to group discipline. And that actually is really critical to making change. It's kind of against the way a lot of us feel today, but you actually do have to have discipline. And some of that discipline is we have to have, we have to decide first what our concrete goals are. We have to decide how we're going to get there, how to stay on messaging and how to get people to then support those goals. And when we win those goals, then we declare victory and move on to a next stage of organizing. We're not really at a lot of those points today and I think this is part of the larger problem in figuring out how to collectively respond to Trump.

Dan Pfeiffer (65:50)

Yeah, absolutely. And so in some ways, the Oakland strike is a little bit like the Seattle strike coming out of a union movement that was not actually that radical. Right. And by 1946, understand that the union movement is now split into two groups. There's the American Federation of Labor, which represents the older forms of unions that tend to begin be more politically conservative. And then the cio, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, that includes the auto workers and the steel workers and the rubber workers and a lot of communist led unions and had really embraced that radicalism and mass organizing. But ironically, the Oakland General Strike, like in Seattle, came out of these fairly conservative AFL unions. And this was very much about what did almost everybody have in Common in 1946. They had not spent any money in 20 years. Right. You had the Great Depression. You had World War II. And of course, nobody's making any money during the Depression and in the war. People are making money, but they can't spend the money because there's Nothing to spend it on. And by 1946, you have a lot of pent up demand. And these people want pay raises. They want big time pay raises to get the pay they deserve for the work they've done to win the war. And not surprisingly, the business class doesn't want to do that. And so this is a situation where it starts among women, actually department store workers, and they, they shut down the city for three days until lo and behold, the Teamsters, led by a corrupt leader named Dave Beck, pulls their union out. And that was, was in some ways kind of devastating because at that moment, the CIO unions were about to join the strike. But it's another one of these situations where they like, they shut the place down for three days and it's like a giant party in the street. You know, the bars are, the bars can't sell alcohol, but they can. But they put their jukeboxes out on the street. People are like literally dancing in the street. And it's this kind of joyful moment of workers expressing this power. They don't necessarily win the strike or some of the political aims, but, but these kind of things do lead to the massive pay raises and benefit raises that workers in post war America got that turned American working class into being barely able to feed themselves, to being able to buy a home and a new car and maybe send their kids to college. And the kinds of hallmarks of, I think what's become called the middle class, but in still large parts, is a working class that is a more prosperous working class. And so, like, the strike is not in itself necessarily successful, but it lays the groundwork for employers over the next 25 years to giving really gargantuan pay and benefit raises to the American working class that significantly improved the lives of American workers. And I think that's also an important point that's worth making is that while for a lot of people, it's a kind of a radical, you know, being involved in the labor movement is a kind of radical thing with the idea of socialist aims and whatever. And that's cool. I mean, I support a lot of that too. But having grown up pretty poor, having more money in the bank is a revolutionary act.

Dan Pfeiffer (69:53)

Yeah, that's right. I mean, just from the work perspective, we know absolutely that there's nothing inherently better about a factory job than working at McDonald's or working as a home health care worker. Right. The jobs that actually exist today, as opposed to factory jobs that are not coming back. Even if all the tariffs happen and you know, all the production comes back to the US it's going to be automated. Right. There's maybe a few workers in there, but we're not talking about 1950 anymore where you've got 25,000 people working in the same factory. That is never happening again. But I do think that there is a tremendous amount of instability in the workplace today. There's been a huge amounts of attacks on organized labor, open attacks from Republicans and indifference from too many Democratic leaders. Joe Biden being a very important exception to that very pro union guy and one of his strongest things that did not really pay off politically, unfortunately with union workers, which is a whole other set of conversations. But people are going to react to nostalgia, right? People are going to react to a feeling that things were better in the past. The truth barely matters. We have to deal with the reality that people do not feel comfortable and stable in their work lives. The rise of AI is only going to make this worse. And we actually really have to get ahead of figuring out what does the future of work look like. And people value work. Work is one of these things that all societies throughout history have had work in certain kinds of ways as central to their societies, often connected to gender norms. And this is something we're going to have to figure out. We can't just tell people that they're wrong. We have to once again organize them where they're at to try to get them to a place that is less nostalgic and more useful and more organized to moving toward a politics that actually makes sense in the 21st century to make work life better for everybody. And, and we're not, we're not very Close to that yet.

Tommy Vietor (78:19)

So I think we should wrap up by just talking about where we're at now. Only 6% of private sector workers are currently in a labor union. I thought this was a stunning fact that more than half are located in just half a dozen states in the Northeast. Right. Which means whole parts of the country are just not unionized at all. We've also just been through an election where, you know, we lost. We lost to an anti union, anti labor president who is right now trying to stack the NLRB and undermine labor at every turn. But at the same time, we've Seen kind of revived efforts to organize. We've seen, I think, organizers trying to figure out how to organize people that work in offices, organize the media. We're sitting here in the auspices of crooked media. We got the crooked media union on the ones and twos. If I did anything wrong, they'd have dumped out. You know, if I, if I went to pro management in this interview, it would be shut off. It wouldn't continue. They're laughing too much. And then. But it just, it's hard not to feel what you're feeling. Like one thing I take away from the book is just when the, when corporations have unleashed violence against organizers, it has blown back against them. When unions have had violent elements, even just acting on their own, it has destroyed solidarity with people that aren't in the union. And the reason I bring that up is you start to see this kind of, this desire to find someone to fix it, whether it's a politician or whether it's people kind of praising someone like Luigi Mangione. And it just feels like we're not at a moment where people want to or feel motivated to participate in broad protest or broadcast actions. You see some, some rising protests in the last couple of months, but nothing that compares to what happened in 2017. And, and more broadly, what you see is protests not as a mean to exact any specific outcome, but simply to raise awareness. Right. Protest to highlight a topic, express discontent, voice concerns, but not the kind of organized movements that are designed to exact specific policy outcomes. And so when I think about the long road, we have to a moment where millions of people might have to take to the streets because they're trying to protect us from a further descent into authoritarianism. I feel like we're so far away from that, and I just wonder what you see as either glimmers of hope or places where you would like to see greater organizing to start rebuilding that muscle.

Dan Pfeiffer (81:24)

I mean, people came out and they occupy those airports and if they forced Trump on his heels and it gave. It gave courage to judges to push back on Trump and like, I feel like there's an attitude up here and maybe we learn our history wrong, maybe this is A problem in that, like, people seem to think, well, we tried this one time and it didn't work. So I don't know. And it's like the civil rights movement. It was not just a march on Washington. And then everybody just sort of said, oh, okay, like Martin Luther King is correct. Like that didn't happen that way. It was decades of hard work of people dying, right? The women's march, the, the anti Muslim ban action, these were hugely effective actions. And it disturbs me that, that people have kind of like lost that. Um, but there is a glimmer of hope out there, which is that never in American history, including at the peak of union power in the 40s and in the 50s, have unions pulled as strongly as they do today. Americans kind of love unions today, at least in theory. It doesn't mean they're part of one because we know like 10% of American workers are members of the union, 6% of private sector workers, as you said. So very few people are actually part of unions, but they pull tremendously well. Like, unions are actually quite popular. The problem is the, the total capture of the union process, the union election and contract process by corporate America. Joe Biden typically attempted to do something about that. This, and that was the pro act, which had a lot of support in the Senate, but not all Democrats support it. And you're not going to get it through without getting rid of the filibuster anyway. But that would have taken away a lot of the power that corporations have to bust unions and to stop elections from happening and to be forced on to sign contracts and these sorts of things. So we're at a moment in which there's a lot of people who are looking for something, right? And they're looking for a movement that can mobilize them and get them to do something. Because I think people do feel unmoored and lost. And so people see unions as maybe the kind of thing that could happen and like that. The Starbucks union campaign is an example of how this could kind of mushroom up. Or the teacher strike wave in 2018 was another case which went from, you know, deep blue LA to deep red West Virginia and Oklahoma that transcended politics and mobilized teachers around the country. But it's hard to take that kind of, like, vague. I really hope somebody will organize me and get your actual union right. And that's because companies could do so much to stop a union election from happening, engage in intensive anti union meetings and put tons of propaganda on workers that makes them scared. And then even if the workers win that election, the company can delay and delay and delay into signing a first contract, which is why you still don't have any contracts at Starbucks. And this leads to one final point, which is that Democrats actually have to be pro union. And I would be remiss here in not talking about how disgusted I am by Colorado Governor Jared Polis right now, who the Colorado legislature passed a law that would repeal their right to work statute, which came out of the horrible Taft Hartley act of 1947, that it's called right to work. But what it really does is allow workers to leech off the unions without becoming members and is used as an anti union tool in Republican states. Colorado has moved significantly to the left in its politics. They have a Democratic legislature that passes a bill to repeal this, which should be the peak demand of any Democrats in purplish states. And Jared Polis vetoes it because he doesn't believe in unions. And frankly, if you don't believe in union rights and you don't believe in the power of unions to transform the American people, then I don't think you're a Democrat. I don't think you belong in the Democratic Party. I think you should be read out of the Democratic Party because to me it's just as big of a moral crime as being a Democrat and saying I don't support gay marriage or being a Democrat and say I think abortion should be banned, which would be red lines for a lot of Democrats. But being anti union is not a red line for too many Democrats. And so we need a better Democratic Party as well to show the American working class that this is the party of the worker and you need to rejoin the party and become the kind of Democrats, working class Democrats that we had in this country from the 1930s through the 1970s.

Dan Pfeiffer (87:49)

Yeah, I mean, first of all, thank you for summarizing the points of the book so effectively. I mean, I hope those are the takeaways. And let me, I guess, close with an example. The March on Washington in 1963, everybody knows it for the I have a Dream speech. And of course that's been corrupted by, you know, Republican distortions of what Martin Luther King was saying. But what is forgotten about even by liberals in the way we teach this and you know, K12, often at the college level and is part of our general understanding of society is the actual name for it is the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. And economic demands were as central to the civil rights movement as desegregation, as central to the civil rights movement as legislation, as central to the civil rights movement as equality in schools. But they get dropped from the overall memory of the civil rights movement movement because economic demands are in many cases more challenging to established power than even demands for civil rights. I mean, the idea for the March on Washington came out of a. Philip Randolph's World War II level movement. And he was the head of the Brotherhood of Sleepy Car Porters Union. He speaks at the March on Washington, 1963. Walter Reuther and the United Auto Workers pay for most of the March on Washington. And the March on Washington had economic demands that included a $2 an hour minimum wage, which in the contemporary economy of 2025 is something like 18 or $19 an hour. So they're pushing for widespread minimum wage legislation as well. All of that is totally erased from our memory of civil rights, not only on the right, but in liberal world as well. And we need to think about why that is. Why do we, even when we do teach other justice movements and on the left, we do do that more. We teach women's rights, we teach gay rights, we teach civil rights. This is very important. These are big advances in the way we teach history. Why are we leaving labor out of that? And that's a question we all need to think about.