-I agree with your arguments about the political -divisions and machine politics participation in the -past. But what makes you think that the "labor -movement" is more unified today? True, unions tend to -support Democrats, but first their clout has declines -substantially, and second they have little influence -over how working class votes.
Let's see-- in the late 19th and early 20th century, federal troops were routinely deployed to break strikes and ban consumer boycotts. There was no significant welfare state, minimum wage laws or legal protection of the right to organize.
Even under a government today completely dominated by anti-union Republicans, they don't dare or have the power to repeal the core structures of the welfare state, the minimum wage or labor law.
Even now, where Dems control state governments, the minimum wage is being increased around the country and the right to organize of a range of workers outside federal labor law have been expanded in recent years.
As for union clout on the working class, they still signficantly can move elections. Look at the Schwartzenneger California initiatives where all of them were defeated. Union members vote Democrat in significantly greater percentages than workers outside the labor movement.
Workers of course would be doing better if the labor movement was stronger, but it's wrong to discuss the current situation in apololyptic terms as if labor doesn't still continue to wield power in a range of elections.
-I'd say that today labor is divided as ever of rural -vs urban identities, gender, race, nationalism, and -cultural issues. That is why Democrats have been and -will be losing to GOP, which is quite good at -exploting these identity divisions.
Yes, labor power does not erase those divisions and where labor is weaker, they dominate elections even more. But economic polarization still drives political divisions across elections as well. So the key is to promote the economic divisions and decrease the cultural conflicts.
And the reality is that a shift of 5% of population from working class cultural conservatism to economic populism would remark the political establishment. This isn't rocket science or an unsurmoutable goal-- it's just hard gritty organizing and ideological combat.
Nathan Newman