Understanding Labor's extremism

Wacky claims. Disinformation. Bigoted mailers. What's up with our local Labor movement? Jackson Reese, vice president of the influential statewide think tank California Policy Center, explores how and why Labor goes over the top--creating a false sense of existential terror--in their bizarre and dangerous efforts to influence local elections. An Opp Now exclusive.

You have to remember that for Labor advocates, politics is their livelihood. It's what they get paid to do. And their core, ongoing message to their community is one big scare tactic: it's always life or death. It's that somebody, somewhere, is trying to take away your job, your pay, your rights, your ability to feed your kids, your house.

Once you frame issues as an existential threat against your community, limiting principles go out the window. So, in the context of Labor rhetoric, everything is fair game: it justifies the falseness, the brutality of their attacks. They justify it as a necessary evil to protect their community.

Otherizing is a consistent theme in their attack rhetoric. There is always a shadowy, evil group somewhere scheming against working people. And Labor's aim is to marginalize those groups. Sometimes it's greedy developers. Or landlords. Or big business. Or Republicans. Or members of minority groups that are conservative.

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