A small band of employees at a Staten Island warehouse struggled for a year trying to win the fight to become the first unionized Amazon workplace in America, before they won a historic, game-changing worker victory in the face of the worst union buster in America Jeff Bezos.
While many progressives felt dejected after two failed Bernie Sanders campaigns, Cristian Smalls and the organizers of his Amazon Labor Union accomplished a stunning victory in this new Gilded Age, an era where workers are routinely crushed.
“They didn’t succumb cynicism or hopelessness, and instead opted to show up every day to connect with and convince their fellow workers,” said one observer. “And if they can successfully beat a corporate villain like Jeff Bezos and one of the largest employers in America, there is hope for us all to do the same by doing the work just like the ALU did.”
Far from making Americans crave stability, the pandemic underscores how everything is up for grabs.
The United States today is at the beginning of a revolution that has yet to be launched.
That Americans are on the verge of a major transformation seems obvious, although some have suggested that the coronavirus pandemic—coinciding as it did with the surge in Joe Biden’s candidacy and the decline of Bernie Sanders’ quest for the Democratic presidential nomination—marked the end of any such possibility.
The United States is inviting revolutionary events simply waiting on visionary leaders or outraged crowds, viruses, markets, and climate change to tip the scales at some imminent point of no return.
History may feel like it is out of our hands, but Americans merely wait for a champion.
The question is our next one will resemble the French Revolution more than that of our own founding fathers since the greedy billionaires and political minions who slave in service to corrupt corporations are not an ocean away.
Analogies between the first months of the French Revolution and our current moment are easy to draw.
The government is ineffectual and political factionalism grows more intense.
The events of 2008 seemed like an onset of the next Depression, World War III may already be brewing in Europe, a national midlife crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic: Any single challenge like these could trigger calls for deep structural change but we also have electoral systems that run entirely on money and an economy that has been broken for more than 40 years.
With Reaganomics—and the ensuing transformations enacted by Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump—the birthright of a realistic American Dream was robbed from our citizens.
Chris Smalls is not the only one who sees that we should act bravely to get those back
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