Now, though, they have an NLRB who will fight legal battles on their behalf.

as someone thats pretty far left, i understand that rich people rule a given country through the state and politicians and we have much less influence over it than they do.

-whether this works still remains to be seen but i’m skeptical. legal battles tend to be longer and are harder to be ruled in favour of the weaker link pretty much everywhere, i’m under the assumption politicians are very aware of this even if they play dumb, and we won’t be able to actually defend this system because iirc they outlawed further striking. we are relying solely on judges and politicians.

-on the other hand strikes, especially something like railroads which make the backbone of trade and production in any country, elicit a very quick response with very consequential decisions from our overlords. workers have the upper hand in the sense that even a week without them will hit the corporations very hard in their pockets. this is what they truly care about and respond to. breaking a strike up can be complicated after it reaches critical mass, hiring scabs is difficult, and workers get to tell a big fat NO to abusive conditions with chips in their hands they can play when negotiating, in addition to other protections that might exist.

massive, coordinated striking is a big part of leftist strategy because it skips politicians, rich people and governments entirely, it doesn’t matter who’s in power then. its a more direct way of doing democracy. this is why we say killing this mass movement in favour of bureaucracy is bad for us. at best it will slow us down and at worst it will be attacked or influenced by the next trump when the workers really need it. not that many don’t currently really need it, but the frog can always be boiled further.

you should definitely want Trump not to win power again, right?

well i also understand that even inside capitalism, when the state is pressured to be more democratic, the people tend to not want to fuck over other people inside and abroad to sustain the profit of a few.

we are usually treated with the same contempt by both republicans and democrats, i dont think the more open fascim republicans plan have will change anything for us until the international correlation of power changes. that and biden maintains the status quo which is already pretty bad, what is happening in gaza could very well be happening to us given the right circumstances, for example. this is why.

i don’t want trump to win because he will strain the system in the opposite direction i would want, but hes polling ahead and its looking like he will very much win regardless. strong unions are something that would 100% definetly push back but with bidens move to deflate the most important one at the time, i doubt it. this is pretty much ratchet theory or whatever its called nowadays.

I know many non-US people, especially from the global south, who take the attitude: Hey the US government is full of enemies to us, don’t try to tell me anything good about any one of them, please and thanks. For them to take that viewpoint honestly makes perfect sense to me.

I know absolutely 0 of them who go on message boards and get real involved in talking with Americans about how they should view American politics and who they should support in American elections or who they shouldn’t, and how to view it, and what those people did in domestic US politics decisions and why that should impact who I support in the election.

Just one of those little mysteries one encounters sometimes