If existing law was used to address those issues, that’d be fine too! Better, actually. If California’s law and those being proposed nationally surgically focused on those issues, that’d be fine. can be attributable to the “fissured workplace,” where firms distribute activities through an extensive network of contracting, outsourcing, franchising, and ownership in an effort to limit legal exposure and increase profits and is marked by declining wages, eroding benefits, inadequate health and safety conditions, and ever-widening income inequality.” Legislation impacting people’s ability to live should never be arbitrary.ĭemocrats in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Washington are now taking up the mantle, seeking to destroy more careers of people who don’t need protecting and don’t want this government interference.Ī report by New Jersey Democratic governor Phil Murphy points to a real societal problem, “Misclassification. Writing bills with numbers like that are a little bit arbitrary.” 'Was it a little arbitrary?” said Assemblywoman Gonzalez. Meanwhile, Democrats across the country now are playing copycat to a law that its very own author, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzales, admits was arbitrary. None other than DNC Chair Tom Perez, when he was Barack Obama’s labor secretary, aggressively fined bad actors. Note that existing state law in California, and federal law, already punishes misclassification of employees as freelancers, when they should be employees.

Single parents, the disabled and those who work with them, the elderly, students, musicians, arts groups, translators, journalists, and many others are heavily affected. Meanwhile, people who don’t need protecting-professional freelancers, are seeing their livelihoods upended and destroyed. But the first attempts at addressing these concerns have been an unmitigated disaster in California-the bad actors are merely going to court and building a ballot initiative campaign, ignoring the law altogether as they fight to repeal it. However, Markos feels hopeful about the organizing that’s happening with Black, Latino, Asian, and Native-led groups on the ground in Georgia-and he sees a path to victory.The problems of the gig economy are real, with corporations like Uber legitimately screwing over many of its workers. With the upcoming Senate runoff races, Dean noted that these contests could mean the difference between an empowered Biden administration that is able to enact meaningful change and a Biden administration that is blocked by the Senate at every turn. As Markos said, “I’m worried about the next person who comes in and taps into that more effectively and more smartly.” With the amount of vitriol, hatred, and rage Trump has stirred up-particularly among white supremacists and white nationalists-there is a very real threat of violence, he explained. Markos also mentioned a major concern regarding the potential of a more competent leader who comes along after Trump and uses the same authoritarian playbook-they could have much more success.

As Dean noted, this could make things very interesting in the Georgia runoff elections. This makes organizing them extremely difficult, and the GOP cannot count on this group of people to vote consistently for their candidates moving forward. What’s more, their turnout has been further depressed by rhetoric surrounding the “stolen” election. The voters are typically undercounted by pollsters and did not turn out in large numbers during the 2018 midterms. They have no interest in building anything.

These people don’t care about policy, they care about destroying the world, dragging everybody else down to their level. That’s why, when Trump says “vote for this Republican,” in Louisiana or in Kentucky like he did in 2019, they didn’t turn out. aren’t Republican-they’re not even conservative … and have failed them. Donald Trump comes in, saying I’m going to destroy everything-drain the swamps, destroy norms, destroy tradition. Hidden deplorables, Markos explains, are the kinds of people who have no interest in issues or coalition building: “They’re just interested in tearing stuff down.” The pair chatted about how Trump has laid a path for more competent authoritarians in the future and what will happen with “hidden deplorables” and other Trump supporters who still refuse to accept that Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Markos daily kos