With all that has shifted around in American politics, the Democrats' disconnect from the broad working class is the loss that has cost them the most and threatens them most in the years ahead.
Members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union are seen on a Labor Day parade float, Sept. 4, 1961. While many may associate the holiday with major retail sales and end-of summer barbecues, Labor Day's roots are in worker-driven organizing.Members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union are seen on a Labor Day parade float, Sept. 4, 1961.
For generations, Labor Day activities organized by unions were seen primarily as Democratic affairs. Working-class voters were the heart of the coalition Franklin Roosevelt rode to four presidential victories . FDR rewarded them with the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, enshrining in law the right to collective bargaining and giving labor unions a new level of recognition and clout.
Sixteen years later, Humphrey, together with other Northern and Western Democrats and some Republicans, pieced together the two-thirds majority in the Senate to overcome a filibuster by Southern Democrats and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The deep loyalty felt by many white Southerners for the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson — and also the party of the Lost Cause and the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy — began to erode.
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