A TALE OF THREE EVENTS: Democrats, Labor, and Street Demonstrations in San Diego

“It was the Best of Times; it was the Worst of Times”: from Charles Dickens’ "A Tale of Two Cities" on the series of events surrounding the French Revolution

For Democrats at last Saturday’s annual Roosevelt Dinner at the Bayfront Hilton Hotel, Dickens’ words were resonant. The celebration of local victories here in San Diego was overshadowed by what was taking place in the rest of our country. The 2024 election Democrat losses hung heavy in the air, though they were not directly addressed. The analysis of those losses has filled the pages of editorials and academic papers, with most of them pointing to the failure of the Party to respond to the needs of working-class people of all ethnicities. There was, however, little evidence of that realization at the Hilton.

Coincidentally, a few yards away earlier that Saturday, two other events were happening that could teach Democrats how to more effectively respond to the Party’s weakness toward the working-class. The annual Progressive Labor Summit (PLS) took place at the Convention Center across the parking lot from the Hilton, while in the streets downtown thousands marched against Trump’s madness. It is worth contrasting these two events with what the Democrats were saying to themselves at the Roosevelt dinner.

The Roosevelt Dinner

The failure to speak to working-class people was evident in who spoke, who was awarded, and in the general emotional tone of the evening. The most dynamic and eloquent speaker was California Secretary of State Shirley Weber who invoked the horrors that the Trump administration was inflicting on women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and peoples of color. The legislator of the year award went to San Diego City Council member Marni von Wilpert who was honored for her work against “ghost guns.” A Democratic Party Club of the Year award went to the “Young Democrats” for bringing young people into the Party.

There was plenty of anger and outrage at the Trump administration’s impact on democracy, the economy, and the rule of law, but little concern was expressed about what has been happening to working-class communities over the last few decades.

Where was the recognition of the struggles of working-class people to protect their wages and working conditions? Why, for example, was there no Kaiser mental health speaker whose union (NUHW) has been on strike for months? Or how about an award for the successful drive by YOUNG PEOPLE at the Serra Mesa Starbucks to unionize (Starbucks Workers United)? The closest to any of this came at the end of the agenda when an award was given to the California Federation of Labor Unions. For the rest of the evening the most obvious presence of working-class people was in the unionized waitstaff who served the guests.

The irony of all of this is that the local Democratic Party relies disproportionately on unions of working-class people to help win its elections. The biggest single election currently facing the Democratic Party is the Special County Board of Supervisors race in District One where Democrat Paloma Aguirre will face Republican John McCann on July 1st. Labor will be relied on to provide much of the money and boots on the ground to walk precincts during this election. Even the glossy program for the evening was disproportionately paid for by unions. Of the 14 full-page ads that were bought to sponsor the evening, 10 were from labor unions! So the Party could only manage one speaker at the end of the program from a union leader?

The Progressive Labor Summit (PLS)

In contrast to what happened at the Hilton dinner, at the Convention Center earlier in the day, the major focus of the PLS was on the needs of the working-class, particularly on union solidarity. This call for union solidarity was most effectively made by Labor Council head Brigette Browning when she helped open the event. It was not so much what she said as what she sang. Leading the audience in choruses of the Labor anthem ‘Solidarity Forever,” she made the kind of emotional connection to workers and their unions that was absent from the Democratic Party event.

Four major PLS panels addressed the needs of working-class people that were ignored by the Democrats. The first panel, “Workers in the Resistance” featured the real worker voices so absent from the Hilton dinner. Among panel members were a roofer, a TSA airport screener, and a teacher who spoke of their struggles to earn a living and to keep their union representation. Particularly striking was the Grossmont High School teacher’s story of how a right-wing school board was not only laying off librarians and teachers but also threatening LGBTQIA+ teachers and students. Why wasn’t this very eloquent and impassioned speaker not featured at the Roosevelt dinner?

In the “Pro-Worker Economic Agenda Under Trump” panel, Julie Su, former Acting Secretary of Labor under Biden, along with other panel members discussed both the strengths and weaknesses of the Biden administration’s treatment of workers and unions. They pointed out that however much the aging Biden might have been a flawed messenger, his administration was the most pro-worker since FDR. Protecting and building on many of those reforms should become part of any future Democratic administration. A lesson too many Democratic elected officials ignore to their peril.

The “Cost of Living is Too Damn High” panel focused on what according to polls and cross-national comparisons was at the heart of the defeat of the Democrats and similar parties across the globe: inflation and the cost of living. While some of this discussion got a little lost in the weeds of supply chain shortages, Kyra Greene, the Executive Director of the Center for Policy Initiatives got it centered on what workers were feeling and the source of their anger. It was, however, San Diego City Council member Sean Elo-Rivera who provided the most concrete suggestions on how to fight back against inflation in San Diego; his efforts at the Council to support San Diego service worker wages and to attack extortionate rental increases were the most direct responses to the needs of San Diego workers. Why didn’t he at least share the honor of being named Legislator of the Year for these pro-worker efforts at the Democratic Party gala?

Finally, the panel on” Latinos and Trump” raised one of the most uncomfortable issues facing the Democratic Party: the increasing attraction of Latinos to Trump and Republicans more generally. While this is an important issue for understanding why Democrats lost in 2024, it is even more important for the San Diego region given the size of the Latino vote here. The members of the panel pointed to the complexity of the Latino vote that has too often been ignored both in the media and by our political leaders: Not only are there the well-known differences political views of between Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans , but also between Mexican Americans in Texas and California.

Panel members also stressed the need to understand the differences between native born Latinos and recent immigrants. They argued that the biggest reason for so many Latinos deserting the Democratic Party in the last election was the poor state of the economy for working-class Latinos. This last point was also a source of hope in the current situation: the Somos Votantes member of the panel reported that their recent poll of Latino voters showed that they were now also dissatisfied with Trump’s economic policies.

However, I was disappointed that the panel did not address one additional source of complexity in the Latino community: class differences Polling from such sources as the Brookings Institute, exit polls and David Shor found that the swing toward Republicans was concentrated largely among members of the working-class, particularly working-class males. This disturbing trend is one we have already seen among white working-class voters, which helped Republicans conquer much of the upper Midwest. How to combat the Latino working-class swing to the right has profound implications not just for the Democratic Party in San Diego, but for the rest of the country as well.

There are those who have recognized this alarming swing to the right, but more importantly, have suggested solutions to it (for a longer discussion of this, see my earlier post). Ian Haney-Lopez at U.C. Berkeley has called for the Democratic Party and progressives more generally to adopt what he calls a “Class/Race” narrative in place of the current form of identity-based appeals. He argues that what the Democratic party needs is to NOT back off from concerns about racism/ sexism/homophobia, but instead to foreground economic populist appeals that will unify all workers. Pushing economic populism should be at the heart of any insurgent resistance to Trump, bit was a missed opportunity at the Roosevelt dinner.

The People in the Streets

However, there was one weakness shared by the events on either side of the Convention parking lot. A few blocks from where the Roosevelt and PLA summit were taking place there were thousands of San Diegans in the streets protesting Trump’s assault on democracy. Why were there no speakers from groups like “Swing Left” at either event? More importantly, why was there no encouragement from either venue to join the demonstration? Admittedly it would have been difficult for the Democrats to demonstrate and then jump into their formal dress for the dinner, but how about working-class PLA attendees? Could space have been made so that PLA participants could have joined demonstrators who were marching only a few blocks away? Anyone who has ever participated in a demonstration knows how dramatic it is when a large column of marchers shows up to join the procession.

If the solidarity we desperately need now means anything, it is not just expecting others to show up for our own events, but to show up for theirs. Labor has so much it can offer not just to the Democratic Party , but to the resistance in the streets. As Brigette Browning of the Labor Council has said, not only can the union movement help provide audio equipment, publicity, and some money, but it also has the ability to reach out to working-class people of all races to bring them to demonstrations. This can help cure a skin pigment impairment problem (too white) seen in most recent demonstrations. But waiting for activists to come to us to ask for help is self-defeating; we need to go to them.

Someone once said that half of life is just showing up; the union term for this is SOLIDARITY! There was a missed opportunity to literally “demonstrate” that solidarity last Saturday by not giving folks space to join the marchers. We can’t let many more of these opportunities slip through our fingers. Not just the future of the Democratic Party or even the union movement will depend on it, but the future of democracy in this country.

Gregg Robinson is a long-time activist, retired Grossmont College Sociology professor, San Diego County Board of Education member, and a member of the AFT Guild, Local 1931 Retiree Chapter.