The Key to the 2022 Midterms Is in My Backyard
When Amazon announced in the fall of 2017 that it was opening a $100 million, 855k-square-foot warehouse on Staten Island, New York’s fifth and most suburban borough, I will admit I cringed. Did it mean jobs? Yes. Did it breathe new life into re-development efforts for Staten Island’s west shore, a section of swampy expanse that has long needed commerce and economic activity? Yes. But as a native of the borough, former resident and local small-business owner, I felt a certain sense of NIMBY.
Amazon has dangerously fueled our American consumerist obsession, and I wanted it nowhere near New York City, especially not in my beloved borough. Not only does the online retailer underpay workers and actively campaign against unionization, it has done more to decimate Main Streets and malls all across the country than any other American giant. Why we continue to seriously consider subsidizing its growth is astounding. Its exploits seem uncontrollable in a digital age pathologically loyal to an unchecked free market. Also, at that point in my experiments with Alexa — before I unplugged her and trashed her — she wasn’t working well enough to outweigh my disgust with her parents nor my exasperation with ever-growing surveillance capitalism.
But earlier this month, when the Amazon Labor Union won an historic victory on Staten Island, becoming the first Amazon warehouse to unionize, I was overwhelmed with pride — a feeling that is sometimes hard to come by when my hometown is subjected to national ridicule by its two otherwise pretty-funny native sons on Saturday Night Live. It always baffles me that, in 2022, we dare not joke about women, communities of color, or the gays (I am one of them 👋), but it is still perfectly fine to rag on the working class. I may vehemently disagree with many of my hometown friends and family on political matters, but I still find the constant trashing of the place — on television, in the city and in the press — the epitome of hypocrisy from those who say they’re woke.
What people often fail to recognize about the borough is that there are more registered Democrats on Staten Island than there are Republicans. The press loves to talk about the Island as the “bastion of conservatism” within New York City limits, when in fact it is a very purple place. Were there “Fuck Your Feelings” signs draped over the highways in 2020? Yep. Were there local representatives who arrogantly bragged about ignoring Covid protocols? Yep. All of that is true. But the Island is also home to a lot of hard-working Dems who recoil at every press hit that ignores their existence.
Congressman Max Rose flipped the district in 2018 before the GOP sounded the alarm bells. It was a five-alarm fire as the Republican establishment flooded the Island with money and zero-context images of Rose marching “against” the police. Home of large swaths of the NYPD, the Island went nuts. Culture war tactics won brilliantly and gave the seat to Trump apologist, former New York State Assembly Member and failed mayoral candidate, Nicole Malliotakis. Before Rose, the Island voted for Obama — twice. Its Congressional past is a patchwork of red and blue. It is also home to Diane Savino, the State Senator and former labor leader who valiantly argued for marriage equality on the New York State Senate floor. The video went viral around the country and was an essential speech that helped the State embrace the most liberal of social causes in the 2009.
The Island is a microcosm of the nation. It is a mix of social liberalism and religious conservatism. It is fiscally centrist. It is a mix of military families and city folk. It is a mix of Brooklyn and New Jersey. It is a mix of left and right, up and down, blue and red, masks and bare faces. Those tensions are everywhere across the borough. Those tensions have pushed and pulled me personally on and off the Island since 1996 when I first left for college. We are Pete Davidson and Colin Jost. We are Nicole Malliotakis and Diane Savino. Our population of 474,893 people, which itself is in flux due to the rollercoaster that is the New York real estate market, is still figuring out where they sit on an ever-changing political map.
In fact, this week, as the New York Court of Appeals struck down Democrat-drawn gerrymandering, the Island literally finds its map in limbo. The rejected proposals would have joined Staten Island with Park Slope, the “bastion” of progressivism in south Brooklyn, more than 12 miles away, which in New York City is 10 minutes without traffic and 45 with it. I make no claim that we are AOC country, but the Island is also not strictly Trumpland in the way that its oft portrayed.
All of which is to say that the Amazon unionization on Staten Island is key to understanding where America finds itself in 2022. The working class is angry, and that anger is peaking. You can only exploit people so long before they get really pissed off and fight back. Trump understood this in 2016 and he harnessed that anger. He was gross, repugnant, and vile, but he was also masterful. Had he gone up against Bernie, they both could have argued the same point from wildly different perspectives. Instead, Trump went full crazy, and the Democrats vilified Bernie and put up Hillary, who wouldn’t — and couldn’t — dare publicly to get angry, lest she be labeled a total bitch. We all know how that ended.
Now in 2022, the anger of the working class is even more intense. It has been two years of an exhausting slog. They are angry about gas prices, a real estate market that continues to move the goal post, the sheer cost of modern life, and the disgusting disrespect of the employer class during and after the pandemic. Like 64% of Americans, they are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They want change and opportunity and a fair shot. And they are ready to organize and speak out. They are ready to switch sides. They are ready to come home. If only we would let them. The Republicans know this, which is why their rhetoric gets more and more extreme. “Don’t Say Gay” has one purpose: to keep the Democratic brand in a box.
Bernie Sanders recently warned that the Democrats must make a major course correction if they hope to win in November. I could not agree more. The Democrats need to wake up, stop playing into the culture wars, and fight for workers. It is time to do a much better job of showing the working class why the Democratic Party should be their home once again— as it was for decades in the 20th century. It is time to show them that they are voting against their interests, that they continue to be duped, and that they are, in effect, sleeping with the enemy. Make the Democratic Party the party of unions again. Make it the party of workers. It doesn’t have to carry a “socialist” banner to fight for more dignified terms of the withering social contract. We feed that fear by cowering to it. A fight for workers is a fight for anyone and everyone who is not the one percent — or the .00001 percent. It is a fight for that 64%.
And yet the Democrats are playing the same safe game they were before. Build Back Better is dead, thanks to two people who collectively represent the sum total of 12 Congressional districts. Inflation is killing Biden. The war in Ukraine is not helping. You cannot depend on — or flirt with — student loan forgiveness to inspire a massive turnout. You might make 43 million borrowers temporarily happy, but you will only ignite the ire of the working class more. That move would only further the narrative that the Democrats are happy to hand out money and not actually govern. This is dire. If the Democrats continue down this path, they can — and should — expect to hand Congress over in a bloodbath these midterms.
The alternative is to actually support working people and to turn the whole conversation toward work, workers, and exploitation. That is the only way to align with where the country is right now and with where the emotional wave of these years is cresting. The opportunity here is enormous for the 2022 midterms and for the 2024 presidential run. The Democrats would be fools to ignore it.
One of my earliest memories from childhood is of painting “Strike!” signs with my father when his school-bus-drivers union went out on strike in the 80s. I have long been baffled by how those experiences translated into his becoming a staunch Republican 30 years later and my becoming a pro-union leftie. I can only explain the divide as a result of decades of splinter issues that the GOP maliciously weaponized to stoke the culture wars. But if we want — all of us — to get our lives back-on-track and to not only survive the threat of digital capitalism run amok but to ensure the sustainability of democracy, we must be united in our support of workers.
At the time of this posting, a vote is underway at a second Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. We await the results.
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