Minnesota on My Mind

In his afternoon Water Cooler Lambert Strether devotes three paragraphs, the first of which can be found below, to liberal Minnesota's perplexing status as a tossup battleground state:

UPDATE Trump (R)(2): “An unlikely state tightens up” [Politico]. “Minnesota, which once looked like a vanity project for Donald Trump, is suddenly emerging as a critical test of his effort to turn his campaign around. Interviews with more than a dozen officials and strategists from both parties in recent days depict a state in which Joe Biden is leading, but where the president is making inroads in rural Minnesota. … In the run-up to the 2016 election, Minnesota seemed like a stretch for Trump. No Republican had carried the state since Richard Nixon in 1972, and Trump made minimal effort there. Even so, Trump came close to victory, carrying 78 of Minnesota’s 87 counties and losing the state by fewer than 45,000 votes. Following the election, Trump said he regretted not doing more. The state’s 10 electoral votes — the same number as neighboring Wisconsin — became an enduring source of infatuation for him. He’s still preoccupied with his near-miss four years later. ‘One more speech, I would have won,’ Trump told a crowd recently in Mankato, a small college town in southern Minnesota. ‘It was so close.'” • A Trump crowd in a college town? Can any Minnesotans comment on this?

It's hard to believe that the cradle of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is going to swing to Trump in 2020, a year of social upheaval not unlike 1968, the year the Democratic Party standard bearer was vice president Hubert Humphrey, stalwart champion of civil rights and a former mayor of Minneapolis.

Humphrey carried his home state that year of course, but he also carried Michigan, a state which was a key to Trump's victory in 2016.

Sagaar Enjeti thinks Trump wins reelection if he carries Michigan, Arizona and Florida. The problem for Trump is winning all these battleground states in 2020 is going to be a lot different than how he won in 2016. In 2016 he won as a stealth candidate who very few analysts took seriously. That's not the case this year.

I prefer to look at 1988. If Michael Dukakis won Minnesota so will Joe Biden. On the other hand, Dukakis also won in Wisconsin and Iowa, states Trump won in 2016 and will likely win again.

Dukakis was the last losing Democratic Party presidential candidate for whom I voted. Shamefully, I voted for Clinton twice; voted Green until Obama; then voted Green again in 2016. After much internal wrestling I have decided to vote for Biden.

It's not a naive vote, nor a hesitant one. I am confident in the decision, and I can justify it based on several different arguments.

Let's take one that impacts me personally. Labor rights. The Mitch McConnell GOP castrated Obama after Scalia died in early 2016 and Obama's pick to replace him on the Supreme Court never came to a vote. Subsequently, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, who was approved and assumed office in April of 2017. Next year, in June, Gorsuch, voted with the majority in Janus v. AFSCME.

Janus vs. AFSCME allows public-sector workers, say, state department of transportation employees, to opt out of union membership. The initial fear among unions was that the Supreme Court decision would lead to a loss of upwards of 30% of their membership. Nothing like that ended up happening. As I believe I mentioned before, the overwhelming majority of union members realize that having a union and a collective bargaining agreement is a significant advantage.

Nonetheless, the low single-digit percentage of workers who do opt out creates an overabundance of administrative chores. And I am the person on staff for whom it falls to expedite those chores. It's a lot of correspondence and database work. I figure that each worker who opts out consumes about 20-30 minutes of my time. Since June of 2018  many hours of my worklife have been chewed up thanks to Janus.

Even if Trump loses in November, the GOP will hold a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future. Nationwide right-to-work is rumored to be in the offing. I think a second term for Trump basically guarantees some form of private sector right-to-work. Trump is a bomb thrower. Though many in his base are rank'n'file trade unionists, I don't have to tell you that he would revel in diminishing their ability to make a living.

So there's one reason to vote for Biden. Labor rights. I'll include some more as we slouch toward election day.

Also, in the pipeline I have the second installment of The Republican Party Must Be Destroyed. It's a look at that hatemonger from yesteryear, the father of the Christ of the Ozarks, Gerald L.K. Smith.