Why Scott Walker is so dangerous

Washington Post ^ | July 23, 2015 | Dana Milbank

[Cincinatus' Wife]

SAN DIEGO — “First off,” Scott Walker proclaimed, “we took on the unions, and we won. We won!”

Taking on the unions is usually first off for Walker, the Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential candidate. It is the very rationale for his candidacy. And on Thursday, he took a detour from the campaign trail to appear here before the annual meeting of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators dedicated in large part to defeating unions............

Walker then went on to celebrate his triumphs over the demonstrators who objected to his dismantling of Wisconsin’s public-sector unions, portraying the pro-union forces as violent thugs. “Those big government interests — they believe they can win by intimidating elected officials,” he said. “There were amazing things they did to try to intimidate us. The good news is we didn’t back down. We remembered the reason we were elected was not to serve the few in our state capitol, but to serve the masses.”

This is the essence of Walker’s appeal — and why he is so dangerous. He is not as outrageous as Donald Trump and Sen.Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), but his technique of scapegoating unions for the nation’s ills is no less demagogic. Sixty-five years ago, another man from Wisconsin made himself a national reputation by frightening the country about the menace of communists, though the actual danger they represented was negligible. Scott Walker is not Joe McCarthy, but his technique is similar: He suggests that the nation’s ills can be cured by fighting labor unions (foremost among the “big government special interests” hurting America), even though unions represent just 11 percent of the American workforce and have been at a low ebb.......

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"More than half of the public employees in 13 states are union members, and government union membership rates exceed 25 percent in 27 states.

Labor unions work against employers — local, state and federal taxpayers, in the case of public employees. While slamming labor reforms as “anti-worker,” America’s four largest unions enrich themselves and their members at taxpayer expense.

The National Education Association, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have a combined total of more than 7.5 million members.

Over 3.3 million unionized public employees work in California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, five of the states where government union membership rates exceed 50 percent.....................How powerful are public employee unions in your state? Feb 26, 2015

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Washington Post, Feb 22, 2015: Walker’s anti-union law has labor reeling in Wisconsin

"KING, Wis. — At the old union hall here on a recent afternoon, Terry Magnant sat at the head of a table surrounded by 18 empty chairs. A members meeting had been scheduled to start a half-hour earlier, but the small house, with its cracked walls and loose roof shingles, was lonely and desolate.

“There used to be a lot more people coming,” said Magnant, a 51-year-old nursing assistant, sighing.

The anti-union law passed here four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more transformative than many had predicted...........

The state branch of the National Education Association, once 100,000 strong, has seen its membership drop by a third. The American Federation of Teachers, which organized in the college system, saw a 50 percent decline. The 70,000-person membership in the state employees union has fallen by 70 percent.

The decline is politically significant in Wisconsin, a presidential battleground where the unions have played a central role in Democrats’ get-out-the-vote drives.

John Ahlquist, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who specializes in labor movements, said Walker had “effectively dismantled the financial and organizing structure of unions in Wisconsin.”.....................

[Crazieman]

Dana Milbank can perform a physical impossibility.

[Viking2002]

Dana Milksop has been a consistently reliable member of the ComPost's liberal Greek chorus for ages. People like him never have an original thought because they don't have a brain or a place to put one to begin with.

[Paulie]

You have to admit, anyone who fearlessly takes on the public unions has a lot of guts.

Anyone who takes on the public sector unions and wins is a champion.

[Crazieman]

I’m in a right-to-work state. I never joined the public union (APWU).

I get trashed and insulted when I don’t toe the line. Should have seen the lecture the representative tried to give me when I refused to wear the button supporting the APWU’s view on a new contract.

I lectured back on how it was a money laundering operation for the demonrat party.

I got sneers for a month.

[BigEdLB]

Scott Walker DANGEROUS to the Public Employee Unions? Just the man to vote for.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Background of Scott Walker vs. public sector unions.

FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.

[DaveA37]

Anybody ever consider WHY NAFTA was created?

[Sooth2222]

"Scott Walker DANGEROUS to the Public Employee Unions? Just the man to vote for."

So many GREAT candidates yo vote forthis time, and only one vote. Decisions, decisions.

[Pollster1]

My work experience is quite the opposite: First off,the unions took me on, and they won. They won - against a 5’3” hundred pound kid!

Two union goons cornered me when I was young enough to need school permission to hold a job. I was legally entitled to hold that job without joining the union - for thirty days. After my union-free window expired, I quit rather than join a union that would take a huge chunk of my summer earnings, and moved to another job in which I would also be required to join the union but not for another thirty days. On my way home from my first day on that new job (nowhere near fully grown teenage boy, riding a bicycle, faced by two goons in a pickup truck), the union thugs cornered me and threatened to break my arms if I didn’t join or quit.

The thugs won - obviously. I have hated unions ever since then with the passion that they so richly deserve. I never again took a job in a union shop, and my votes throughout my entire life have been shaped by that encounter with evil and by later observations of unions that are still just as thuggish.

[Sybeck1]

I still don’t trust him after his Brad Daysping hire. GOPE Hatchet man of there ever was one

[samtheman]

Scott Walker is not Joe McCarthy, but his technique is similar

And Dana Mibank isn't Joseph Goebels, but his technique is similar.

[C. Edmund Wright]

ouch, nicely played there....

[Caipirabob]

We have 4 really decent candidates which is light years beyond what we've seen since Reagan left office.

I'll take a moment to thank God for that much.

[sgtyork]

Yes. I have a similar story. I wasn’t even resisting, my application must have been delayed and they thought I was resisting and needed ‘encouragement’.

[Jim Noble]

He is not as outrageous as Donald Trump and Sen.Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)

But I still kinda like him - maybe as Secretary of Labor.

[trebb]

Between Walker, Cruz, and Trump, the Left is getting wedgie rash. Fun to watch them squirm and flail about in the hopes of hitting a target.

[Reaper19]

Some conservatives don’t trust Walker or see him as a RINO and others think he’s a great conservative. Regardless of what you think about him, the reason he’s so dangerous is because he’s a winner. He took on the unions in their birthplace and won. He won elections and recalls while retaining control of the legislature in a blue leaning state. He is winning on guns and abortion.

The man is a winner, and I would love to see nothing more than to see him win against the Dems on a national stage.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A Super PAC hired the hired gun.

[Pollster1]

Yes. I have a similar story. I wasn’t even resisting, my application must have been delayed and they thought I was resisting and needed ‘encouragement’.

It's not unusual. I wasn't a New Star Trek fan, but every time I saw a clip or a meme with "resistance is futile", I thought of union thugs. I wonder how those union enforcers can live with themselves.

"Daddy, what did you do at work today?"
"I broke a little boy's arms, sweetie, and then I had lunch and laughed about it."

As far as I can tell, the democrat party is made of four types of people: wimps who hold a victim's arms behind his back, thugs who hit defenseless people, "special" groups who like having thugs to do their dirty work, and sissies who follow those three groups out of fear. I have no respect for anyone who happily joins a union or for those who vote for the political party that acts as the union enforcer whenever thugs aren't enough to overpower decent people.