May Day! Mayday!

The progressive movement is in trouble.

As you all know, the Republicans blocked passage of a minimum wage increase in the U.S. Senate.  And Democrats plan to use this example of inaction against the Guardians Of Privilege in the November midterms.

Yeah . . . right.  Watch me not be impressed.  The biggest problem with that is that Democrats think they can win by saying they tried but failed to pass something.  Voters aren't interested in what politicians couldn't do for them. They want to know what politicians have done for them.

For progressives, the answer is . . . nothing.  The record of the Obama era that I was actually looking forward to on November 5, 2008 (the day after Obama was elected President) has given us a dearth of infrastructural investment, more corporate mergers, assaults on civil rights, unlimited campaign spending, a proposed trade deal (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) that is idiotic, and a health care law that only sounds idiotic . . . except that it doesn't guarantee universal coverage, which is certainly idiotic in and of itself.  And while that sort-of-accomplishment is slowly becoming more popular, it remains electoral poison for Democrats in the South, where many of the U.S. Senate midterm elections that will in November decide which party controls that chamber in the 114th Congress are in this cycle.

It's also worth noting that the Tea Party-dominated Republicans who are in a good position to take the Senate and expand their House majority in the fall would rather see the minimum wage abolished so employers can force workers to accept less pay when the available jobs are few and far between.  And if a Republican President is elected in 2016 - which is still possible, and certainly doable - we're going to get marched to the salt mines.  How's that for pondering on this International Labor Day? 

And, except for MSNBC's Ed Schultz, don't expect the media to continue focusing on the fight to raise the minimum wage.  Having reported its defeat on Capitol Hill, the media are ready to move onto something else.  What?  Oh, I don't know.  Maybe another white woman will disappear in the Caribbean, maybe another rapper will marry his glamorous girlfriend, maybe Donald Sterling will say something stupid again, maybe Donald Trump will stay something stupid again, maybe some other blowhard real estate mogul named Donald will say something stupid, maybe an internal White House e-mail about how to handle Benghazi will surface and be used by the Republicans against the President and Hillary Clinton . . . oh, wait, that actually just happened!

Anything to divert attention from the fact that wealthy reactionaries are laughing until they wet their pants at the reality that we, the American people, are living in a hell of their making that we can't escape.