Democrats are overplaying their hand on unions

The connection between unions and the middle class is not as straightforward as progressives claim

Unions

The controversy surrounding Scott Walker's views (or non-views) on President Obama's patriotism and religious faith have only increased the Wisconsin governor's stature and visibility on the right. And that's probably just fine with many Democrats.

Should Walker win the GOP presidential nod, progressives will surely try to turn him into a symbol of all that's gone wrong with the U.S. economy. Why wouldn't they? If you believe that the decades-long decline of union power is what's been crippling the American middle class, then a union-busting governor makes a perfect foil in 2016. Maybe even better than a job-slashing, private equity investor and banker did in 2012. And indeed, progressives love to tout the connection between unions' decline and middle-class woes. "Middle-class decline mirrors the fall of unions in one chart," garbles The Huffington Post. "Why screwing unions screws the entire middle class," seethes Mother Jones. "Without unions, the middle class withers," claims the Center for American Progress.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.