Socialist Gets Endorsed by Union. Water Still Wet.
Stop the presses! Hold the front page! Alert the Review-Journal!
Democrat Assembly District 41 candidate Vinny “I’m Smarter Than You” Spotleson, a self-admitted dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), just breathlessly announced that he’s been endorsed by a labor union.
Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!
I know. I know. Take a minute. Sit down somewhere. Breathe deep. This is a lot to process.
Here's what Vincenzo posted, bragging like he'd just been tapped for the Supreme Court (which he and his DSA buddies want to get rid of):
“I am proud to be endorsed by the union plasterers and cement masons of @opcmiaintl local 797. They build the infrastructure we need to support in Nevada! #winwithvin #union #nvleg”
A card-carrying socialist got endorsed by a union?
Folks, that's not news. That's just Tuesday.
I'll give Vinny credit for one thing though. He picked a union with a logo that looks like it belongs on a coin from a country that no longer exists.
Three guys huddled around what appears to be a bust of somebody important, engraved lettering going around the whole thing in a circle.
All that's missing is a hammer and sickle in the corner and a caption reading “Local 797, Workers of Nevada, Unite.”
I kid. Mostly.
A Very Brief History Lesson for Vinny
Somebody ought to hand Vinny a library card, because the socialist-union connection isn't some shocking discovery Chuck Muth cooked up to be mean to him.
It's, oh, about a hundred and fifty years of recorded history.
Karl Marx himself called trade unions the training ground where workers learn to see themselves as a class at war with capital. Not my words. His.
Early American labor legends like Eugene V. Debs and “Big Bill” Haywood weren't shy about it either. They were flat-out socialists who saw unions as the engine to get there.
The Wobblies didn't hide the ball. They wanted worker control of production, full stop, and the union was how they planned to get it.
There's even a whole word for this, syndicalism – which is just socialism for public school social studies teachers who can’t spell – that puts the union in the driver's seat instead of the state.
Vinny would probably enjoy reading up on it, given how much he seems to enjoy the destination.
Now sure, not every union in America signed up for the full Marx (Karl, not Groucho) experience.
Samuel Gompers and the old AFL wanted better wages and shorter hours, not a workers' revolution, and plenty of American unions spent the Cold War being aggressively anti-communist.
Fair enough. History's messy that way.
But let's not pretend the overlap between “socialist” and “union” is some wild coincidence Vinny's trying to sell you. It's baked into the whole family tree.
He Told You Himself, Remember?
This is the same Vinny Spotleson who, when I called him out for being a closet DSA member, didn't deny it. He owned it. Right there in writing: “Bro I am a dues paying member of @lasvegasdsa. … Not hiding anything.”
So when a union endorses this guy, I'm sorry, but that's not exactly breaking news calling for the popping of champagne corks.
That's two birds who've been standing on the same wire the whole time, just now posing for a picture together.
Congratulations are in order, I suppose. Vincenzo found an organization willing to endorse a socialist – unlike 99.5% of Nevada’s elected Democrats. But let’s be real. It wasn't exactly a heavy lift.
Next he'll be shocked – SHOCKED! – when the Sierra Club backs him too.
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