The final Democratic debate of the decade may wind up being November’s rather than the upcoming one planned for Thursday, thanks to a labor dispute at Loyola Marymount University. All seven presidential contenders who qualified for the PBS and Politico-hosted debate have announced that they will not cross the picket line of Unite Here Local 11, a union representing LMU workers employed by a separate private food services company. Unless that company, Sodexo, reaches a deal with its workers, the 2020 hopefuls are poised to avoid the debate stage.
If Democrats want to leverage their power to coerce a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate into paying their workers better wages, that’s both their prerogative and politically expedient. Sticking up for the little guy — in the case of a private rather than public union, a fairly uncontroversial one — has no cost for Democrats, but it does point out one glaring inconsistency.
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Why are Democrats willing to stick up to Sodexo when they weren’t to do the same to NBC News?
After Ronan Farrow’s reporting exposed that NBC’s leadership likely silenced the journalist’s investigation into Harvey Weinstein to protect their own predatory anchor Matt Lauer, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Kamala Harris of California acquiesced to public calls from activists and co-signed a letter asking the DNC to demand an independent investigation into the network. A letter on the internet is fine enough, but when given the opportunity to call out NBC News in front of more than 6 million viewers, not one Democrat put their money where their mouths are.
Democrats may deem themselves the party of #MeToo, but that mantra which led them to try and nuke a Supreme Court nomination without a shred of evidence was disposed of the moment it may doom one of their own or cost them a debate. That’s a tragedy for the Left and Right alike.
