The Cognitive Elite Tells the Proletariat To Bugger Off In Los Angeles

The APSA is crossing picket lines for its Labor Day meeting because, well, it's just inconvenient not to.

If you happen this Labor Day to wonder why Latino and Black working class voters are starting to migrate to the Republican Party (which has also expanded its longstanding majority cohort of white working class voters), look no further than the American Political Science Association, which is holding its annual convention this weekend in Los Angeles, despite pleas from UniteHere! Local 11 to cancel. In response, the APSA moved the conference itself out of the downtown JW Marriott and into the Los Angeles Convention Center, which signaled that the APSA did not think the hotel workers (who, as expected, went out this week on strike) were making unreasonable demands on management. Raise your hand if you think hotel workers anywhere on this planet are overpaid. Anyone? Bueller?

But the APSA also signaled that it was not willing to inconvenience itself any further than that. Here’s what it said in reply:

Cancellation would have a negative impact on many of our members, particularly those at a career stage where being able to present and network at the meeting are crucial to their professional development. International scholars have visa and other travel considerations that would be severely disrupted by cancellation. Scholars planning to use interview services would lose the opportunity to do so. The meeting is also important to continue the collaboration and networking in our discipline, the celebration of the excellent work produced within our community, and for receiving crucial feedback on research…. The minimum costs of cancellation are at least $2.8 million, with further costs and litigation likely to accumulate.

Translation: “We talk a good game about social justice, but we wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”

There are good stories about this in the Los Angeles Times and on NPR. I myself celebrated Labor Day early this week by interviewing Shawn Fain, the new president of the United Auto Workers, who may inconvenience the nation a bit further in two weeks by taking his union out on strike. You can read my New Republic piece here.