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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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It goes against the general theory of Biden as controlled by woke interests.

Woke is not "anything leftist". Unions are left-wing to the extent that they are old style economic leftism aimed at benefiting the working class, which is very far from modern woke. Nobody got cancelled for being opposed to unions (short of the lizardman constant).

aimed at benefiting the working class

aimed at benefitting union members, which constitute part of the working class, at the expense of the rest (including non-union working class)

aimed at benefitting union members, which constitute part of the working class, at the expense of the rest (including non-union working class)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Union_Membership_in_the_United_States,_1960-2020.svg

If union workers were exploiting non union ones, we would observe non union workers reaping great benefits during the decline of unions.

Do we observe it?

If union workers were exploiting non union ones, we would observe non union workers reaping great benefits during the decline of unions.

This is only true if the only two agents in the economy were union and non-union workers and the only economic activity were transfer of money from non-union to union workers. If that is not the case, then decline of the unions may result in any result with regard to non-union workers, because other economic agents and processes can intervene and have its influence at the same time.

As such, the terms "great benefits" and "non union workers" are too vague to give an answer. Some workers probably benefitted in some ways, but not in others - e.g. minority workers, traditionally excluded by unions, would have greater access to jobs but possibly lower wages and job security. Is it better to have less secure job than no job at all? For other workers, the effects may be different. Or, for example, if the union raised costs of production so much that the whole sector moved to another country and there's no possibility to compare the wages because there are no longer such jobs around, and the workers moved on (and/or physically moved) to other jobs - did they benefit or not? If the union membership then collapsed following this development, can we attribute this change to the absence of the union? I'm afraid without getting into the ton of the specifics it is impossible to answer such question in any satisfactory way.

Nobody got cancelled for being opposed to unions (short of the lizardman constant).

It wasn't exactly a long history of hugs and handshakes. I'm sure the fraction of victims was sub-lizardman on both sides, but that's surely true of the fraction of cancellations too. I'm no fan of modern cancel culture either, but strikers and strikebreakers weren't just risking their careers, they were risking high-velocity cancellations to the head.

First of all, the question was about cancellations of people opposed to unions, not people who support unions, so those examples are the wrong way around.

Second, this argument is about the woke, so I shouldn't have to spell out "cancellations by the woke". Aside from a single attack by Nazis in 1979, the last example there is 1959, and the last example before that is 1940. There weren't any woke around at the time. And in modern times, when we do have woke, the woke attack people for "racism", "sexism", being anti-trans, but not for opposing unions. Unions are not a big thing for the woke.