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Ep. 182: Hardhats vs Hippies and the Cold War Curation of the Conservative Union Guy Trope

Added 2023-05-17 13:48:12 +0000 UTC

"Thank God for the hard hats!" declared Richard Nixon during his first term. "Why the construction workers holler, ‘U. S. A., all the way!,’" read a 1970 New York Times headline. "The Day the White Working Class Turned Republican," read another New York Times headline, 50 years later in 2020.

We're now more than five decades since this narrative first arose: The hardhats love America, and the hippies hate it. Whether Nixon or Trump is in the White House, news media, film, and TV tell us that the working class—good, honest blue-collar folk—are people of God, family, and country, unlike those spoiled, rich, out-of-touch lefty elites.

This binary framework is presented as organic, the result of working people and unions feeling left out by the lofty exclusivism of the Left. But, as history shows, this didn’t happen entirely naturally or spontaneously; the "hardhats vs. hippies" narrative was, in part, manufactured by right-wing political and union operatives, more concerned with a McCarthyist imperative to destroy any and all social movements in the global south than with any coherent form of worker justice and liberation.

On this episode, we explore this history, looking at the ways in which rightwing factions of organized labor bolstered dangerous US foreign policy throughout the Cold War, deliberately crafting the false yet persistent notion that union members, and the working class more broadly, are and should be patriotic hawks at odds with the anti-war Left.

Our guest is labor historian Jeff Schuhrke.

Guest

Jeff Schuhrke (@jeffschuhrke) is a labor historian, union activist, journalist and professor who teaches at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. His writing can be found, among other places, in Jacobin and In These Times magazine, where he is a contributing writer.

Show Notes

Reckoning With the AFL-CIO’s Imperialist History

Jeff Schuhrke | January 9, 2020 | Jacobin

The Myth of the Hardhat Hawk

Penny Lewis | September 2, 2013 | Jacobin

How the AFL-CIO Can Fight Imperialism and Climate Change

Jeff Schuhrke | January 17, 2020 | Jacobin

Oakland Longshore Workers Say No to Israeli-Operated Cargo

Alex N. Press | August 8, 2021 | Jacobin

"Then No One Would Be a Democrat Anymore"

Rick Perlstein | April 30, 2008 | The American Prospect

Hard Hats and Hippies, Together at Last: The Action at Occupy Wall Street

Jon Wiener | October 14, 2011 | The Nation

The Hard Hat Riots, May 8, 1970

Michael Lorenzini | May 8, 2020 | NYC Department of Records & Information Services

The ‘Hard Hat Riot’ Was a Preview of Today’s Political Divisions

Jefferson Cowie | May 11, 2020 | The New York Times

The ‘Hard Hat Riot’ of 1970 Pitted Construction Workers Against Anti-War Protesters

Angela Serratore | May 8, 2020 | Smithsonian Magazine

Condemning and Combating Anti-Asian Racism

Executive Council | June 17, 2020 | AFL-CIO

The AFL and Mexican Immigration in the 1920s: An Experiment in Labor Diplomacy

Harvey A. Levenstein | May 1, 1968 | Hispanic American Historical Review

Referenced

War Foes Here Attacked By Construction Workers

Homer Bigart | May 9, 1970 | The New York Times

After ‘Bloody Friday,’ New York Wonders if Wall Street is Becoming a Battle Ground

May 11, 1970 | Wall Street Journal

Head of Building Trades Unions Here Says Response Favors Friday's Action

Emanuel Perlmutter | May 12, 1970 | The New York Times

Why the construction workers holler, ‘U. S. A., all the way!’

Richard Rogin | June 28, 1970 | The New York Times

Most in a Poll Term Vietnam a Mistake

June 28, 1970 | The New York Times

Peter Brennan, 78, Union Head and Nixon's Labor Chief

Robert D. McFadden | October 4, 1996 | The New York Times

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can find transcripts of past episodes and News Briefs here.

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