Thank you for this important reporting. I have sporadically supported the ACLU over my lifetime, when I could afford to do so, and I likely would never have heard about this if I wasn't a Substack reader.
I’m going to guess this has a lot to do with the ACLU being run by lawyers who are only concerned with the specific legal issues related to the case and not concerned nearly enough about the big picture reputational damage this course of action will cause the organization.
I had been considering canceling my support for the ACLU as it has morphed from an organization about civil liberties to one that just supports left-coded causes (whether or not those causes actually reflect left-leaning or liberal values or were really regressive). This was the last straw for me.
Biden's unprecedented firing of the former chief is what is giving them wiggle room they need to defy the current NLRB chief. Despite the former chief apparently being an unflinchingly proud union-buster type, Biden probably should have let his term run out. Now it could become a 'precedent' that any President can use.
As for the ACLU, this seems par for the course these days. 5 years ago it would be very concerning, but now all I could muster was a sigh and an eye-roll.
Snarky point: At last, something even Freddie DeBoer and Matt Yglesias can agree on! (The same article was cross-posted there)
Non Snarky point: When you look at the inner workings of these groups, at least going back to Nader, you find the same sorts of corner-cutting (at best) and outright antipathy towards organized labor in-house (at worst). It gives me a little more sympathy towards the worker organizing described by Ryan Grim’s Intercept piece on meltdowns in progressive organizations, even though it seemed that the priorities of the workers was potentially more aligned with the ACLU’s position: They wanted to make their work environment better after decades of thoughtless behavior from management, they just didn’t think through the consequences of their own plans.
I see the ACLU as going the same way as the rest of the country: It started as an organization founded on principles; those principles became associated with a particular marketing demographic; in a “finger pointing at the moon” way, it then became an arm of that particular marketing demographic. Now, principles long forgotten, it puts its efforts into signaling that it is indeed part of some coastal elite twitter mob (or whatever the apposite marketing demographic is).
I’m not even trying to pick on the ACLU here. As I understand it the same thing happened to (to pick a group much further removed from my own marketing demographic) the NRA.
Besides the woke stuff that everyone has been complaining about with the ACLU for awhile, and the obviously juicy socialism vs identitarianism structure of this particular instance, I feel like a big lesson here is that you don't HAVE to take a maximally extreme and belligerent legal strategy against every problem that arises.
That strategic conventional wisdom is as much of a sickness on our culture as any of the woke stuff.
They are also allegedly going after journalists and activists and filing subpoenas to get them to reveal confidential sources of information. I realize that Chris Rufo and Jesse Singal may not be the most sympathetic figures to this audience, but it's another point in the column of asking "wtf is the ACLU doing with its vast resources and what do those activities have to do with protecting civil liberties?"
Thank you for sharing this. Endlessly disappointed with what the ACLU, an organization I used to respect so much, has become post-Trump.
Thank you for this important reporting. I have sporadically supported the ACLU over my lifetime, when I could afford to do so, and I likely would never have heard about this if I wasn't a Substack reader.
Seek knowledge every day!
And Vote Blue.
Thanks Freddie! I would have passed over this news item without this primer. Its important but so convoluted that most people won't understand it.
I’m going to guess this has a lot to do with the ACLU being run by lawyers who are only concerned with the specific legal issues related to the case and not concerned nearly enough about the big picture reputational damage this course of action will cause the organization.
Wife? Congrats!
HR backs the winning side of the class war every time
I had been considering canceling my support for the ACLU as it has morphed from an organization about civil liberties to one that just supports left-coded causes (whether or not those causes actually reflect left-leaning or liberal values or were really regressive). This was the last straw for me.
The ACLU *was* a progressive organization.
Jesus Christ on a stick. So glad I stopped supporting the ACLU.
Biden's unprecedented firing of the former chief is what is giving them wiggle room they need to defy the current NLRB chief. Despite the former chief apparently being an unflinchingly proud union-buster type, Biden probably should have let his term run out. Now it could become a 'precedent' that any President can use.
As for the ACLU, this seems par for the course these days. 5 years ago it would be very concerning, but now all I could muster was a sigh and an eye-roll.
A case study in liberals' PMC orientation. This is why we're losing.
Snarky point: At last, something even Freddie DeBoer and Matt Yglesias can agree on! (The same article was cross-posted there)
Non Snarky point: When you look at the inner workings of these groups, at least going back to Nader, you find the same sorts of corner-cutting (at best) and outright antipathy towards organized labor in-house (at worst). It gives me a little more sympathy towards the worker organizing described by Ryan Grim’s Intercept piece on meltdowns in progressive organizations, even though it seemed that the priorities of the workers was potentially more aligned with the ACLU’s position: They wanted to make their work environment better after decades of thoughtless behavior from management, they just didn’t think through the consequences of their own plans.
I see the ACLU as going the same way as the rest of the country: It started as an organization founded on principles; those principles became associated with a particular marketing demographic; in a “finger pointing at the moon” way, it then became an arm of that particular marketing demographic. Now, principles long forgotten, it puts its efforts into signaling that it is indeed part of some coastal elite twitter mob (or whatever the apposite marketing demographic is).
I’m not even trying to pick on the ACLU here. As I understand it the same thing happened to (to pick a group much further removed from my own marketing demographic) the NRA.
Besides the woke stuff that everyone has been complaining about with the ACLU for awhile, and the obviously juicy socialism vs identitarianism structure of this particular instance, I feel like a big lesson here is that you don't HAVE to take a maximally extreme and belligerent legal strategy against every problem that arises.
That strategic conventional wisdom is as much of a sickness on our culture as any of the woke stuff.
They are also allegedly going after journalists and activists and filing subpoenas to get them to reveal confidential sources of information. I realize that Chris Rufo and Jesse Singal may not be the most sympathetic figures to this audience, but it's another point in the column of asking "wtf is the ACLU doing with its vast resources and what do those activities have to do with protecting civil liberties?"
https://christopherrufo.com/p/in-the-fight-with-the-aclu
https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1765933563579433173
I stopped donating to ACLU in 2020.