The Politics of Rich Wilkins

Photo by Richard Wilkins Jr.

In an era where terms like "progressive" and "conservative" get thrown around so much that you can get lost in them, many political staffers are defined by their bosses. For instance, one could rightly or wrongly assume that since I worked for former PA House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, and the NRA backed him in his coal region seat, I must support the NRA's position on gun rights. On the other hand, one could assume that since I worked for OFA-NJ, and took part in pro gun-control events for them last Winter, I must support strict gun control. Since I worked for Bob Menendez, I must not support anti-nuclear weapon negotiations with Iran, or normalization with Cuba, and I must be 100% behind immigration reform. Having worked for Chris Dodd, I must support Dodd-Frank, the ACA, Family and Medical Leave, but also his current positions as head of the MPAA on SOPA, PIPA, and internet piracy. Clearly, having worked for Hillary Clinton, I must support her not only on issues like health care and climate change, but also on Syria and, by extension, her husband's position on NAFTA. Right? I mean, you don't work for someone you don't agree with- right?

Well, it's not that simple, nor would it be fair to assume so. My principles on working for someone stand that I must support the majority of what they stand for, which effectively limits me to Democrats. My second criteria is that I have to believe they are the right person for the job they are running for, right now. There is no litmus test issue, no single issue that is a deal breaker, or at least there hasn't been so far, in my career. I am finding that I increasingly do have some broader deal breakers on labor, environmental, poverty, and civil rights issues. I'd never back a climate denier. I'd never back someone who was outright anti-labor. I support government action on poverty, and the protection of the safety net, and you have to too. You have to believe in civil rights and human rights too. Past that though, I'll give you room on specific foreign policy engagements, intellectual property, sometimes on taxes, and certainly on less prominent political issues.

But what about me though, the me who doesn't work for or represent some other candidate? By putting my name on the ballot last year, I sort of entered into a new world where I have to have my own quasi political positions, and can't solely take the positions of the party or a boss that I work for. I kind of have to have my own platform, right? It's true, I do. I got the primary voters of Northampton County to elect me as a state committeeman, the least I can do is stand for some things. So, I will. I came up with the following as some broad policy principles that I believe in:

• I grew up in a labor house- a public-sector labor house. A union's representation, the PBA, put food on my table. Public-sector workers do important work, and deserve good compensation for doing that work on the behalf of society. So do private-sector workers though. In the rest of the developed world, workers get time off for vacations, retirement pay, heath care, and all the other benefits of labor. The minimum wage is a living wage, workers have more protections in the work place, and income inequality is nowhere near what it is here. As a former UFCW worker myself, I know that collectively we are stronger. I fully support labor rights, the right to organize, and worker protections. If Europe can have a better workers' climate, we can too.
• I was raised as a Catholic, and I still consider myself a believer in God. I understand that this means I must support the well-being and protection of my fellow man, especially those in need.  We must protect and expand when necessary programs that support the poor, all of the poor. Medicaid must be protected and expanded to more that need it. The minimum wage must be a wage that you can pay rent, buy food, have heat, and be able to meet all basic needs. We must protect the old too. Social Security is increasingly their only source of income in later years, and should be protected and expanded, not privatized, and starved. We must protect our children too, supporting their PUBLIC education, their teachers, and programs that help those who are disadvantaged to level the playing field. No child should start behind because their parents were. In short, my belief in a God means a belief in all of his people, especially those who need that belief more. It is our duty.
• A great nation does great things. It acts when the rights of humans in other parts of the world are in danger. It builds great highways and an infrastructure worthy of a first rate nation. It provides access to health insurance to not some, but all of it's citizens. It puts a man on the Moon, but it also puts a man on Mars, on asteroids, and on Venus, while it reaches for the even further away stars, galaxies, and planets. Great people, people who want to crow about being "exceptional," do great things. You're not great by birth right, or by race, religion, sex, or sexuality. You're great because you do things that are great.
• Our environment is not our's, and we must protect it for the future. Man is causing damage to this Earth that will be very difficult to turn back, if we can at all. Science tells us, correctly, that we are causing climate change, and other ills in this world, such as acid rain, deforestation, and the destruction of habitat for many other species. Poaching of animals is causing great species to become nearly extinct. Sure, coal and oil have been huge parts of our economy for a century now, in fact longer. That means really nothing to me though, as we know the harm they are doing, and we need to stop subsidizing that through government action. We need to regulate these fuels. We need to take our subsidy money and put it into clean, renewable, alternative energies. We need to protect more national park land, open space, and wild lands. Our development needs to be sustainable, and frankly more frugal. 
• Social issues don't motivate me as much, because frankly I think these issues are often times used as a distraction from more collective issues that should be uniting us around common-sense. With that said, we can't have different rules and worlds for different groups of people. Women can't be denied the same work-place opportunities and pay as men, or the same reproductive health rights and health coverages that men enjoy, or the same worker protections, or the same right to be free of violence against them. African-Americans can't be denied the same due process and protections under the law, the same good public schools, the right to live, or the chance to succeed in this country that too many are denied. Hispanic families should be able to immigrate here and stay together in the same way past generations of immigrants did, Arab-Americans shouldn't live in fear of being spied on by their own government just because of who they are, and the LGBT community should be able to live in our communities with the same rights and openness that us straight folks have. In short, I think we all deserve the same rights and opportunities. I also think that when we clearly aren't meeting that burden, be it in how we police African-Americans, treat the LGBT in the work place, pay women, or protect Hispanic families, we have to address that and do something about it.
• I support regulations. Government has to act in the interests of society. This is true when we talk about banks. It's true when we talk about guns. It's true when we talk about the environment. It needs to be true when talking about food supplies. Yes, it should be true when talking about licensing regulations and businesses that we allow to open up. Government must regulate commerce, set rules for the game, and keep a level playing field.
• I support paying our troops well, and having a strong military. I don't support the levels of military spending we have right now on weapons, particularly ones that are old, wasteful, and useless. If we took even ten percent of our military budget and put it into domestic priorities, our nation would be a lot better place.

These are some of the basic principles for me. In short, I'm not a libertarian at all, and really have no interest in being one when it's convenient. I'm not a conservative at all on social issues. I'm someone who could not exist in the 2015 Republican Party, and so I am not in that party, even if demographically i'm "supposed" to be. I'm certainly to the left of the center in the American sense, but globally probably right in the mainstream.