The silence is deafening. Congressional Republicans won’t increase the minimum wage; they oppose extending unemployment benefits to the millions still without jobs; refuse to repair our crumbling infrastructure (a move that would put tens of thousands to work); won’t invest more in childcare, which working families desperately need; and won’t raise taxes on the top 1 percent even though 95% of all economic gains since the recovery have gone to the top. State Republicans won’t extend Medicaid to the working class, even though the federal government will pay the whole tab for three years and 90 percent thereafter. Yet, despite all this, Democrats are in danger of losing the Senate in the midterm elections, and remaining a minority in the House. This is absurd. Labor Day must mark the start of an aggressive campaign by Democrats to show working Americans whose side they’re on, and whom the Republicans really represent. Otherwise, why have a Democratic party at all?