The American right has enjoyed the upper hand in a few ways over the years. One of them is a knack for naming policies and initiatives so they sound pro-everybody while they are really anti-everybody-but-rich-folks.

Today’s example is “right to work” laws. These are really “right to work while refusing to join a union” laws for certain jobs. But they dropped the “while refusing to join a union” bit just like nobody ever mentions “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State …” So the position sounds like it’s pro-work versus anti-work, when it’s really about keeping workers divided and poorer and owners dominant and richer.

Does that sound oversimple? Well, here’s the map of states with right-to-work laws …

… and here’s the map of median income by state.

I didn’t grow up in a union household, but anyone can see that union membership and a healthy middle class go hand in hand. The consistency is not subtle.

But it’s also not uniform, which brings us to Virginia. My state is the last bastion of entrenched anti-unionism on the east coast. But thanks largely to Northern Virginia’s evolution and a healthy Navy presence in Tidewater, the state also does pretty well regarding median income.

Virginia right-wingers have won the battle in getting “right to work” on the books. Historically, Virginia liberals have opposed it but have also not gone to the mattresses to overturn it. Given our electorate and economy, modern Democrats made that political call, and it’s hard to argue too much about the results. Democrats have the momentum in statewide elections. However, our General Assembly often comes down to razor-thing margins either way.

So it’s not surprising when gubernatorial hopeful Rep. Abigail Spanberger makes a point of stopping short of supporting the repeal of our right-to-work law. She instead mentions “reform” as a possibility.

This hedge is a little like “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Maybe it’s unfair to recall an older situation (and a great song that echoes it).

But the Clintonesque tightrope effort pairs a little too well with a similar impulse to focus on “the economy” and not highlight Republican accountability for the Oval Office’s current occupant. IMO any Democratic candidate should be outlining a few current atrocities and asking their opponent into any microphone, “Did you vote for this?”

I need to pause and point out that my personal parenthetical theory is heartily supported by the aside in that WaPo article: “(her mother and aunt went to high school with Bruce Springsteen).”

Spanberger is ahead in the polls. She enjoys a mix of liberal politics and national security credentials that is essentially tailor-made for this situation. I hope her strength there will make her feel more comfortable, not less, in airing full-throated and clear-eyed attacks on Trump policies and culture-war stances that hurt vulnerable Virginians.

The economy is a powerful political topic, to be sure, but giving it too much attention can also be a bit of a privilege or cop-out when the presently powerful are attacking basic democratic norms and pursuing a culture war agenda of second-tier citizenship for Other People.

I’d like to think that true swing voters would respond to a defense of basic decency. It’d like to think they would appreciate a call for restoring the checks, balances, and ethics that served us well until the GOP got too desperate and ditched democracy for oligarchy in a demographics-driven panic.

Then again, I’d like to believe a lot of things, including that our Democratic candidates over the next couple of years will know how to avoid coming off as …