January 10, 2026
The Original Strategy
Part II: The New Collective
By: Idaho Dist. 25 Representative David Leavitt
In the last essay, I examined how unions began as bottom-up organizations formed by blue-collar workers facing real conditions, real risks, and real needs. Over time, they became targets for institutional capture, not because workers were the problem, but because unions provided a ready-made structure for influence. They were an efficient way to move power away from individuals and into centralized systems.
In many regards, they still are.
Labor unions remain politically relevant in certain sectors and regions. But they are no longer the primary vehicle for institutional leverage they once were. Oversight, regulation, economic change, and declining membership have constrained their reach and visibility. What changed was not the usefulness of unions as a tool, but the environment in which that tool operated.
As unions encountered limits, the same organizing logic found a more efficient outlet elsewhere. The objective of capturing collective authority did not disappear. It expanded. Influence moved beyond labor and into associations that operate across professions, industries, and levels of government, often with fewer constraints and far broader reach.
Unions were visible, contested, and heavily regulated. They had defined memberships, elections, reporting requirements, and clear legal boundaries. Their power was debated openly and scrutinized publicly.
Associations operate differently.
Trade associations, professional organizations, industry councils, and coalitions do not bargain over wages or working conditions. They shape policy. They do not organize workers. They organize access. And unlike unions, they are rarely subject to comparable disclosure, regulation, or public accountability.
This distinction explains why associations wield so much influence with so little public awareness.
Associations are inherently top-down structures. They do not arise organically from citizens demanding representation. They are formed by executives, attorneys, policy professionals, and government relations staff. Their priorities are set internally. Their leadership is self-selected or board-appointed. Ordinary citizens do not join them, vote in them, or meaningfully influence their direction, even though these organizations routinely shape the rules that govern daily life.
This structure exists even when associations are composed of elected officials.
At the national level, nearly every public office is embedded within an association framework. State legislators participate through the National Conference of State Legislatures. Attorneys general coordinate through the National Association of Attorneys General. Governors operate through the National Governors Association. Membership is assumed. Participation is automatic. Citizens have no direct say in these bodies, yet their positions routinely shape law, litigation strategy, and regulatory posture nationwide.
Just as important is how these associations are funded.
Participation is not free. Dues are paid. Travel is funded. Staff time is allocated. Conferences and policy development are financed through public resources. In practical terms, citizens are paying for these associations through taxes, often without knowing the associations exist, what positions they take, or how those positions are formed.
In theory, association membership is voluntary. In practice, it is compulsory in effect, because the costs are borne by the public and the consequences are imposed on people who never consented to the arrangement.
This structure is easiest to see nationally, but its effects are felt most clearly closer to home.
For Idahoans, this dynamic is not abstract.
Organizations such as the Association of Idaho Cities and the Idaho Association of Counties coordinate priorities and policy positions for cities and counties across the state. Individually, local officials are accountable to voters. Collectively, through association membership, they operate within a framework that shapes agendas long before issues reach a local meeting.
Industry associations play a similar role from the outside in. The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry focuses primarily on state-level policy, but its priorities shape the regulatory and legislative environment local governments must operate within. When state frameworks are set, local governments often respond rather than decide.
Less visible still is the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho, an organization most citizens have never heard of, yet one that influences how tax policy is discussed and framed. Its existence underscores a broader reality: many of the most influential associations operate entirely outside public awareness, even as their positions affect everyone.
Cities and counties pay dues to these organizations. Officials attend conferences. Staff time is devoted to association work. All of it is funded by taxpayers. Citizens may not realize they are paying for association membership, or that these groups help shape legislation and local governance, but the impact is real.
Readers who want to understand this better should look at the associations their local government belongs to and review the policy positions those associations take. Then ask a simple question: are these priorities coming from the citizens of my community, or are they being imported from a broader institutional consensus?
That question brings us back to the deeper issue.
At its core, communism is centralized power. Strip away the slogans and softened modern language and what remains is a system that concentrates authority, aggregates decision-making, and subordinates the individual to the collective. Over time, the vocabulary has changed. Command and control becomes coordination. Authority becomes expertise. Centralization becomes best practice. The structure remains the same.
I do not dispute the right of people to associate. Voluntary association is a fundamental liberty. The problem arises when association becomes destructive of individual rights.
When collective structures are used to impose decisions without consent, to centralize authority beyond what any individual could lawfully exercise on their own, or to override personal liberty in the name of collective outcomes, a line has been crossed.
Government has no authority of its own. It derives its powers from the people. People cannot give rights to government that they do not possess themselves. If an individual cannot compel another person to surrender property, silence speech, or submit to decisions without consent, no group can manufacture that authority simply by acting collectively.
This is the functional reality of communism, regardless of how it is labeled.
It does not require revolutions or slogans. It operates through administration, coordination, and systems that bypass the citizen while preserving the appearance of participation. Associations fulfill that role with remarkable efficiency.
Seen this way, what we are witnessing today is not a departure from earlier strategies, but their refinement. The method remains the same. The vehicles have evolved.
Power has not been seized. It has been organized.
In the next essay, I will examine how this structure is enforced in practice through access politics, lobbyists, political action committees, and stakeholder processes that translate association priorities into law long before the public ever sees a bill debated.
Author’s Note
This essay is the second in a four-part series examining how power has gradually moved away from individual citizens and into organizational structures that operate largely outside public awareness. Each part builds on the last. The goal is not to provoke outrage, but to provide clarity about how modern governance came to feel imposed rather than chosen.
