Opinion: why Americans should reject May Day and keep Labor Day instead

Here in the good old United States of America, we have a lovely holiday each September called Labor Day, on which we celebrate the contributions of the nation’s workers. We do not celebrate the communist holiday of May Day, as most of the globe does, at least not until recently.

Today, hundreds of leftist organizations and Damoractic Party adjuncts around the nation will rally, protest and cheer on May Day in an act of radical Marxist globalization. It should make Americans who are not fans of Mao’s little red book very nervous.

As usual, progressives want to destroy the wholesome homegrown aspects of our culture and replace them with cold, ugly, almost Soviet-style international slop, even though our American ancestors firmly rejected it.

People take part in May Day rally and march in New York City to protest the Trump administration, New York, U.S., May 1, 2025. ( Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

As it turns out, both Labor Day and May Day are of American provenance, with the former being a slightly older tradition from the early 1880s. It was an unofficial day to celebrate the working men and women of the country.

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Then, on May 4, 1886, came the Haymarket Affair, in which an unknown person in Chicago threw dynamite into a crowd of police during a labor protest, killing several officers and civilians, in an act of political violence that feels all too familiar today.

Obviously, the version with massive political violence is the one that Marxists at the time favored, and they still do.

The riot and the subsequent arrests of several anarchists set the world ablaze, and almost instantly, May 1, or May Day, became a communist holy day, and eventually a national holiday in most of the Western world.

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But by the 1890s, President Grover Cleveland and Congress had a choice to make: Should they codify into law the September Labor Day, or May Day, as the official holiday? 

We all know how that one turned out, because we all know Labor Day as the unofficial end of summer, and also as a non-political day to give our nation’s workers a pat on the back and a barbecue.

On the eve of May Day, organizers sent out a professionally coordinated media advisory with the email’s metadata directing readers to reply to a name associated with public relations for a Chicago teachers’ union. (Fox News Digital)

It is the political implications of Labor Day vs May Day that are crucial. The latter, in the image of the Old World, treats “workers,” as a solid political, generally Marxist, block, while Labor Day celebrates workers of any political stripe.

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We can see this division in European and South American sports, where one team represents the workers and the Left, while another rival represents the wealthy. Here in America, Mets fans of all tax brackets just suffer together.

When we think of globalism, arguably the force that brought President Donald Trump and his populist agenda into power, we tend to think of 1990s White guys with big smiles and shiny broad lapels pushing free trade deals. But there is a Marxist version, as well.

Communist New York Mayor Zohran “Madman” Mamdani has already said that he believes Gotham is subject to international law, whatever the hell international law is, and obviously, leftist globalists think of our nation’s borders as but a mere suggestion.

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Replacing Labor Day with May Day, even unofficially, though some school districts have contemplated the switch, is just as much an attempt to divorce Americans from their own history as tearing down statues is.

These progressives don’t want you to have the American traditional Labor Day where you rip a few cold ones and think about your hard work and the fruit it bears for your family. They want you angry, out on the streets waving red flags and maybe tossing a few bombs for good measure.

This Marxist globalization is far more dangerous and older than the third way, neoliberal globalism of good haircuts and bad trade deals. Just look at how quickly Trump dismantled so much of that.

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No, Marxist globalism is not just a new way to look at markets. It is an effort, as old at least as Leon Trotsky, to take over every aspect of our lives, not just our work, but also our holidays, and eventually our basic freedoms.

Activists are organizing nationwide May Day protests and boycotts under a “Workers Over Billionaires” message, drawing on a long history of labor demonstrations rooted in 19th-century struggles for workers’ rights. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage / AFP via Getty Images)

Americans don’t need no stinking May Day. The American worker is no drone to put into a left-wing political box, nor is he or she a chess piece in a game of class warfare. They are our neighbors, friends, and family. It is all of us together.

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We must reject May Day here in the United States, as we did so long ago. We will continue to celebrate the worker, not to turn him into an agitator, which is exactly how it should be.

So come September, save me a hot dog, and keep up the tradition of the proud American worker who continues to make this the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.

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