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August 15, 2024 - 4:45pm
Earlier this week, Donald Trump appeared in an interview on X with the company’s owner, Elon Musk. During the more-than-two-hour discussion, the former president praised Musk for firing employees at the company who went on strike, saying: “You’re the greatest cutter. I look at what you do. You walk in and say, ‘You want to quit?’ I won’t mention the name of the company but they go on strike and you say, ’That’s OK. You’re all gone.’”
These comments prompted immediate backlash from labour unions, including the United Auto Workers, which has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board seeking an investigation into both Trump and Musk and contending that the discussion could intimidate workers from striking. The move comes one week after the union endorsed Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump’s comments were also a political own goal: they needlessly antagonised workers and unions at a time when he has been striving to make inroads with them. Notably, Trump has performed relatively well with union households in recent years, at least for a Republican. In his last two elections, he earned roughly 42% of these voters nationally — the highest level for any GOP nominee since George H.W. Bush in 1988 — and his support was equal or even higher in the three pivotal “Blue Wall” states.
Part of the reason for Trump’s growing appeal with union voters is likely that many of them are moderate or conservative and may not identify culturally with the Democrats. The Trump campaign is clearly aware of this too, saying that “there’s a disconnect between the political leadership of some of the labor unions and the working middle-class employees that they purport to represent.”
Trump has been trying to build on his past performance with these voters this cycle. In particular, he has been vying with Harris for a possible endorsement from the Teamsters, whose president, Sean O’Brien, gave a primetime speech at this year’s RNC in which he praised workers and excoriated corporate greed — something unimaginable at past Republican conventions. He also picked as his running mate J. D. Vance, who has tried to parlay his biography of growing up in poor and working-class communities to connect with voters who come from such backgrounds today. Vance and Trump have both eschewed traditional Republican orthodoxy on everything from entitlements to tariffs and wages to worker safety.
However, Trump also has a long and problematic history with workers. Famously, he routinely refused to pay workers at his properties what he owed them. He rose to prominence on a show where he was known for firing people. As president, he promised to veto bills raising the minimum wage and protecting workers’ right to organise on the job. And his National Labor Relations Board issued decisions making it more difficult for unions to win representation at non-union workplaces. Even after O’Brien’s words at the RNC, Trump used his own speech to, among other things, call for the firing of the UAW president.
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SubscribeSad to say, the Harris campaign currently seems to be more effective than the Trump campaign. Harris’s team are creating non-issues (e.g., unmarried cat ladies) that nonetheless go viral and force the Republicans into defense. The Republican replies don’t seem to land, although that is partly due to the enormous media bias in favor of the Dems.
The Republicans seem to be waiting for Harris to make one of her trademark gaffes and rambling speeches, but, like the Biden campaign before her, she’s laying low and sticking to prepared speeches.
Meanwhile, Trump is being Trump and it’s not helping. At this point, I fear a Harris presidency.
Totally agree. Sitting back and waiting for Harris to make mistakes is a losing strategy.
The Republican punches don’t “seem to land” because the State Media is the Judge, Jury and Executor. They’re driving the Party Narrative that they want and Conservatives are reflexively falling for it like a bank panic. The more demoralized Republicans appear, the more “momentum” and “vibes” Democrats can project. Its all contrived. Its only true if you believe it.
“Harris to make one of her trademark gaffes and rambling speeches”
Have you been listening to Trump?!?!
WTF. I actually agree with this.
So you want Donald Trump to not be Donald Trump, just so he can be elected? That’s how we get people like Kamala Harris in office. People look at flaws instead of strengths when they cast their votes. That’s a mistake.
Management expert Peter Drucker pointed that out almost 60 years ago in his book The Effective Executive. “Strong people have strong weaknesses.” If you try to find a leader who is well-rounded and has no glaring weaknesses, you end up with mediocrity at best and incompetence at worst. You end up, in other words, with Joe Biden, with Kamala Harris.
Donald Trump has the strength that Peter Drucker says is most important — the ability to get the right things done. Part of the reason Donald Trump can do that is because he doesn’t hold back. He’s always moving forward. That can be a weakness, and a strong weakness, but take away that weakness and you also weaken his strength.
I have to agree with you — Donald Trump may lose this election and we wind up with Kamala Harris. She could easily win with her faked sincerity while he loses with his brutal honesty.
That’s one of the dangers of democracy. Too many voters treat elections as popularity contests, judging on looks and words, not on actions and accomplishments. They look at the faux and not the genuine. What is superficial and chameleon-like and not what is to the core and can’t be changed to pander.
Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump is a clear choice, and it splits Americans right down the middle. It will be close.
Insightful comment.
Great comment.
For those of us in right-to-work states, this piece sounds a lot like big-labor propaganda. Nothing is going to end the parasitic relationship between the UAW, Teamsters, SEIU, NEA, etc. and the Democrat party. Nice try though.
More accurately, you have one candidate taking questions and another avoiding questions because…Democracy.
Trump said something dumb in his trainwreck “interview” with Musk?!?! I am shocked!
He is clueless and will say whatever comes into his head at any given time, which is usually nonsense or his latest thoughts about sharks or Hannibal Lecter.
He’s toast – good riddance and enjoy prison.
As hopefully one Labour Councillor will be doing for many years.
And several of your yobbo friends certainly will be!
Perhaps you might like to be more specific as to which of my friends you feel the need to blatantly libel and where you obtained the relevant information as to whom I associate with.
Trump continues to be his own worst enemy. Epic fail making comments like that. You want to score points with the working class? Focus on the incestuous relationship between public service unions and the Dems. Shut up about private sector unions.
In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency of the United States. He had not previously won any election of any kind. Not served in the military or in any government office. He didn’t climb his way up the ladder over decades to gain the Oval Office. He stormed right in.
How did Donald Trump do that? By bringing freshness to politics. He caught people’s attention by not tempering his remarks. By saying what he felt, even to the point of “truthful hyperbole”. He didn’t use words to inspire people to vote for him. He used words to inspire people to get things done.
Advertising maven (and classics scholar) David Ogilvy put that difference well when he said this:
In a recent interview with very liberal senator Bernie Sanders, Theo Von (the Vigilant Fox) explored that facet of Donald Trump.
I get it too. Donald Trump is Donald Trump because he can’t not be Donald Trump. He’s no Kamaleon. He’ll live or die by what he is rather than change himself to be what he is not. Come November 5, we’ll know whether his realness costs him the presidency.
This is generalised hagiography, which doesn’t in any way address Trump’s – or indeed your! – attitudes to organised labor.
True. But I made the point because the author of this piece seems aghast at Donald Trump’s comment, that he would say something against labor unions that damages his chances of getting elected even if he believed his comment to be true. My feeling is that such frankness is a feature, not a bug, in a politician.