As well it should.
Over the course of five weeks, Working America, the non-union affiliate of the AFL-CIO labor federation, did extensive canvassing in union-dense, blue-collar areas of Pittsburgh and Cleveland. They called it a “front porch focus group.” The idea was simply to listen — to let likely 2016 voters sound off about their thoughts and concerns headed into the presidential election.
What they discovered, among other things, was a lot of support for Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner. For months, this enthusiastic backing of the obnoxious billionaire had generally baffled the chattering class — not to mention the GOP and Democratic establishment. But to Working America canvassers, it made plenty of sense.
“We hear the same refrains all the time,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, which has high membership in the Rust Belt. “That people are fed up and they’re hurting. That their families have not recovered from the recession. That every family is harboring someone still not back at work. That someone is paying rent for their brother-in-law.”
“And then a guy comes on the stage,” Nussbaum explained, “and says, ‘I’m your guy who will blow the whole thing up.’”
Trump’s pyromaniac approach to politics has earned him strong support from white, working-class voters and brought him to the cusp of winning the GOP nomination. It is an ascent that has shaken Republicans, who view the businessman as a fraud bound to splinter the party, and it’s leading Democrats and their allies to do what they do best: fret and panic.
Trump, the worry goes, is making precisely the right appeals at precisely the right time to fundamentally realign the Rust Belt working class electorate’s traditional political allegiances.
“In terms of his message, it is really resonating. Particularly if you are talking [about] union people, he is speaking our language,” said Josh Goldstein, deputy national media director for the AFL-CIO. “We can’t let that go unattended, because people have been doing that with Trump for a long time, and his numbers have only gone up. ... It is our job to go out and educate people now, so it doesn’t cross that threshold and become a threat.”
High-ranking labor officials are becoming increasingly outspoken in their warnings about the Republican front-runner. Earlier this week, Terry O’Sullivan, head of the powerful Laborers’ International Union of North America, attacked Trump as a “racist, sexist, prejudiced billionaire bully.” The members of O’Sullivan’s union tend to work in construction, the sort of demographic for which Trump’s economic message can resonate.
At an AFL-CIO executive council meeting last month, officials vowed to start digging in more aggressively on the records of the Republican field — and Trump in particular. The federation has since launched a digital ad campaign, while its president, Richard Trumka, has traveled across the country to deliver speeches in union halls and talk individually to union members. He has called Trump an anti-American “bigot” who’s full of “baloney and bluster.”
“He starts with a different profile than George Bush or Mitt Romney,” Andy Stern, former president of Service Employees International Union, said of Trump. “He is the first Republican in a while that has real appeal. I don’t think people looked at Mitt Romney and said, ‘He’s going to fight for me.’”
What worries Stern, and many officials in the labor movement, is that Trump’s appeal to working-class voters is more than just a byproduct of his master showmanship. Trump’s denunciations of trade deals, his condemnation of politicians who ushered in outsourcing, and his tough, often-xenophobic rants about immigrants taking domestic jobs all lay out a policy portfolio that, at the most basic level, can be attractive to the economically marginalized.
More: Donald Trump’s Working-Class Appeal Is Starting To Freak Out Labor Unions
Labor leaders have good reason to worry about Trump. He's not the Messiah they've been looking for. Sadly, many working class people are being suckered in by Trump's false rhetoric. Trump is much more of a union buster than a friend to unions.
Over the course of five weeks, Working America, the non-union affiliate of the AFL-CIO labor federation, did extensive canvassing in union-dense, blue-collar areas of Pittsburgh and Cleveland. They called it a “front porch focus group.” The idea was simply to listen — to let likely 2016 voters sound off about their thoughts and concerns headed into the presidential election.
What they discovered, among other things, was a lot of support for Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner. For months, this enthusiastic backing of the obnoxious billionaire had generally baffled the chattering class — not to mention the GOP and Democratic establishment. But to Working America canvassers, it made plenty of sense.
“We hear the same refrains all the time,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, which has high membership in the Rust Belt. “That people are fed up and they’re hurting. That their families have not recovered from the recession. That every family is harboring someone still not back at work. That someone is paying rent for their brother-in-law.”
“And then a guy comes on the stage,” Nussbaum explained, “and says, ‘I’m your guy who will blow the whole thing up.’”
Trump’s pyromaniac approach to politics has earned him strong support from white, working-class voters and brought him to the cusp of winning the GOP nomination. It is an ascent that has shaken Republicans, who view the businessman as a fraud bound to splinter the party, and it’s leading Democrats and their allies to do what they do best: fret and panic.
Trump, the worry goes, is making precisely the right appeals at precisely the right time to fundamentally realign the Rust Belt working class electorate’s traditional political allegiances.
“In terms of his message, it is really resonating. Particularly if you are talking [about] union people, he is speaking our language,” said Josh Goldstein, deputy national media director for the AFL-CIO. “We can’t let that go unattended, because people have been doing that with Trump for a long time, and his numbers have only gone up. ... It is our job to go out and educate people now, so it doesn’t cross that threshold and become a threat.”
High-ranking labor officials are becoming increasingly outspoken in their warnings about the Republican front-runner. Earlier this week, Terry O’Sullivan, head of the powerful Laborers’ International Union of North America, attacked Trump as a “racist, sexist, prejudiced billionaire bully.” The members of O’Sullivan’s union tend to work in construction, the sort of demographic for which Trump’s economic message can resonate.
At an AFL-CIO executive council meeting last month, officials vowed to start digging in more aggressively on the records of the Republican field — and Trump in particular. The federation has since launched a digital ad campaign, while its president, Richard Trumka, has traveled across the country to deliver speeches in union halls and talk individually to union members. He has called Trump an anti-American “bigot” who’s full of “baloney and bluster.”
“He starts with a different profile than George Bush or Mitt Romney,” Andy Stern, former president of Service Employees International Union, said of Trump. “He is the first Republican in a while that has real appeal. I don’t think people looked at Mitt Romney and said, ‘He’s going to fight for me.’”
What worries Stern, and many officials in the labor movement, is that Trump’s appeal to working-class voters is more than just a byproduct of his master showmanship. Trump’s denunciations of trade deals, his condemnation of politicians who ushered in outsourcing, and his tough, often-xenophobic rants about immigrants taking domestic jobs all lay out a policy portfolio that, at the most basic level, can be attractive to the economically marginalized.
More: Donald Trump’s Working-Class Appeal Is Starting To Freak Out Labor Unions
Labor leaders have good reason to worry about Trump. He's not the Messiah they've been looking for. Sadly, many working class people are being suckered in by Trump's false rhetoric. Trump is much more of a union buster than a friend to unions.
