Auto workers' big win 'wrecks Trump's populist scam': columnist
The United Auto Workers scored a major win this week with a new deal that ended the six-week strike at America's "Big Three" car manufacturers.
Taking stock of the victory, Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent argued that the ordeal undermined former President Donald Trump's attempt to appeal to blue-collar auto workers when he delivered a speech before a non-union shop back in September.
"This whole affair wrecks Trump's populist scam," Sargent argued on Twitter. "Media outlets credulously reported that Trump would support strikers. Instead, Trump told nonunion workers the strike was a bust, because EVs will destroy their jobs. Yet now the deals (which must be ratified) offer the biggest wage gains in decades."
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In a lengthier analysis published at the Washington Post, Sargent goes on to detail how UAW leader Shawn Fain has been framing his strike against the kind of "trickle down" economics theories that have been pushed by Republicans for decades.
"Fain relentlessly argues that this strike is about defeating an idea that what’s good for the wealthy is synonymous with what’s good for our country because it showers benefits on everyone else," he writes.
Sargent concludes by arguing any conservative pitch to workers that does not include empowering them at their workplaces through union membership is bound to fall flat.
"Trump and Vance can do all the pro-worker posturing they want," he writes. "But in the end, the future envisioned by UAW strikers is just not a future either of them seems to want."