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Matt and Sam suffer through the second GOP debate—a pathetic display from a gaggle of generally uninteresting reactionaries with no chance of defeating Trump in the primary—and then turn to an extended conversation about the politics and possibilities of the UAW auto strike against the Big Three car manufacturers. President Biden walked the picket line, while Trump spoke to employees of a non-union auto parts company. Why did the mainstream media continually insist that Biden and Trump were both appealing to striking workers? Did Biden do enough in his brief visit to the picket line? What did Trump actually say about the strike? These questions and more get answered in this primary season special!
Sources:
Alex Press, "Trump Is Speaking Tonight in Michigan at a Nonunion Auto Shop, as a Guest of Its Boss," Jacobin, Sept 27, 2023
Craig Mauger, "Donald Trump: UAW Negotiations 'Don't Mean as Much as You Think,'" Detroit Free Press, Sept 27, 2023
Martin Pengelly, "Signs Touting ‘Auto Workers for Trump’ at Michigan Rally Found to be Fake – Report," The Guardian, Sept 28, 2023
Heather Carter, "UAW President Shawn Fain Is Reviving That Old-Time Religion: Christian Radicalism," Jacobin, Sept 29, 2023
I was thinking of the debates that have been going on really since Trump was first running in 2015, but especially after he won in 2016, about whether the Republican Party is pivoting. Whether they're really going to be a party for the working class, the multiracial workers' party. This is what we were all promised the Republican Party was becoming. I think what's really interesting to me is if you look at the substance of what Trump said in Michigan last night, and you look at what was said on the Republican debate stage, three of those six candidates, the two from South Carolina, and Mike Pence are rabidly anti-union. You know, like Pence was bragging of being a right to work state. Christie, of course, is no great friend of the labor movement. Doug Bergen from North Dakota, who knows what planet he's from, but you can just see, like, if you really were looking for proof of genuine economic populism, a genuine concern for workers, you weren't going to get much that was substantively materially relevant to the stakes of what we're seeing right now. You could have run a lot of last night's debate in 2012, and the rhetoric coming from Republican candidates would have been pretty at home in that era of the pre-Trump Republican Party. The real useful kind of distinction when there's an active strike going on, and it goes back to, "Do you support worker power as such?" And when Trump is up there saying, "It's cute that you're having a strike, but the outcomes don't really matter. You just need to vote for me and I'll protect your jobs," that's not supporting worker power as such. Playing actually the political class, the billionaire class, people like me and my friends, we actually decide what happens to you, and so that's why you need to come under my protection. It's an insult to the expression of autonomy that a strike really represents. Strikes change people's mentalities. They make solidarity seem real and possible and effective and make people feel an actual sense of their own democratic efficacy, their own collective power, and Trump's message, "I alone can protect you, I alone can save you," is really an anti-solidaristic message. And when there's an actual strike going on where people are experiencing in their lives the power that they can exert as workers over the conditions of their work, at a time like this I'm hopeful that it doesn't land. ♪ You got it ♪
Matt and Sam suffer through the second GOP debate — and Trump's deceptive counter-programing. Sign up on Patreon to hear the rest!
