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President Joe Biden received a rousing endorsement from the United Auto Workers union on Wednesday. Politically, it’s a big deal (or what Biden might call a “BFD”).
Speaking at a UAW conference in Washington, union President Shawn Fain touted Biden’s pro-union bona fides. And he reminded his members that last year, one day after Biden made history by joining autoworkers on the picket line, Donald Trump spoke at a nonunion auto parts plant and asked union leaders to back him.
I think the past week has highlighted the contrast Fain spoke of — and shown where Trump’s and Biden’s loyalties lie.
In Trump’s case, that appears to be the business class — C-suite types who may have benefited from the rich-friendly tax cuts under Trump in 2017 and might see similar cuts should he return to the White House. My MSNBC colleague James Downie, for example, wrote a piece highlighting remarks from some of the attendees at the ritzy World Economic Forum convention in Davos, Switzerland. Despite Trump’s open embrace of a dictatorial vision, many of these billionaires seemed eager, open or — at minimum — apathetic to the idea of another Trump term.
And, as if to drive the point home that he’s allied with the billionaire class, Trump name-checked Steve Wynn and John Paulson, two controversial megadonors to his campaign, in his victory speech after winning the New Hampshire primary.
As David Corn, the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, wrote Wednesday:
[I]t was telling that in the middle of this triumph the people Trump appeared to care most about were not campaign aides who have toiled hard to help him achieve his win or loved ones who have been at his side. When he looked into the audience, his gaze fell upon two oligarchs—one an accused sexual assaulter; the other, a wheeler-dealer who cashed in on a deal that led to one of the biggest penalties in Wall Street history. These are Trump’s people. This is his world. This is his crowd.
On the other hand, there’s Biden, who certainly has his share of wealthy backers, too — but doesn’t seem nearly as beholden to them as Trump does. To the contrary, the president’s claim of being the “most pro-union president in American history” is bolstered not only by his UAW endorsement, but also by the fact that he, as NBC News noted, “has been endorsed by almost every other major union, including the AFL-CIO.” And even if you feel that Biden’s phrasing is a bit hyperbolic, you would have to admit, like John Nichols over at The Nation, that he has been a staunch supporter of labor as president.
So it seems that November’s election will offer two distinct visions for the presidency and whom it ought to serve: the wealthy and well-connected elites who own and operate major corporations, or the rank-and-file workers whose productivity keeps these companies running.