Trump's Got Fake Auto Workers And Bibles Made In China
Because of how he is so pro-worker.
Donald Trump does not like unions. He does enjoy fantasizing, with fellow anti-union scumbag Elon Musk, about how much fun it would be to fire workers for striking. He did enjoy appointing professional union busters to the National Labor Relations Board. He promised to veto the PRO Act if it ever came to his desk.
However, he also really likes the idea of workers — union workers especially — choosing him over candidates with policies that will actually help them. Because, hey! That’s pretty flattering, right?
We cannot deny that there absolutely are a lot of working class people who are voting for Trump — and that a lot of them are union workers who will be voting for Trump. Those people sure do exist.
And yet, about half of the people wearing “Auto Workers for Trump” T-shirts at a recent JD Vance campaign stop were not, in fact, actual auto workers. Just like the white people who go to Trump rallies proudly wearing T-shirts or carrying signs that say “Blacks for Trump.”
Of course, we don’t know that the campaign actually asked them to wear these shirts — it’s likely they were trying to help the Trump/Vance ticket by making it look like they had more support from unionized auto workers than they actually do. Or they believe that they do have the support, but that those people did not come to the rally wearing those shirts for whatever reason. That is almost creepier, actually, when you really think about it. Like … he’s got them trained to be just as scammy and underhanded as he is.
In that same vein, the Associated Press reported yesterday that the $59.99 Trump Bibles ($1000 if he signs it) were made in China for $3 a pop.
Via AP:
Thousands of copies of Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bible were printed in a country that the former president has repeatedly accused of stealing American jobs and engaging in unfair trade practices — China.
Global trade records reviewed by The Associated Press show a printing company in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou shipped close to 120,000 of the Bibles to the United States between early February and late March.
The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible, according to databases that use customs data to track exports and imports. The minimum price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million.
And it will be even more than that once Oklahoma requires one in every classroom.
THESE ONES!
Now, this isn’t too terribly surprising given his history (and his family’s history) of selling goods made in China, but it’s certainly interesting given his position on China and claims that he will raise tariffs on goods imported from there so that more companies will do their manufacturing in the US.
Back in 2016, Trump stole the traditionally left-wing position of opposition to NAFTA, free trade, and sweatshops because he saw how popular it was — especially with supporters of Bernie Sanders — and how many Democratic politicians were not so keen on adopting it (ironically because they were obviously hoping it would make them more appealing to moderates and conservatives). Since then, he’s made it a way to position himself as being more pro-worker than Democrats, despite never actually doing anything to improve this situation and continuing to manufacture his own products there.
It’s obvious that Trump blames China and blames immigrants to the United States for workers here not making enough money because he wants workers to blame people of color and not, say, the corporations that are fucking all of them over. Solidarity is his worst nightmare.
Everything about Trump’s supposed support for workers is a mirage. He likes the aesthetics, he likes the idea of it and knows it is a good look, but it’s all as fake as the “Auto Workers for Trump” are. He is not on the side of workers, he does not give a damn about their jobs, and he certainly does not give a damn about sweatshop labor either.
Workers deserve better than this bullshit. We are finally getting on the right track when it comes to workers and unions getting their fair share, but that’s something that could very well end with another Trump presidency.
I'm a union worker, and it's pretty damned disturbing to see how many of my co-workers are pro-Trump because of the culture war bullshit. I heard one of them whining in the breakroom about DEI hires a couple of weeks ago, but guess how many non-white employees I'VE met or even seen, based on where I work (geographically, that is). If you guessed ZERO, then you win!
We need to take social media away from the billionaires, and here's why:
They - all billionaires, but especially the ones who own companies - NEED desperately for us all to be at each other's throats, preferably all the time. We need to be fighting among ourselves over whether the Black guy down the street should be able to afford that fancy new Kia, or whether the Hispanic family are "illegals," or if it really should be up to the schools to decide what sex kids are, or that people should be allowed to influence what books are in the library based on what they don't want their own kids to read. We especially need to be fighting about the government, and we need to be calling each other names, and accusing the other side of lying, and everybody needs to feel uncertain about the future and afraid of what it will be.
Because then we don't have time to notice that it's not the president setting the price of eggs, it's the market, responding to the pandemic or to bird flu or to just a general desire to take advantage of the moment to raise their profits. We don't have time to notice that the reason we can't have a UBI is that companies are terrified their workers would use that money to change jobs, or open their own businesses, or go back to school. We have no energy left to fight against systems that make sure that you can't get full-time hours with benefits at most jobs, that the jobs pay as poorly as the employers can get away with, and that schedules are kept deliberately vague so you can't be sneaking off to school or another job, because that might mean that you felt free to leave your shitty job stacking shelves at Walmart for a job that gives you dignity and benefits. We don't even understand what it means to our strained social safety net that giant corporations don't pay their workers enough, which means they can be working three jobs and still need SNAP benefits.
But the billionaires sure do understand that the best thing that ever happened to them in terms of keeping people angry and riled up is social media. And they will never, ever, ever regulate it fairly, police it or deplatform liars, ensure that Russian bots aren't helping spread the necessary lies, and provide an actual space for educating folks and returning us to the days when "the American people" actually meant a unified group. Because then they lose. If all the people currently spreading lies about FEMA were blocked at once, or, a better example, if all the people bullshitting about "post-birth abortions" were blocked, maybe people might start to slowly understand a few things about this country, and how it's almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of the very rich.