Say what you want about Donald Trump, but even his critics can’t deny he’s a master showman – the P. T. Barnum of our times. Trump runs on his instincts and he’s adept at reading a big swath of the American crowd. As an example, the legacy media blames him for fueling the public’s hatred of mainstream journalists. In fact, the public’s disdain for the media predated Trump’s political emergence. Trump merely sensed the brewing animosity and fueled it deriding the mainstream press “the enemy of the people.”
Trump’s ability to fire up an audience is frightening, but I’m doubtful he could articulate how he does it.
Trump also takes things very personally, and when UAW president Shawn Fain endorsed President Biden’s reelection bid, Trump dismissed the union leader as a “dope.” Trump’s assessment of Fain was spot on, but likely he wasn’t cognizant of the myriad reasons. In Trump’s mind, Fain’s decision to endorse Biden and not him de facto made Fain a dope, no further reasons required.
On Monday evening, Trump publicly humiliated Fain, although so far it’s likely gone over the heads of dimwitted UAW members who still support their disgraced leader and the legacy journalists whose only concern for unions are the ineffective ones they belong to. Trump’s decision to invite Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien to deliver a historic address to the Republican National Convention (RNC) was pure political genius, a case study on how politics makes strange bedfellows.
Comparing O’Brien to Fain is akin to comparing Elon Musk to GM CEO Mary Barra. Whereas Wall Street values GM at a mere $57 billion despite Barra’s $16 billion share buyback, Tesla commands a $784 billion valuation by dint of Musk’s leadership and vision. The Teamsters are a powerful union with 1.3 million members and the UAW is a shrinking outfit with a paltry 370,000 members, down from 1.5 million it boasted in 1970.
The Teamsters represent workers at industry diverse A-list companies like UPS, Costco, and Waste Management. UAW members are employed at taxpayer moocher companies and organizations such as GM, Ford, Stellantis, and California State University. Without government corporate handouts, the UAW would cease to exist.
O’Brien proudly boasts that he’s an SOB, and UPS, one of America’s better run companies, knew better than to mess with the guy. With O’Brien’s strike threat looming, UPS last September blinked and agreed to a lucrative contract that resulted in significant pay raises and other benefits, as well as the creation of more full-time union jobs. By comparison, after waging a costly strike last fall that depleted UAW’s reserves while Fain sported an “Eat the Rich” jersey, UAW scored some hefty pay raises that also precipitated the firings of thousands of union members.
As for eating the rich, GM’s Barra, who as chair controls the automaker’s board, awarded herself $28 million in compensation last year despite bombing on every critical metric, while Ford increased CEO Jim Farley’s compensation 26% to $27 million and Stellantis boosted CEO Carlos Tavares’s comp 56% to $40 million.
Trump, who reportedly personally invited O’Brien to deliver a keynote prime time address at the Republican convention, didn’t land an endorsement from the Teamsters as a precondition for the appearance. But given that Biden fashions himself as the most pro-union president in history, O’Brien’s decision to address pro-business Republicans denoted some respect, particularly given Fain’s declaration that Trump “doesn’t give a damn about working-class people.” Even Jen Psaki, Biden’s former White House shill and now a Democratic propagandist on MSNBC, admitted that O’Brien’s RNC appearance “stings a bit.”
“Anti-union groups demanded the President rescind his invitation. The Left called me a traitor. This is precisely why it is so important for me to be here today,” O’Brien told the RNC convention. “President Trump had the backbone to open the doors to this Republican convention, and that’s unprecedented. No other nominee in the race would’ve invited the Teamsters into this arena. Now you can have whatever opinion you want, but one thing is clear: President Trump is a candidate who is not afraid of hearing from new, loud, and often critical voices.”
O’Brien praised UPS, calling it “the most efficient package delivery company in the world” and noted the company’s workforce has been unionized for more than a century.
“More than 350,000 Teamsters make (UPS) run. We work for good middle-class wages, quality health care, and secure pensions,” O’Brien said. “There are work rules that ensure fairness and due process for both sides.”
O’Brien called on Republicans to accept labor law and other economic reforms.
“Labor law must be reformed. Americans vote for a union but can never get a union contract. Companies fire workers who try to join unions and hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people but are manipulated to benefit corporations,” O’Brien said. “This is economic terrorism. An individual cannot withstand the assault … there are no consequences for the company, only the worker.”
Meanwhile, Fain’s wholehearted endorsement of Biden is proving increasingly questionable.
Biden championed the Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivizes automakers to move union jobs to Mexico because electric vehicles manufactured in that country can qualify for lucrative tax subsidies. Indeed, GM recently announced that it would manufacture its electric Cadillac Optiq in Mexico, where it also manufactures the EV Chevy Blazer and Equinox vehicles. GM under Barra became Mexico’s biggest vehicle manufacturer.
The only UAW jobs Barra seems willing to support are those bought and paid for by U.S. and Michigan taxpayers. The Biden Administration recently announced it was diverting $500 million of taxpayer monies so GM can retool a Michigan plant to build electric vehicles at an unspecified date. The giveaway came after the Biden Administration relaxed its fuel efficiency rules, saving GM some $6.5 billion in pollution penalties.
Fain is understandably preoccupied these days. In addition to palling around with Jew hater Rep. Rashida Tlaib calling for a cease fire in Gaza, he also is being investigated by a court ordered monitor over allegations that he instructed a UAW vice president to take actions that would benefit his fiancée and her sister, among other reasons.
Perhaps Biden’s son, Hunter, can write Fain a character reference letter.
Among the reasons I read Breitbart is that it offers me a reprieve from all the anti-Israel bias and Jew hatred of legacy media publications. It’s comical that I first learned about Breitbart reading the New York Times, which repeatedly characterized the online publication as an “alt right” news outlet promoting white supremacy and antisemitism, despite being conceived by two Jews while traveling in Israel. John Nolte, Breitbart’s star media writer, is married to a Mexican woman and the New York Times in this 2017 takedown buried that Breitbart’s newsroom was more diverse than its own newsroom at the time.
Joel Pollak, a Yarmulke-wearing Orthodox Jew who has a law degree from Harvard and is married to a Black South African woman, knows quite a bit about antisemitism, and never shies away from calling it out. He also is quick to defend those falsely accused of Jew hatred, which is why he was among the first to defend bogus accusations that Trump running mate J.D. Vance is anti-Israel and antisemitic.
You can read Pollak’s defense here, but another compelling defense is this article in the Jewish oriented Tablet Magazine by Antonio Garcia Martinez about his discussion years ago with Vance about Israel over a few rounds of drinks. Here’s an unadulterated taste of the discussion.
“Israel is a country and a nation that doesn’t hate its own fucking people,” Vance said. “I really admire that.”
As for the anti-Israel bias of legacy publications, here’s an insightful takedown by Noah Beck about the New York Times‘ egregiously slanted coverage and dehumanization of Israel. If Beck’s analysis doesn’t convince you, here’s another by longtime New York Times critic Ira Stoll.
My mother grew up in St. John, New Brunswick, where my grandfather was a rabbi administering to Jewish soldiers passing through on their way to or returning from the war. There weren’t many Jews living in St. John, and I once asked my mother if she experienced any antisemitism.
“I never experienced antisemitism until I moved to Toronto,” she said.
Many years ago, my maternal cousin Marty and I drove across Canada to explore our roots. The people in St. John were among the nicest I’ve ever met, rivaled only by the folks in Grand Rapids, MI, who are famous for what’s known as West Michigan Nice. In addition to the blinding fog that engulfed the city in the morning, another memory I have was people eating their lunch in the cemetery located in the commercial core.
St. John and New Brunswick have clearly changed since my mother lived there. In addition to the anti-Israel boycott at the local Costco, Shaked Tsurkan, a 14-year-old Israeli girl attending high school in Fredericton was followed and beaten up by an older student. It happened off school grounds during the lunch hour and other classmates gathered to watch—someone even filmed the attack and posted it to social media. The video showed Tsurkan getting jumped from behind, thrown to the ground, and punched repeatedly.
Maritimers, as residents of Canada’s eastern provinces are known, were once famous for their civility. Under the leadership of Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland, the granddaughter of a Nazi collaborator, antisemitism is widespread across Canada’s six time zones. The “true patriot love” referred to in Canada’s national anthem no longer is intended to include generations of Jews born and raised in the country who were once welcomed to call it their “native land.”
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