Teamwork

Wanted to talk about Trump tariffs in the context of auto industry workers and specifically the UAW. My fear is liberals (including me) kid ourselves about how unpopular this stuff is, particularly regarding hourly workers in labor unions. Labor is not as important to Democrats as it once was but private sector unions in the Great Lakes states are still very important. We held onto a good share of labor households in 2024, especially considering how many “labor households” are law enforcement, so any labor household measure is skewed Right by GOP police and corrections officers unions. Part of the reason we are still carrying a majority of UAW rank and file is there are a lot of Black UAW members – 25%.

You all recall how how hard Sean Fain of the UAW worked for Harris, right? Here’s him yesterday:

 My middle son is an IBEW electrician who just went on to a “company job” at Stellantis in Detroit, so although he will still be in the IBEW he will now be working under a UAW contract. He told me UAW rank and file think the Trump tariff threats are a negotiating tactic meant to mitigate some of the losses from trade deals (including the Trump trade deal).

We talked about how nuts this is to me because Stellantis is international, as are all car companies. They all source from all over the world and they all assemble in Mexico and Canada. When he applied for the job at Stellantis he was interviewed by an executive from Fiat who had an Italian accent. So they’re AWARE of the wholly international nature of the industry they’re in. Still, he tells me his coworkers  all support the threats of tariffs and believe it is a tough negotiating tactic. My son, incidentally, is a Democrat who loathes Trump. He even canvassed for Marcy Kaptur with me in 2024. But this is what they’re saying where he works.

I just think it’s really important we not get too far up our own asses and keep talking to people. This plays differently for different groups of people. I know how hard it is to keep all of the wildly disparate parts of our coalition together and how interests can clash but I think the only way to understand what’s going on is to stop talking in broad strokes with assumptions about which groups support what and instead really drill down and embrace the complexity of this coalition. It’s complicated.