Biden Walks The Line ― Trump Speaks To Scabs At Boss’s Invitation

UAW President Shawn Fain called it “a historic moment — the first time in our country’s history that a sitting USA president has come out and stood on the picket line.” And Joe Biden reciprocated, telling striking autoworkers of UAW Local 174 Willow Run, known as “Home of Walter Reuther,” to “stick with it.”

“I marched in a lot of UAW picket lines when I was a senator — since 1973 — but, I tell you what… it’s the first time I’ve ever done it as president,” Biden said.

“Folks, look, one thing is real simple — I’m going to be very brief — the fact of the matter is that you guys, the UAW — you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble,” Biden recalled. “But now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well too. It’s a simple proposition,” he explained.

“Folks, stick with it because you deserve the significant raise you need and other benefits.  Let’s get back what we lost, okay?”

“This site, Willow Run, it holds a historic place in the history of our union and our country,” Fain said.  “This was part of the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II. It’s where they built the B-24 Liberator bomber.  You know, that — that bomber — they built one of those per hour when they were at their peak.  It’s what helped us win the war,” he explained.

“So, today, 80 years later, we find ourselves here again, with the arsenal of democracy. It’s a different kind of arsenal of democracy, and it’s a different kind of war we’re fighting. Today, the enemy isn’t some foreign country miles away. It’s right here in our own — in our own area. It’s corporate greed,” Fain said. “And the weapon we produce to fight that enemy is the liberators — the true liberators — it’s the working-class people. All of you working — working your butts off on those lines to deliver a great product for our companies.

“That’s how we’re going to defeat these people.  That’s how we’re going to defeat corporate greed is by standing together.”

The next day, Donald Trump — an expert in tearing people apart, with a long history of hiring undocumented workers and cheating them out of wages — spoke to a crowd of non-union autoworkers (and more than twice as many of his own supporters) at an event held inside a non-union parts plant.

Trump’s pitch was simple: “Do me a favor: Just get your union guys, your leaders, to endorse me, OK? And I’ll take care of the rest.” But how he’ll take care of it was left unsaid, because his record is so terrible.

Rather than supporting striking workers, Trump attacked them as misguided.

“You’re all on the picket lines and everything, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what you get, because in two years you’re all going to be out of business,” he said.

But, as usual with Trump, every accusation is a confession. Because that’s exactly what happened to auto workers at the Lordstown plant in Ohio under Trump. In 2017, in Youngstown, 15 miles from the Lordstown plant Trump promised that automaking jobs that had left Ohio were “all coming back. They’re all coming back.”

“Don’t move,” Trump said. “Don’t sell your house.” But Trump didn’t save their plant. Two years later, after half a century of producing more than 16 million new vehicles, GM shut down the Lordstown plant, devastating the whole community. That’s how Trump ‘took care of all the rest’ last time. It’s the best indication of how he’ll do it again—if workers are foolish enough to give him another chance.

The essence of Trump’s attack was to try to pit workers against electric vehicles, blaming Biden for supporting the inevitable transition. But the whole point of Biden’s climate initiative is to make it work for everyone and secure a leadership role for America including the working class—a point echoed in Fain’s remarks.

“It’s not some executive that owns our future, it’s us. It’s working-class people from all walks of life,” Fain said. “It’s what we decide to do together that’s going to change and it’s going to shape the future of this Earth and for future generations. And that’s the economic reality that corporate executives don’t want us to recognize.”

“You’ve heard me say it many times.,” Biden said. “Wall Street didn’t build the country.  The middle class built the country, and unions built the middle class. And that’s a fact.  So, let’s keep going. You deserve what you’ve earned, and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now.”