The recent visit to Michigan by President Joe Biden, in a show of support to striking laborers, was more than a photo op. Donald Trump held a rally in Michigan just a few days later. The two are fighting over the same voters. But they’re engaged in two different wars.
Biden, now the first sitting president to join a picket line, is choosing sides in the war between labor and capital.
Trump can see only the culture war. He may speak in support of striking workers, but his record as president reflects disdain for unions. He won Michigan back in 2016 despite thin union support. That’s because the culture war has always been a way to slice through union solidarity. It’s the Achilles’ heel of the labor movement. Every laborer wants fair wages and a safe work environment, but not every laborer supports reproductive rights.
Like many conservative politicians before him, Trump relies on culture war fearmongering to undermine union efforts. And it’s been a very successful strategy, starting with the threat of racial integration being used to derail a huge union push in the South during the 1940s. “Operation Dixie” attempted to combine the workforces of the textile, oil, steel and wood industries. It fell apart because the Ku Klux Klan got involved to sabotage it.
Today, the nation’s poorest region is … where? Exactly.