Teamsters Won’t Endorse Harris; a Huge Win for Trump

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters voted overwhelmingly not to endorse Kamala Harris for President on Wednesday.  It was the first time since 1996 that the largest union in America did not endorse the Democratic candidate for President. Teamsters’ President Sean O’Brien has insisted that the endorsement reflect the concerns of his membership. Polling of the membership showed that they preferred Trump by a margin of 59.6% to 34%. Other trade unions, like the UAW, have many members who favor Trump and his new Republican Party, pro-working class platform and stance, but their leaderships refuse to acknowledge that, based on the cowardly and corrupt concept of not biting the hand that feeds.

The Teamsters’ executive committee vote on the endorsement featured three votes in favor of Harris and 14 votes against endorsing anyone.  O’Brien was immediately attacked as a “coward” by dissenting leftist union branches, including the Western States’ leader, Peter Finn, who heads locals in California and Nevada.  Politico and other mainstream media outlets were forced to admit that the vote could have a very significant impact on battleground states but otherwise sought to downplay it, meaning that they are completely freaked out.

Donald Trump has repeatedly emphasized that his Republican Party is a new party whose chief constituency is the working and middle classes of America, rather than the Wall Street Republican party of old.  His concept and his Republican Party platform returns the Republican Party to its roots as enunciated by Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln’s support of the productivity of labor, labor power being the instrument of all economic growth was emphasized by him over and over again.

“Labor is prior to and independent of capital,” Lincoln wrote in his first message to Congress. “Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of the community exists within that relation.”

O’Brien was the first labor leader in decades to speak to the Republican Convention.  He did so  at the specific invitation of Donald Trump.  His pro-labor, nationally televised speech had some old school Republicans we observed at the Convention suffering from “knickers in a knot” syndrome.  O’Brien also sought a slot at the Democratic Convention but his apparent heresy resulted in a rejection of any limelight for him by the DNC despite the Teamsters’ long standing support for Joe Biden.  Wednesday’s vote followed appearances by both candidates before the Teamsters’ Executive Board.  The invitation to Trump sparked outrage from the Democrats’ otherwise controlled unions in the AFL-CIO and the hard left SEIU.  The SEIU and the Teamsters both disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO in 2005 and formed the “Change to Win” union federation.