Give President Biden the union elites, while President Trump takes the rank and file.
Mr. Biden met with the AFL-CIO union leaders Wednesday, repeating his boast that he’s the most pro-union President in American history. So you say, Mr. Biden, but we shall see.
In fact, while the liberal, left-wing union leaders are lining up for Mr. Biden, you can bet that Trump is going to take a record share of the rank and file.
Actually, the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, plans to speak at the Republican National Convention at Milwaukee next week.
He’s got 1.3 million members, and I’m going to guess Trump is going to win a big majority of that group.
Here’s what’s bothering the Teamsters and the rank and file of the other unions as well: Mr. Biden has created an affordability crisis for working families.
Their kitchen tables have been squeezed by a 20 percent rise in overall prices during Mr. Biden’s term, including a 20 percent jump in groceries, a near-40 percent rise in energy, and don’t forget gasoline is still $3.50 — compared to just over $2 when Trump left the White House.
Looking at the actual numbers, average earnings during Trump’s term rose $5,065 — to $65,216.
Through May 2024, during Mr. Biden’s term, those same earnings declined by $2,968 — really call it $3,000 — to $62,248.
In other words, Mr. Biden has given working folks a pay cut, whereas Trump gave them a sizeable pay increase.
Ronald Reagan used to call it take-home pay. And that has been the soft underbelly of the Biden economy for 3 ½ years.
And that’s why he’s losing votes among union and non-union workers.
In an important sense, these numbers are the backbone of Mr. Trump’s working-class coalition — including Blacks, Hispanics, whites, and young people. It’s a powerful movement.
“Every day we are welcoming more Americans to our ranks,” Trump said last night. “African-American and Hispanic, Asian Americans, young people, old people, you union members and union members. Basically everyone is joining our movement because it’s a movement of common sense.”
And while the ultra-liberal union leaders stand behind Mr. Biden’s open-border illegal migrant catastrophe, the rank and file families want an end to the criminal gangs and the destruction of public safety.
Add to that the auto employees’ union, which has a very liberal left leadership, but the workers themselves are furious at the Green New Deal and the mandated EVs that are going to create jobs in China and lose jobs in America.
On top of all that, none of these folks like the woke, ultra-liberal values of Mr. Biden and his crowd.
Typical mainstream working families don’t like the anti-religious bias of the Bidens, or the DEI regulations affecting virtually every business in the country and therefore every worker.
Nor do they like gender-sex mandates in schools, teachers and curriculums, including Mr. Biden’s insistence that biological males be allowed to participate in female athletics.
Trump would turn all that around by ending the EV mandates, opening the fossil fuel spigots to slash energy costs and inflation, cutting middle-class taxes, and protecting American industry and its workforce from unfair trading practices.
So, Mr. Biden will win the union leaders.
Trump, though, is going to take most of the rank and file who go to work every day, play by the rules, work with their hands, and proudly wear their hard hats.
You can bet on that.
From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.
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Correction: Average earnings rose during the Trump administration, but fell under the Biden administration. An earlier version misstated the economic statistic.
