There are two things going on in the Republican Party that workers need to be wary about.
The first is that Republicans in the Trump era call themselves the party of the people, the party of the workers. They, or at least Trump, make impassioned speeches about how workers have been wronged and vow to help them.
But when they are elected, Trump has not followed through with his promises and has done nothing to help the worker. That is because he and his fellow Republicans are hypocrites. The Republican Party has always been the party of big business and the rich, and that still is where their hearts are.
Their electoral base now may be to a significant extent white working men, but that is not reflected in their actions. They are using you to increase their chances of getting elected because without the support of working men, they would lose many more elections. YOU HAVE BEEN USED AND DECEIVED!!
The negative influence of Republicans on workers’ well-being is especially clear in the National Labor Relations Board’s decisions on complaints brought by unions against corporations and in their rule-making. Whenever there is a Republican majority on the 5-member Board (members are appointed by the President for fixed terms), the Board tends to vote in support of corporations and against unions.
The second is that there may well be individual Republicans who honestly want to support workers at least on occasion. The problem is that when the Republican leadership in Congress presses for a unified front against Democrats, those individual Republicans typically fall in line rather than risk a breach with the leadership and its support.
Some workers and union leaders feel that Democrats have come to take them for granted and have not fought for them. It may be that for some time, the focus of Democrats has not been on workers or the middle class, but Democrats have nevertheless continued to push legislation that is friendly to unions - like the PRO act - and that supports workers.
What Democrats in Congress have little ability to impact are the wages that workers are paid (apart from raising the minimum wage) and the price of goods, including food. These are the result of dynamics that Congress has no control over. We do not live in a Communist system where both prices and wages are controlled by the government.
Bottom line, workers shouldn’t trust Republicans and should continue to vote Democratic.
