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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   35258 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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The realignment continues..

Here's a history of Teamster union endorsements over the last few election cycles.

2000: Gore

2004: Kerry

2008: Obama

2012: Obama

2016: Clinton

2020: Biden

2024: No one

That's right, the Teamsters aren't endorsing anyone. I think we all know what this means. But just in case you need a hint, the Teamsters themselves are here to tell us.

In the past week, following the Democratic National Convention and recent Presidential debate, the Teamsters commissioned independent polling firm Lake Research Partners to conduct the union’s final national survey. In the poll ending Sept. 15, Teamsters selected Trump by 58 percent for endorsement over 31 percent for Harris.

Here's the crazy bit. When they did the same poll just three months ago

From April 9-July 3, nearly 300 Teamsters local unions nationwide conducted first-of-their-kind Presidential town halls, soliciting endorsement preferences from members via straw polls. The in-person voting was held prior to Biden’s withdrawal from the race. The Teamsters’ polling data shows members backed Biden** 44.3 percent to Trump’s 36.3 percent.

What can explain this 35 point swing in Trump's favor over just a couple months? I can think there a couple possible explanations. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

  1. Biden grew up working class and can relate to these people where as Harris cannot.

  2. The original poll was conducted in person. The second poll was not. Presumably the first poll was a "show of hands" type of affair where people felt social pressure to vote the way the leaders wanted.

Whatever happened, this is a shocking result. Who could have imagined 20 years ago that the Teamsters would be a Republican stronghold and that Dick Cheney would somehow still be alive and also a Democrat? Wild times.

Whatever happened, this is a shocking result. Who could have imagined 20 years ago that the Teamsters would be a Republican stronghold and that Dick Cheney would somehow still be alive and also a Democrat? Wild times.

This is less surprising than you think. 20 years ago is 2004. Dick Cheney's daughter was already a lesbian (and gay politics was clearly rising) and Democrats were solidifying as the anti-Iraq party (notably Afghanistan was not demonized, not the insertion of ourselves into the Houthi conflict), had repudiated the Clinton welfare reforms, and had Obama as the star speaker at their convention. We were on a trajectory to one party clearly being against your average white guy, and the other winning most white guys. If anything, unions have been slow to embrace the fact that Democrats largely have assembled a coalition that rejects being a normal working person.

And then, of course, there is the gay stuff.

The Democrats heel turn to becoming the pro-war party is still surprising, right?

Not really no, the Democrats spent pretty much the entire 20th century being the pro-war/international intervention party.

If anything it was thier brief flirtation with being anti-war in the early 2000s that was the surprise.

Obama was still pro-Afghanistan when he gave the convention speech and during both 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Their opposition to war has always been more who/whom than the romantics seem to think. Clinton was happily intervening in Bosnia and Rwanda.

Nevermind Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and both world wars.

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