Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

He really is that stupid.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Let’s finish the job.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Thursday Evening Open Thread: TFG’s (Predictably) Fake ‘Union Autoworkers’ Audience

Thursday Evening Open Thread: TFG’s (Predictably) Fake ‘Union Autoworkers’ Audience

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… A lot of coverage noted that Trump’s visit wasn’t really “at the strike,” as a number of reports had it, but at a non-union auto parts manufacturer, Drake Enterprises. What’s gotten much less attention is that a substantial number of the “auto workers” and “union members” in the audience appear to have been phonies produced by the Trump campaign…


Craig Mauger seems to have been the first reporter to point this out:

… About 400 to 500 Trump supporters were inside a Drake Enterprises facility for the speech. Drake Enterprises employs about 150 people, and the UAW doesn’t represent its workforce. It wasn’t clear how many auto workers were in the crowd for the speech, which was targeted at them.

One individual in the crowd who held a sign that said “union members for Trump,” acknowledged that she wasn’t a union member when approached by a Detroit News reporter after the event. Another person with a sign that read “auto workers for Trump” said he wasn’t an auto worker when asked for an interview. Both people didn’t provide their names…

The UAW’s lead negotiator in contract talks with General Motors on Wednesday issued a scathing assessment of former President Donald Trump hours before Trump was due to speak in Detroit.

UAW Vice President for General Motors Mike Booth sent the Detroit Free Press a profanity-laden email about his thoughts on Trump’s trip to Michigan.

“Let me be blunt. Donald Trump is coming off as a pompous (expletive),” Booth said in an email. “Coming to Michigan to speak at a nonunion employer and pretending it has anything to do with our fight at the Big Three is just more verbal diarrhea from the former president.”…

Booth said Trump’s visit to Detroit is disingenuous given his past. In a video about plant closings that the union released Wednesday morning, 2017 footage shows Trump promising autoworkers in Ohio he would save their jobs. But in 2019 GM closed its Lordstown Assembly plant in northeast Ohio, displacing thousands of workers there and helping lead to the union’s 2019 strike against GM.

“Where were his rallies for striking workers when we were on the picket line in 2019? Where are the jobs he promised to return to the U.S. while on the campaign trail in 2015?” Booth said. “The proof is in the pudding. His actions in office went to enrich the very elite few while the working class of America stagnated. This stunt is another ploy to pull the wool over the eyes of the working class. Again!”…

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  2. 2.

    japa21

    “Courting working class voters” seems to be going great.

    Well, if he’s trying to court them for Biden, I think it is going great.

  3. 3.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’m shocked – shocked, I tell you! – to find out that Donald J. Trump is a total and complete fraud for about the eighteen jillionth time.

    And equally shocked, unfortunately, to see how little of that fraudulentness the MSM takes notice of.

  7. 7.

    Suzanne

    @lowtechcyclist: I’m more shocked that there are actual Americans who apparently hunger for the shit sandwiches Donald Fucking Trump gives them.

    The media doesn’t surprise me. They have a self-preservation agenda, which means they want to create drama and excitement where none exists.

    Any union member who votes for TFG is a TFI (total fucking idiot).

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: Then they deserve to get it good and hard, yes?

    ETA: I love when the leopards eat the faces of members of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party. It’s, like, my favorite thing.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    Probably, but irrelevant. Lots of people will free ride on our labor-friendly policies. I just think that voting for Trump doesn’t necessarily make one an idiot. It could just mean they prioritize things that Trump is better on.

  13. 13.

    JaySinWA

    We’ve had Orcas taking on yachts, now bacteria and fungus are taking on ferries. Nature is revolting.

    The April grounding of the ferry Walla Walla on Bainbridge Island was the result of bacterial and fungal growth in the ship’s diesel storage tanks, according to a report from Washington State Ferries.

    Excessive air crept inside the “two-day tank” on board, which feeds into the ferry’s fuel manifold. When combined with moisture inside the tank, a black sludge formed at the bottom. That sludge broke free, overwhelming the ship’s fuel filters, killing power to the generators and disabling the Walla Walla’s steering.

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/bacteria-and-fungus-in-fuel-caused-ferry-walla-walla-to-run-aground/

  14. 14.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m glad to see the New Yorker is getting pushback for their disgusting ageist and ableist cover. I will be canceling my subscription tomorrow morning when I’m not so tired.

  16. 16.

    JoyceH

    What amazes me is how many Trump supporters are so slow to realize he’s just wrong for the job!

    I’m reading Cassidy Hutchinson’s book, and I’ve gotten to the end of the Trump administration after several months of sheer insanity — and she’s feeling guilty! They didn’t staff the President good enough! They let bad counselors get to him.  Etc etc. I’m reading along and want to give her a stern shake and say, Girl, you can work your heart out day and night to try to get a rabid weasel to pull a plow, but eventually you have to accept that the weasel is just not the right match for the job! (I think she finally got there.)

  17. 17.

    MattF

    Trump being a lying fraud isn’t news, I suppose. It could take a whole minute or even two minutes to research how Trump has dealt with unions in the past, and the results of that research would annoy the editors. Or maybe even the media owners, & who would want to do that?

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @JoyceH:

    A lot of people have trouble taking an honest look at authority figures.

    Admittedly, I had some difficulty with it myself when I was less experienced.  I tended to blame myself first and was too slow to see people for what they were.  But I was never as bad as right wingers.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    @Suzanne:

    Any union member who votes for TFG is a TFI (total fucking idiot).

    PATCO, the air traffic controller’s union, endorsed Reagan, so TFIdiocy has a fairly long history in this space.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    It would be interesting to see just how much the Trump campaign spends on actors to attend his rallies.  I know there is a dedicated group of genuine supporters who are to Trump as Deadheads were to the Grateful Dead, but he somehow still feels the need to hire extras with the right look to sit where they’ll get into the news coverage of his events.  The man is such a phony.

  24. 24.

    Yarrow

    @Baud:

    I just think that voting for Trump doesn’t necessarily make one an idiot. It could just mean they prioritize things that Trump is better on.

    I think it makes one an idiot. He’s an authoritarian who has been clear about his goal to dismantle our democracy. American democracy is on the line in the 2024 election and anyone who votes for any Republican for any office is an idiot. They are voting to destroy the country.

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Didn’t see it. Can you describe what they did?

    Their cover had an illustration of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump in a walker race.  It was really awful.  In addition to everything else, they felt the need to include Pelosi even though she retired from her leadership position in favor of someone younger.

  30. 30.

    zhena gogolia

    @Scout211: Some might not want to click and give them the impression they’re creating a “conversation.”

    I haven’t been happy with the magazine for a while, so this is a good push to get rid of it.

  31. 31.

    kindness

    I think Democrats have good things to offer America.  The MSM isn’t a fan.  The false framing they bring to any issue (re: Trump’s auto union member audience), shows they have their thumb on the scales.  Again.  They know the framing is a lie yet they purposefully report the framing like it’s real.

    The MSM is on Republican’s side and Democrats have to start pointing it out.

  33. 33.

    Raoul Paste

    OT, but I hope some fruit pager posts, the video of Anthony Blinken playing Muddy Waters.
    A friend sent me a text about this, and dammn!

  34. 34.

    Doc Sardonic

    What else would you expect…. The cartoonist Barry Blitt is the same one that drew the Muslim garbed Obama’s complete with Michelle and an ak47 in the Oval Office cover.

  37. 37.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Joe (not Joe) the (not) Plumber would have been there at TFG’s event, were he not slightly dead…

    …which undoubtedly increased both his honesty and IQ.

    Next do Trump, Grim Reaper!

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Roger Moore:

    People don’t want to give up their favorite Democratic woman punching bag.  It took a while for people to stop obsessing over Hillary after she retired from politics.

  47. 47.

    moonbat

    I’m sure they thought they were being “fair and balanced” by putting two GOP and two Dems in there.

    Let’s all just forget that Pelosi was being praised by Republicans last week for how effective she was as speaker and that 80-year-old Joe Biden has enacted some of the most progressive legislation of my lifetime.

    At the same time Trump is busy spewing all caps, mad dictator, nonsensical word salad every time he opens his fat gob and McConnell appears to be having petit mal seizures so regularly that his staff is used to it.

    Two of these things are not like the others.

  52. 52.

    Josie

    @Scout211: ​ These two men (in their mid to late 60’s) must not have taken very good care of themselves. I will be 80 next week, and I have all my ability to think, my hair, my teeth, and plenty of energy. I do not own a walker or a cane, and I put in hours of care of my granddaughters, ages 5 and 8, every week. I don’t ride a bicycle, like President Biden, so he is one up on me on that score, but I walk and lift light weights on a regular basis. That cover is ridiculous.​​​​

  53. 53.

    hells littlest angel

    @zhena gogolia:I haven’t been happy with the magazine for a while, so this is a good push to get rid of it.

     

    When they publish good stuff, it’s good. When they publish shit, it’s usually Malcolm Gladwell.

  54. 54.

    zhena gogolia

    @hells littlest angel: Remnick produces a lot of shit too. And he’s the editor. Can’t stand him. I miss Gottlieb. Heck, I even miss Tina Brown. She knew how to do edgy in a somewhat interesting way.

  55. 55.

    Doc Sardonic

    I’m in that age group and own a walker, several canes and a rollator. Took fairly good care of myself but as the saying goes, ain’t necessarily the age, it’s the mileage. My body is paying for the dumb stuff I did in my early years.

  56. 56.

    Jay

    @JaySinWA:

    Really?

    Sludge and water in a marine diesel fuel system is basically a daily check you make, before heading out, if you are following safe procedures.

    When I had my sailboat, there were two tanks, one was diesel, the other was a heated tank with biodiesel. (Biodiesel turns into sludge when it’s cold out).

    Both tanks fed the engine through a clear glass fuel filter, and a clear glass water trap.

    The first thing done before starting the engine was check the filters and traps on both feeds, drain and replace as needed.

    I would start the engine on diesel, and then switch to biodiesel when the fuel was warm.

    Rolling and rearing with a stern wave and wind aft, when running pure diesel tended to have violent adverse effects on those prone to sea sickness. Burning biodiesel on the other hand, just seemed to make the passengers hungry.

  60. 60.

    Jay

    Asked about the Trump comments during an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Milley, in a clip released on Wednesday, first smirked and then, after a long pause, said, “I’ve been faithful and loyal to the constitution of the United States for 44½ years.”

    He added: “I’ve got adequate safety precautions. I wish those comments had not been made, but they were. And I’ll take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family.”

    U.S. President Joe Biden, during a speech in Tempe, Ariz., on Thursday, called out the lack of response from Republican party members after Trump’s comments.

    “Although I don’t believe even a majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening,” Biden said. “Hardly any Republican called out such heinous statements.”

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-milley-60-minutes-trump-treason-1.6980752

  62. 62.

    Jay

    @Ryan:

    technically, no,

    but given the Actor’s Strike, should an actor be taking on a paid job at a TFIG’s rallies, or are they just a gig worker?

  63. 63.

    JaySinWA

    @Jay: They didn’t find the crew at fault, which seems unusual to me. I assume they found that the crew didn’t deviate from standard procedure. They assure us that the issues have been resolved and it won’t happen again.

    The claim that air crept in and the sludge rose up broke free and seized the means of production  power [of the] steering [mechanism] sounds like a revolt to me.

  68. 68.

    Almost Retired

    @Jay: ​
    Off-topic, but you mentioned sending Kicking Horse Coffee to your friend in Ukraine in a thread a couple days ago. I was in Golden, BC in the Kicking Horse Valley when you posted that. So, naturally, I sought out a cup of Kicking Horse.

    I am awake.  So very, very awake…. Bought some to take home.

  72. 72.

    RaflW

    Biden and his team look freakin’ brilliant here at the end of Thursday. Yeah, sure, some in the press let themselves be bamboozled by Trump’s event (and some were in on the con), but I think overall it did not translate well for the “working class diner” obsessed press this time like the same dog-n-pony show would have in the run up to 2016.

    Biden did the real deal, not just an airport tarmac speech, or one to a neutral crowd somewhere in Michigan. It set up the contrast perfectly.

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Tesla sued for ‘severe’ racial harassment at its California factory, again

    Tesla subjected Black employees at its California factory to “severe or pervasive racial harassment” and helped perpetuate a hostile work environment for employees of color, according to a lawsuit filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

    Racist slurs and epithets and race-based stereotyping “permeated Tesla’s Fremont Factory subjecting Black employees to racial hostility and offenses,” the agency alleges. Black employees were also fired or subject to retaliation after raising complaints about their treatment, the lawsuit says. Source

  75. 75.

    Jay

    @Almost Retired:

    they sell online and ship.

    When Covid hit, the Orange killed the coffee machine. So one had to either walk a ways to get a coffee, Tim’s or Mickey D, because Starbucks closed for a while.

    I would take 3 thermos of Kicking Horse 454, French Pressed into work every day. Slava stopped by the “hood”, (the place where we repair tools) one day, dying for a coffee, so I poured him some. Made him an addict. Now his entire unit is addicted.

    A one kilo bag lasts me a little less than a month now, (drinking less coffee). 24 1 kilo bags lasts Slava and his crew, about a month. I also shipped him 24 stainless steel, insulated “Camping”  2 litre French Presses.

    It’s good coffee.

    It’s kinda funny. When I was a kid, we drove the Kicking Horse many times, while it was being built, going from Edmonton to Kamloops, (grandparents) even in winter. Some of the trips were scary epic.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    They all have their heads up their asses.

    And their hands in your pockets – just like the guy they support – not looking to bring anything, always looking to take everything.

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    @Yarrow:

    THIS.

    People like SFB, and yes I’d bet good money (yours!) that there are more like him, just not as public and stupid about it.

  79. 79.

    persistentillusion

    Canceled my subscription for The New Yorker.  It was always in my family’s home.  Learned to read at 4 from the captions of the cartoons.  No more!

  81. 81.

    EarthWindFire

    @JoyceH: I’m reading Cassidy Hutchinson’s book, and I’ve gotten to the end of the Trump administration after several months of sheer insanity — and she’s feeling guilty!

    I’m reading it too. She strikes me as a sad mixture of maturity, naivete, and misplaced sense of responsibility with a dash of having come up too fast for her own good.

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @ALurkSupreme:

    They should be ashamed of themselves.

    They were born without any shame whatsoever.

    Hell that’s the first question on the job app, 1. Do you have any shame about wealth, wealthy people, disgusting examples of way over spending, burning $100 bills, praising assholes for their wealth, etc?

    This is a town about money and having a lot of it.

  84. 84.

    JaySinWA

    Has anybody published the recruiting for the crisis union actors at this event? How well did the gig pay?

    Some may have been volunteers, but previous events had been found on things like Craigslist recruiting for people to hold signs for cash

    ETA a quick look claims that previous pay for attendance/protests were disinformation campaigns, but I could swear I saw some that were verified.

  85. 85.

    ColoradoGuy

    Well, that New Yorker cover takes me over the edge. Between the subscription going up to $155/year, and most issues being high-class media gossip, there’s not much value there. I only read it for the (superb) nonfiction articles, but they are few and far between. And the invariably downbeat mainstream fiction stories in the back of every issue are not for me … I read mysteries and science fiction, which are NEVER in the New Yorker.

  88. 88.

    dnfree

    @zhena gogolia: ​
      Interestingly, this New Yorker cover artist is the same one who did the Barack and Michelle Obama “fist bump” cover that was controversial in the other direction.

  89. 89.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    You would think that Musk would at least care about the cost of litigation and fines, even if he doesn’t care about protecting his employees.  I predict he starts moving more stuff to Texas, since he won’t have to worry about the Texas AG lifting a finger to do anything about racism.

  94. 94.

    Alison Rose

    @WaterGirl: Yeah, he’s a “contributing writer” — not sure exactly what that means about the difference between him and a staffer, but there is some difference. I have a lot of respect for him and his work. I hope he remains one of the good ones.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    Was taken somewhat aback recently while watching an early 1930s British movie when an up and coming social climber invited to a reception at a posh country club is introduced to a wealthy, mustachioed, silver-haired VIP and his sponsor arranges for a golf game.

    Up and comer: “I’ll meet you on Saturday, then. 9 a.m.?”

    Veddy British VIP, extending a handshake: “Cool.”

  96. 96.

    persistentillusion

    @WaterGirl: Follow him on social media.  He usually posts links to his work there as well, so you can see his work without giving much support to offending relic media.

  97. 97.

    mrmoshpotato

    A person in the crowd with a “union members for Trump” sign acknowledged she wasn’t a union member.

     

    A person with an “auto workers for Trump” sign said he wasn’t an auto worker.

    Both of these assholes should be slapped.  I hope they enjoy the 50 bucks they were paid.

  98. 98.

    zhena gogolia

    @dnfree: I’m not a fan. I don’t want political cartoons on the cover of my magazines. I often have to tear off the cover of the New Yorker because they’re constantly putting Trump’s mug on it. I don’t care if they’re making fun of him, it still gives him oxygen. I’m really looking forward to cancelling my subscription tomorrow.

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … Dan Davies at Substack:

    Anyone who has done hard time in forecasting will be aware that it’s all too easy to get a model that provably and visibly subtracts value. You can get something called “negative r-squared”, which is quite dramatic; it means that your model errors are larger than the volatility of the actual data. This is depressingly common in itself, but even if you get over that low bar, you might not be outperforming other benchmarks like “the naive forecast” (assume that tomorrow will be the same as today, a benchmark which weather forecasting only started to systematically outperform surprisingly recently).

    I think there are some modern political parties, and some modern mass-media corporations, that fit in this category. They destroy value and make things much worse.

    Opinion polls, also too.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  100. 100.

    mrmoshpotato

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m not a fan. I don’t want political cartoons on the cover of my magazines. I often have to tear off the cover of the New Yorker because they’re constantly putting Trump’s mug on it. I don’t care if they’re making fun of him, it still gives him oxygen. I’m really looking forward to cancelling my subscription tomorrow. 

    And Dump’s face is still disgusting even in mocking cartoon form.

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    A contributing writer is not an employee but does write articles for the publication. 2 jobs ago I worked in a sport sanctioning body which had a monthly magazine and we had full time staff writers and contributing writers. A lot of magazines do this.

  102. 102.

    wjca

    @mrmoshpotato: Both of these assholes should be slapped.  I hope they enjoy the 50 bucks they were paid.

    It seems like there could be an opportunity here.  Find out (which, with these clowns, ought to be possible) where they are recruiting their shills.  Offer them an additional $100 to boo him, toss down their signs, and walk out.  It would make irresistible video for the MSM.

    Not to mention making TIFG apoplectic.  And probably get several of his advance team fired, and a bunch of novices brought in to bumble around pretending that OJT is a good approach to campaign staffing.

  104. 104.

    frosty

    @WaterGirl: ​
     Like I said in an earlier comment, it’s hard to pull off a Muddy Waters tune. He did a good job on the vocals. I also read that he was in a band in college. Of course! Anyone playing at his age started in his teens and twenties, including me and all my musician friends.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @ron

    I believe that under the Former Presidents Act of 1958, unless Secret Service protection has been relinquished, any former president is forbidden to drive on vehicular roads or byways. Such ban may not apply within his or her own property.

  108. 108.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I keep thinking about the absolute, gobsmacking stupidity and incompetence necessary for Republicans to keep running their bogus investigations, call their handpicked witnesses, and still those witnesses tell them they’re wrong.  How can anybody be that fucking stupid?  Maybe the explanation is they believe their own dumbass theories?  Drinking the Kool-Aid is a well established trend.  Maybe they convince themselves there must be something there, so they just need a friendly witness.  Time and again they get pantsed because they believe there must be proof.  It seems more likely than they don’t check if their witness will lie for them first.

  109. 109.

    wjca

    @Frankensteinbeck: I keep thinking about the absolute, gobsmacking stupidity and incompetence necessary for Republicans to keep running their bogus investigations, call their handpicked witnesses, and still those witnesses tell them they’re wrong.  How can anybody be that fucking stupid?

    But that’s how natural selection works.  Even if it’s political rather than genetic.  If you reward stupidity, you get better and better at stupid.  And, manifestly, they have.

  111. 111.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WaterGirl: ​I think you all have confused the content of the ad with its effectiveness.

    In my opinion, however laudable are the points that ad attempts to convey, it is NOT “awesome” at all, but one rather poorly made for its purpose. The video jumps from one image to another too abruptly, and the narrator speed-reads the very wordy text. I would guess that half the ad’s viewers would be left scratching their heads wondering what it was all about, and take very little of substance away.

    ReBuildUSA (whoever they are) would have gotten their points across far better if whoever they hired to make this had left out a third of the ideas, a third of the images and a third of the voiceover.

    Again, JMO, but I don’t think I’m wrong about this. (Otherwise it wouldn’t be my opinion, would it? ;^D)

  114. 114.

    VOR

    @NotMax: IIRC Trump had a NY drivers license at one point. I know this because during the Girther controversy it came out that his past drivers license listed him at 6’2″ and yet he somehow grew to 6’3″ as he got older. That’s not how it works – my doctor is showing me down 1/2″ over the last decade.

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