Donald Trump’s play for union votes leaves the GOP in a confusing spot once again
Few things going on in this article, but I wanted to highlight this part,
Whether Donald Trump is actually going to speak to currently striking union members is not actually certain.
The vow to... speak in front of 500 “former or current” members came from a “source close to the Trump campaign”, most likely just his comms team, on day four of the UAW strike earlier this month. But that was the beginning and end of the details being released by Trumpworld on the matter. And other factors throw that promise into question entirely, with the most obvious being the venue for Mr Trump’s speech.
The former president is set to speak at Drake Enterprises, a plant that does not have a unionised workforce and is not actually tangentially related to the demands of the striking UAW autoworkers down the road. It’s not even clear if the campaign means to speak to UAW union members, or whether any former or current union employee is fair game for a ticket to the show.
The Independent attempted to reach a Trump campaign spokesperson for clarification on why Mr Trump would choose to speak at a non-union shop if he plans to address striking union autoworkers. There was no response on Tuesday.
One source with ties to the striking autoworkers verified to The Independent that Mr Trump had not been in contact with UAW at any level prior to his planned visit.
That, combined with a rumour that the Trump campaign is relying on a major anti-union political group to fill seats in the audience, raises even more questions about both the content of Mr Trump’s address and the makeup of the audience that will hear it firsthand.
Original (sorta) at https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-play-union-votes-000243554.html
(It's clearly a piece originally published in The Independent, but I couldn't find it on their site when I looked for it)
There's a place where he could go to speak to 500 current union members: the picket line.
Instead he's going to a non-union shop at the invitation of their management and supported by a political group whose entire purpose is to fight against unionization. It's as anti-union a media event as one could do, but for some reason the media repeats or at least humors the idea that this is trying to garner support from union members.
So, it's his usual strategy then. Make all sorts of conflicting statements with conflicting messages so that each supporter can believe that he's genuinely speaking for their interests but that trump is simply lying to all the other supporters that have conflicting interests.