Iowa congressman and secret border control agent Steve King along with Joe "You Lie" Wilson introduced a national "right to work" bill this morning and there's probably no stopping it or similar legislation from becoming law in the near future.
On Wednesday, Republican Reps. Steve King (IA) and Joe Wilson (SC) re-introduced a so-called “right-to-work” bill that would significantly hamper unions across the country and likely lower wages for all Americans.
Republicans have proposed this kind of legislation before; King introduced a similar bill almost exactly a year ago. But now they may feel emboldened by having an ally in the White House. On the campaign trail, President Trump said he is “100 percent” in favor of right-to-work laws.
Republicans have sought the opportunity to squash unions nationwide for a long time, and now that they control both chambers of Congress and the White House they'll finally have an opportunity to do it.
It probably won't earn me any new friends on the left, but I believe some of the nation's biggest unions are partially responsible for this because I believe they're partially responsible for the election of Donald Trump.
First, the obvious. Union households voted for the Republican candidate in the highest numbers since 1984. Hillary Clinton won the union vote by just 8 percent, while President Obama won the union vote by 18 percent in 2012.
Why is that?
Sure, Trump did his part by making wild claims about our international trade partners and misleading people about the true sources of their so-called "economic anxiety," but so did some of the biggest labor unions in the country and many other voices on the left.
Labor union spokespersons and leadership and the likes of Bernie Sanders painted Democrats and Hillary Clinton as enemies who've sold working Americans out. Sanders even attacked Democrats for supporting the Export-Import Bank which finances American-made exports. And Sanders won the Michigan primary, in part, because he told Democratic voters that Hillary Clinton was responsible for the ruin of Detroit. We can only assume that animus carried over into the general election.
Some of the most critical parties including Sanders would eventually endorse Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election, but the damage had already been done. You can't so easily erase a year's worth of toxic talking points you drilled into people's heads about matters of trust and trade.
Hillary Clinton was blamed for a lot of things that she had virtually nothing to do with, and some factions of organized labor and its alleged champions did their part to blame her. They helped elect Trump.
People of color will soon make up a majority of the "working class" in America, if they don't already, and it's an open question to me if labor unions who would waste valuable time and energy on the vanity of opposing international trade are actually serving the needs of the new working class in the 21st century. It may be time for a new movement and new leadership. It may be way past time.