What Does Donald Trump Think of Workers?

This is a little agitprop piece written for a local demonstration. 

     It is little wonder that Donald Trump and I differ – after all, just like you, I have always worked for a living.  Since he never held a job, he has little understanding of the priorities of most Americans.  What loyalty this man may possess on some level goes to oligarchs like Elon Musk and, for some reason I do not think has fully emerged, Putin’s Russia.

     His entire program is harmful to the interests of working people.  Cuts in education, health care, and social programs harm everybody and weaken America, but the current administration has particular hostility to organized labor. 

     Though unions are responsible (along with the G. I. Bill) for creating the middle class in America, Trump and his fat cat friends are determined to destroy them along with any other organization advocating for the average citizen.  He was notorious as a business owner for failing to pay contractors and  tradesmen. [1]  In his opinion, wages are too high and certainly should not be raised. [2]  He has stated that striking workers should be fired (though that action is forbidden by law). [3]  According to his chief economic advisor, raising the minimum wage would be “a terrible idea.” [4]  His agent, Kristi Noem stripped TSA workers of their collective bargaining rights a short time before he, by the fiat of an executive order, stole union representation from two-thirds of federal workers, though this has been temporarily stayed by a federal court. [5]  He fired the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board and then dismissed as well one of the three members, making it short of the required quorum to take any action. [6]

     Vice-President Vance is equally hostile to the interests of working people.  Asa senator he cosponsored the Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act which would have substituted voluntary “employee involvement organizations” for labor unions.  These new groups would do no collective bargaining and could be dissolved by an employer at will. 

     Meanwhile Musk, who had in past years been cited for his anti-union activity at Tesla, has directed his DOGE to be particularly aggressive in attacks on agencies that protect workers such as OSHA, and the Mine Safety, and Disability units in the Department of Labor. [7] 

     At another grave time for our nation, a great American, Frederick Douglass said:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them . . . The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

     People can accomplish anything of they are united.  Let us talk to each other and figure out together how to move forward to ensure a good quality of life now and for future generations.

1.  Among many articles describing this habit, see NYT, June 11, 2016, "How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions."

2.  Among a great many stories, see NYT, November 11, 2015, “Donald Trump Insists That Wages Are ‘Too High.’”

3.  He was commenting on a strike by the CWA.  See the NYT, August 13, 2024, “U.A.W. Files Labor Charges Against Trump and Musk Over Interview.”

4.  Washington Post. November 1, 2018 “President Trump’s Top Economic Advisor Says a Federal Minimum Wage is a Terrible Idea.  A Terrible Idea.”

5.  The Department of Homeland Security announced on March 7, 2025 that they no longer recognized the collective bargaining rights of their employees.  For Trump’s executive order, see the NYT March 28 “Trump Moves to End Union Protections Across Broad Swath of Government.”  The legal challenge to this decision was recently rejected by the Supreme Court. 

6.  See the NYT, January 28, 2025, “Trump Firings at Labor Board Paralyze the Agency.”

7.  Meg Kinnard, AP story, February 21, 2025 “A comprehensive look at DOGE’s firings and layoffs so far.”

Why I am a Socialist

     To call oneself a socialist seems eccentric in twenty-first century America, and indeed, it is even these days somewhat odder in the world as a whole (though left advocacy remains much more mainstream everywhere else, rich countries and poor alike). When I was young, history’s trend seemed to many unmistakable. Socialist (or anarchist) politics were virtually universal among my circle of friends, and armed Third World insurgents were gaining ground everywhere in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Here I mean, not to recall or analyze those days, but to set out, in simple, non-poetic terms, as a citizen, some part of the case for socialism.
     Far more difficult, I think, would be to defend the organization of all social production to return private profits to a few. If we want automobiles, surely the goal should be to produce the cheapest, most efficient, least polluting models possible. The recent surge of SUV production, finally brought low by gasoline prices, illustrates how the American system cultivates the opposite. Vehicles that pollute badly (with the looser regulation of “trucks”), use fuel profligately, and threaten the safety of smaller cars became America’s darlings (after appropriate advertising doses). I recall the damning analysis, albeit now out-of-date, of Baran and Sweezy demonstrating that over ninety percent of the price of an automobile under capitalism went to costs other than necessary design and production: advertising, dealers’ commissions (and with many times more dealerships than are needed), nonfunctional design changes (to indicate to the observer that the car is this year’s model and not last year’s), on and on. Given a choice, who would choose to be so wasteful?
     The goal, after all, of capitalism is to maximize not value but profit. That can only mean charging more or giving the customer less. People are rewarded within the corporate system for figuring out ways to do these two things in spite of the fact that both are directly opposed to the interests of most of us.
     Another particularly egregious (and typical) product of capitalism is the American breakfast cereal, a food ironically descended from “health” foods of the nineteenth century (as soda is descended from old nostrums). In the cereal business, companies compete to see who could offer customers the least. Some basic grain is refined until it is little more than pure starch, then given odd and inappropriate forms, puffed up to as large a shape as possible, and coated with sugar. These strategies are reinforced by the bright advertising which helps to develop our children into consumers, so delighted are they to see a food made specifically for the lowest common denominator of kids’ taste and decked out in such alluring packaging, almost as seductive as television. Should the box’s appeal be insufficient still, the manufacturer puts a toy inside. It is clear that the cereal is not what is sold; some self-image dependent on products is what the purchaser receives. The buyer in search of breakfast cereal should be able to select from foods, not from cartoon characters.
     We are, of course, indulgent of our children; the tragedy is that the same system works equally well for consumption-oriented adults. The Hummer, whose demise is noted is today’s paper, is a caricature, but of an everyday reality. Cars and cereals are only dramatic examples of what is true of all production under capitalism. The profit motive creates directly opposing interests between producers and consumers who are forced to ignore their genuine shared interest in high quality goods at a low price. And demand is driven by the devious psychology of advertising, teaching us that our identities, our self-worth are based on consumerism, in spite of the fact that pursuit of merchandise (as the Dalai Lama and the Rolling Stones can agree) brings no satisfaction.
     In terms of labor and the environment, the contrast is clear: capitalist employers will try to pay as little as possible and pollute as much as possible because both practices increase profit. Under socialism, the worker would receive as much reward as possible and the earth would be protected, because the economy would be managed for everyone’s benefit instead of for a few fat cats.
     Right-wing apologists may point to the sad examples of Soviet repression, Maoist fanaticism, and Khmer Rouge genocide, but the examples are not to the point. As one ought to have learned by high school, capitalism and socialism are economic systems defined by ownership of the means of production; tyranny and democracy are political systems describing who makes social decisions. There is no linkage. If despots condemn an economic system, there have been far more right-wing dictators than left, but the examples of Hitler, Pinochet, or Syngman Rhee are no more relevant than those of Stalin, Castro, or Mao Zedong.
     In fact, history unequivocally teaches the liberating potential of the progressive movement. No social step forward has ever come at the urging of business or of conservatives. On the contrary, people once perceived as wild radicals have again and again proved to be the sanest citizens. Even Lincoln thought that abolitionists were extremists, though who today would support slavery? The Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers fought fiercely to retain child labor to the very end, while an advocate for children such as Scott Nearing was fired as a dangerous radical for opposing it. Would women ever have received the right to vote were it not for their agitation, demonstrations, hunger strikes, picketing the White House? Labor unions had to struggle against violent opposition (including state violence from police, national guard, the army, and hired thugs) before they could end starvation wages, twelve hour days, and deadly dangers in the workplace. Socialist activists were, in fact, the spearhead of CIO organizing which resulted in the great American middle class’s enjoyment of private homes and health insurance. Unfortunately, the suburbanites have forgotten the historical process that brought them their comfort.
     Such profound social benefits of left-wing agitation should be no surprise since its goal is to raise the living conditions of all people. When individuals seek only to enrich themselves, in fact, they are all but certain to harm others. How could it be otherwise? Goods are already socially produced – it must have taken the collective effort of thousands to produce the computer at which I sit – it is manifestly absurd for a few to be allowed to hoard profits from the sale of products actually made by others.
     In my opinion the tendency of homo sapiens to share, to take care of the helpless, and to cooperate in projects for the common good is as significant a factor in the species’ success as opposable thumbs or swollen prefrontal lobes. In American culture we have been led to believe that people are by nature obsessed with wealth and ego. The fact is that such inevitably frustrating goals are culturally constructed. In the end, the human mind is moved by love and aggression – both will always exist in the psyche and in life, but the question is on which to put your chips for a better future. Surely only one answer is possible. I not only don’t hesitate myself; I honestly have difficulty understanding how anyone could consciously prefer the alternative.