As the world’s wealthiest people were lining up behind former President Donald Trump ’s candidacy, the Republican Party served up hours of programming at its convention designed to woo the working class with (mostly) fake populism. During the first day of the Republican National Convention, the theme was “Make America Wealthy Again.” The evening’s program was a calibrated pitch to the working class — with speakers and video messages repeatedly slamming President Joe Biden over inflation , higher gas prices and grocery bills, and credit card debt.
Consistent with Trump’s attempts to court blue-collar workers and union members, two union leaders spoke at the event — including Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters. O’Brien made the most of the historic opportunity, slamming corporate lobbying groups and companies like Amazon, Uber, and Lyft for failing to provide benefits to their workers. For the most part, though, the event featured complaints about the Biden economy — and little talk about solutions to help workers besides a brief mention of Trump’s dodgy “no tax on tips” promise .
The RNC platform , borrowed from Trump, is equally thin on substance. It frequently recognizes the real problems Americans are facing, but primarily gives them people — immigrants — to scapegoat instead of a real, better path forward. That makes sense: Republicans’ messaging, the RNC platform, the entire Trump campaign is about meeting people where they are and .
