Vance astroturfs working-class support in Michigan, knocks federal automaker investment
Plus, a conservative Republican from North Carolina stands up to right-wing disinfo.
At a campaign rally in Michigan, Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) spoke at a rally that included a coalition of voters with shirts that read “Auto Workers for Trump.” However, according to the Detroit Free Press, some of the attendees wearing said shirt were not autoworkers.
Such astroturfed efforts by the Trump-Vance to paint the Republican party as an institution of the working class have been long-standing. Last year during a strike by United Auto Workers (UAW) in the Great Lakes State, former President Donald Trump held a rally at a non-unionized auto plant wherein he urged UAW President Shawn Fain to endorse him — despite his anti-labor track record. Much like Vance’s event, attendees held signs like “Union Members for Trump” and “Auto Workers for Trump” despite them neither being autoworkers nor union members.
In both instances, Trump and Vance derided federal government efforts to engender the transition away from vehicles that run on fossil fuels. In Vance’s case, the senator referred to the $500 million grant provided to General Motors by the Biden administration to expedite the transition as a poor trade-off for workers.
“What we’ve said is that Kamala Harris is offering table scraps,” Vance said.
The Harris campaign responded to such rhetoric by referring to comments made by their opponent which hints that a Trump presidency would revoke the unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act — the source of the $500 million grant.
“Major investments in Michigan auto jobs made possible by Vice President Harris aren’t ‘table scraps,’ they’re a lifeline that is building the future of American manufacturing," Harris campaign spokesman Joseph Costello said in a statement to The Detroit News. "JD Vance and Donald Trump are out of touch with Michigan, and it’s obvious when you see them threatening to abandon Michigan workers and cede the future of manufacturing to China."
“[Vance has] suggested that if Trump wins, he might let the Grand River Assembly in Lansing close down — the same plant our administration helped save earlier this year, along with 650 union jobs,” Harris said last week at a rally in Flint.
Campaign finance records from Bernie Moreno, Ohio’s Republican candidate for the Senate, show that the GOP nominee has received a combined $46,000 from the influential (and right-wing) DeVos family — including multiple donations from former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
The pairing is unsurprising; both Moreno and DeVos have called for the abolition of the Department of Education. In the case of the latter, upon leaving her position at the department, the charter school advocate was on record saying that she thought “the Department of Education should not exist."
Moreno has echoed such sentiments. At a campaign event last month, Moreno stated should both he and Donald Trump assume office, the hope was that the Department of Education would be “eliminated” by 2025.
Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), a conservative member of Congress who represents the western extension of North Carolina, is speaking out against fallacious comments made by his conservative colleagues and right-wing media figures regarding Hurricane Helene.
Following the hurricane’s contact with the Atlantic Coast late last month, flooding has devastated portions of Tennessee, Virginia and Edward’s district in North Carolina. The fallout from the flooding has been politicized by Republicans, who have used it as an opportunity to deride the Biden administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response to the disaster.
For example, tech billionaire and owner of X Elon Musk wrote in a post to the site that “FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also took to X to falsely claim that “Yes (sic) they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” It is unclear exactly who Greene meant by “they.”
In a press release, Edwards sought to counter the “uptick in untrustworthy sources trying to spark chaos by sharing hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and hearsay about hurricane response efforts across our mountains.”
Edwards then dispelled a multitude of falsehoods that had been circulating, including that the FEMA was running out of money, had divested disaster response funding to the border, was attempting to seize property, had blocked airspace access and was refusing to allow trucks with donations and supplies to enter disaster zones.
“I encourage you to remember that everything you see on Facebook, X, or any other social media platform is not always fact. Please make sure you are fact-checking what you read online with a reputable source,” Edwards wrote.