Vance's Fake Autoworkers Just Exposed the GOP's Big Con [View all]

During JD Vance’s appearance in Michigan on Tuesday, several members of the audience came dressed rather conspicuously, sporting T-shirts that read “Auto Workers for Trump.” But when Craig Mauger of The Detroit News interviewed them, he learned something interesting: Six of the people wearing those T-shirts were not autoworkers at all.

That’s amusing enough in its own way. But you can spot an even flimsier facade if you consider the actual policy arguments that Donald Trump and Vance are making to autoworkers about the future of their industry. That facade is so Potemkin-like that it gives Democrats an opportunity to put them on the defensive on an issue involving working-class economics—if Harris’s allies are wise enough to seize on it.

In recent days, The Detroit News has persistently questioned Vance about his opposition to the Biden administration’s investments in the green energy transition, which have resulted in a $500 million grant to convert a manufacturing plant in Lansing that makes traditional cars to one that produces electric vehicles. Again and again, the paper reports, Vance has refused to say whether a Trump-Vance administration would honor that investment in Michigan’s future.

https://newrepublic.com/article/186965/fake-autoworkers-trump-exposed-vance