(Headline USA) Desperate to regain some of the ground lost to working-class voters outraged by his inflation tax, President Joe Biden appeared once again to fall back on the familiar tactic of race-baiting by using a “white power” symbol during a labor-union convention.
According to a photograph from the Associated Press, Biden flashed a hand signal that has been identified by the Anti-Defamation League and others as a coded dogwhistle for ethnophobic neo-Nazis, many of whom may have been in attendance at the AFL–CIO convention in Philadelphia.
Others, including President Donald Trump and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-NY, also have faced criticism for flashing the gesture, once assumed to signify “okay” before it was appropriated by extremist groups and widely disseminated by mainstream media as a racist symbol during the Trump administration.
Biden, like many Democrats, has a long and troubling history of making or tacitly condoning racist remarks. That includes his wistful sentimentalizing of having worked with segregationist during his early days in the Senate and his eulogizing of former Ku Klux Klan leader Robert Byrd.
Biden also has directed offensive comments at black voters, such as his attempt to browbeat them during the 2020 campaign by saying “you ain’t black” to any who were reluctant about voting Democrat. The abandoned laptop of his son, Hunter, revealed that Hunter casually used the n-word when addressing his white business associates. And Biden himself also was documented using racial slurs early in his political career.
On top of the economic pain that working-class voters are suffering disproportionately as the direct result of Biden’s policies, the Democrat leader has undertaken repeatedly to pander to left-wing elites, such as his recent push to force taxpayers to assume the student-loan debt of millions of privileged millennials and Gen-Z defaulters.
That risks alienating one of his most loyal constituencies—union bosses—whose below-board political tactics helped secure Biden’s victory in at least one battleground state during the 2020 election.
But on Tuesday, Biden insisted before the nation’s largest labor unioin that he’s working to rebuild the U.S. economy around workers.
“We should encourage unions,” Biden said. “I’m not just saying that to be pro-union. I’m saying it because I’m pro-American.”
Apart from Biden’s hand signal, the speech did not appear to make any overt appeals to white supremacy. However, Biden proceeded to push a slew of falsehoods and partisan half-truths as he has done repeatedly since assuming office as a centrist who would heal the nation’s bitter political divides.
While insisting that his policies had improved the economic conditions, Biden tried to remind his audience of the food lines and layoffs during the coronavirus pandemic that preceded his presidency—many of which were the result of authoritarian lockdowns led by blue-state governors like Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf.
But inflation has left many workers feeling worse off as wages have not kept up with the costs of living. The Labor Department said Friday that average hourly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, have fallen 3% over the past year.
Inflation has left Biden and Democrats’ control of the House and Senate vulnerable in the upcoming midterm elections. Republican lawmakers have blamed the president’s $1.9 trillion federal-spending package for causing inflation to start rising last year. GOP lawmakers also say the Biden administration has been too restrictive on domestic oil production.
“Working families’ budgets took a back seat to the far-left’s wish list,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a Monday speech.
The president faces an uphill battle in restoring union membership, which has declined for decades as it became harder to organize workers and many factory jobs moved away from communities with a history of unionization. Only 10.3% of U.S. workers belonged to a union last year, down from 20.1% in 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The nature of who belongs to unions has also changed over time as nearly half of union members work for the government. Just 7.7% of manufacturing workers and 12.6% of construction workers hold a union card, as the movement’s blue-collar roots have diversified into white-collar professions.
Despite the decline in unionization, the movement still generates value. Government figures show that the median unionized worker earns about $10,000 more annually than a worker without a union.
But with recession looming, many cash-strapped companies may find themselves forced to shutter rather than to accommodate Big Labor’s demands.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
