Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien is unhappy with the Democratic Party, to say the least. He’s not elated with the Democrats, and one suspects he’s a little less elated with his own rank-and-file members, who are supporting Donald Trump in the presidential race by a nearly two-to-one margin over Kamala Harris. So, yes, he is not a elated camper.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien strongly condemned the Democratic Party in a recent interview, saying the party had only itself to blame for losing the support of the union’s rank-and-file members.
“I’m a Democrat, but they’ve been screwing us over the last 40 years,” O’Brien said during a conversation with Theo Von for the comedian’s “This Past Weekend” podcast. “And this one time – and not everything – but this one time we stand up as.” a unionprobably the only one right now saying, ‘What the hell have you done for us?’”
Well, at least Mr. O’Brien is finally – after supporting the Democrats for a long, long time – starting to see the lithe. We should note that the Teamsters have a long history of supporting Democratic presidential candidates, so, hey, Mr. O’Brien, they’re way behind the curve. There’s an venerable saying in military circles, “If you don’t know where your people are, they’re probably ahead of you,” and that seems to apply to the Teamsters base and Sean O’Brien.
The Teamsters made a splash this year by breaking with Democrats for the first time in decades and refusing to endorse a 2024 presidential candidate after the union’s internal polls showed its members favored Republican former President Donald Trump by 59, 6% support favored the Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harriswhich received 34% support.
O’Brien admitted that he “attacked from the left” about the decision, but he told Von that in the two and a half years he was president of the Teamsters, the union gave “the Democratic machine” $15.7 million and the GOP just $340,000.
And:
🔥 Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and Theo Von roast the Democratic Party
“I’ll be honest with you, I’m a Democrat, but they’ve been screwing us over the last 40 years… Since I’ve been in office 2.5 years, we’ve given $15.7 million to the Democratic machine.” We’ve given the Republicans… pic.twitter.com/hVGkoCR8VE
– Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) October 8, 2024
I think I see the problem here. Let’s go through this step by step:
- Sean O’Brien identifies this problem with the…relationship between the Teamsters and the Democrats, which has been evident for at least 40 years. Well, since Ronald Reagan was president.
- Sean O’Brien has been president of the Teamsters for 2.5 years. So, 37.5 years after it emerged that the Democrats “insulted” the Teamsters.
- Sean O’Brien donated $15.7 million to Democrats over the same 2.5 years, while he donated $340,000 to Republicans during the same time frame.
- Sean O’Brien has clearly seen that his members prefer Donald Trump (Republican) to Kamala Harris (Democrat) by a huge margin. And in that they have plenty of company among the workers.
See related: Trump storms forward in Philly – Did Harris lose the workers’ election?
The obvious solution seems to be to “stop giving money to the Democrats.” They obviously take the Teamsters members for granted; based on Sean O’Brien’s rather… open Assessing that relationship, reminding them of the Teamsters’ influence by donating elsewhere seems like the right move — or simply staying out of politics altogether, which seems unlikely for a major union. Or let your members, you know, the people whose money you spend, decide where the union should best place those donations. Given the Teamsters’ internal polling, this would likely be the case with the Trump/Vance ticket.
See related: Teamsters members voted overwhelmingly to support Trump, but the leadership was weakened
As America’s songwriters reminds us: “Times change,” and the Teamsters union—or at least its president, Sean O’Brien—will have to change with them. The Democrats are no longer the party of workers; The sooner major unions understand this fact, the better the future will be for their members.
