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The president was on the picket line, and the American public is paying attention to unions. This moment of renewed interest in organizing could energize labor activity in the U.S., but it also turns up the pressure on union leaders.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

“Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.”

Eight ways to banish misery

The best thing about Amazon was never going to last.

“A Genuinely Historic Moment”

“Unions built the middle class,” the president of the United States bellowed this week through a bullhorn emblazoned with an American flag. “You deserve what you’ve earned, and you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now.” On Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting president to join striking workers on a picket line. In standing with the United Auto Workers, who have been on strike against the Big Three car companies for almost two weeks, he has picked a side. As my colleague Adam Serwer wrote today, “A president on the picket line, telling workers they deserved to share in the wealth they had helped create, was a genuinely historic moment.”

Public approval of unions is the highest it’s been in many decades. Data from Gallup last month found that, after dipping to a low of 48 percent in 2009, around the time of the recession, Americans’ union-approval rating is now at 67 percent, down slightly from 71 percent last year. Three-quarters of respondents said that they sided with autoworkers over management in their negotiations (this was before the UAW strike had actually begun), and support for striking television writers over their studios was nearly as high. A record-high number, 61 percent, said that unions help rather than hurt the economy.

Organized labor has contracted dramatically in the past 50 years: In 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 striking Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization workers, ushering in a period of union decline that has continued since. Now a successful UAW strike could inspire other workers to stand up, potentially even serving as “a reverse PATCO moment,” says Johnnie Kallas, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the project director of its Labor Action Tracker. Kallas’s research shows that so far this year, there have been 291 strikes involving about 367,600 workers. That is an uptick from a few years ago, when his team began documenting strikes. And beyond the numbers, there are other indicators that we are in a strong labor moment, he told me: High-profile victories at Starbucks and Amazon point to a rise in labor interest in private industries. And, of course, there’s the president on the picket line.

Recent strikes may make the public more curious about unions. Many Americans don’t fully understand the potential benefits of unions, Suresh Naidu, an economics professor at Columbia, told me. For decades, “one reason the labor movement has not had so much energy is that it’s been taken for granted that it can’t win strikes,” he said. But given how publicized the UAW’s effort has become, Naidu observed, a successful strike could send onlookers the message that “when you actually have a union that’s willing to go to bat for you, it can really deliver good wages and working conditions.” The high level of current public interest in unions also means that the pressure is on: If the UAW workers do not end up winning a strong contract, it may damage public perception of strikes, Naidu explained. And in strikes like the UAW’s, union leaders need to thread a needle: If they settle for a weak contract or let the strike drag on long enough that it significantly affects workers and their communities, they could lose public support.

As the labor movement gains momentum, workers in such seemingly different industries as Hollywood and mail delivery are making real gains, often on related issues. “We’re seeing a confluence of concerns around the high cost of living, the role of technology in degrading our work, and what people call work-life balance,” Tobias Higbie, the faculty chair of labor studies at UCLA, told me. “These strikes have a way of defining the key conflicts of a particular historical moment.” The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way many people view their lives, he added—and the role that work should play in them. The past few years have also exacerbated public concerns about income inequality, as many bosses and corporations have grown wealthier while workers have struggled with inflation.

Where America’s labor movement will go next is impossible to predict. After months of picketing, Hollywood writers returned to work yesterday with a strong contract in hand; meanwhile, UAW workers are holding the line, and may even expand their strike this week. “Any kind of negotiation is about power,” Higbie explained. “The UAW is giving a master class on how to strategically utilize the power that you do have so that you can get what you need.”

Related:

Trump didn’t go to Michigan to support autoworkers.

The Big Three’s inevitable collision with the UAW

Today’s News

As tensions continue among congressional Republicans, the U.S. government has begun notifying federal employees that a shutdown appears imminent. The House held its first hearing in the Biden-impeachment inquiry; witnesses chosen by Republicans stated that there is currently no evidence of a crime, but that more bank records from the president and his son are still needed. The Senate unanimously passed a dress-code resolution after controversy over Senator John Fetterman’s casual attire.

Evening Read

Paul Spella / The Atlantic

Group-Chat Culture Is Out of Control

By Faith Hill

Here’s just a sample of group chats that have been messaging me recently: college friends, housemates, camp friends, friends I met in adulthood, high-school friends, a subset of high-school friends who live in New York City, a subset of high-school friends who are single, a group of friends going to a birthday party, a smaller group of friends planning a gift for that person’s birthday, co-workers, book club, another book club, family, extended family, a Wordle chat with friends, a Wordle chat with family.

I love a group text—a grext, if you’ll permit me—but lately, the sheer number of them competing for my attention has felt out of control. By the time I wake up, the notifications have already started rolling in; as I’m going to bed, they’re still coming. In between, I try to keep up, but all it takes is one 30-minute meeting before I’ve somehow gotten 100 new messages, half of them consisting of “lol” or “right!” I scroll up and up and up, trying to find where I left off, like I’ve lost my place in a book that keeps getting longer as I read.For better or for worse, we might be in the Age of the Group Chat.

Read the full article.

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There’s an expression reporters use, that you’ve “reported yourself out of a story.” That is, you had a hunch or a tip about something, but when you checked the facts, the story didn’t pan out. Sometimes, though, reporters stick to the narrative they’ve decided on in advance, and they don’t let facts get in the way.

The United Auto Workers union is striking for a better contract. The combination of a tight labor market and President Joe Biden’s pro-labor appointees to the National Labor Relations Board has given workers new leverage, leading workers in writers’ rooms, kitchens, and factories to demand more from their employers. This has been broadly beneficial, because many of the gains made by union workers benefit other workers.

Over the past few weeks, there have been whispers that former President Donald Trump would visit the striking UAW workers, with consequent fretting from Democrats in the press that Biden’s overall pro-union record would be overshadowed by photos of Trump on the picket line.

[David A. Graham: The press is giving Trump a free pass, again]

But that didn’t happen. Instead, it was Biden who went to support the striking autoworkers, joining a union picket line—something not even his most pro-union predecessors in the White House had ever done. “You saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble,” Biden told the striking workers Tuesday. “But now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well too. It’s a simple proposition.”

A president on the picket line, telling workers they deserved to share in the wealth they had helped create, was a genuinely historic moment. Franklin Roosevelt didn’t do this. It’s shocking that Biden did.

But that wasn’t as interesting for many in the political press as the hypothetical story, the one that didn’t happen: a Republican presidential candidate winning over striking autoworkers by supporting their struggle for a better contract. Trump didn’t do that. In fact, Trump, who governed as a viciously anti-union president even by Republican standards, chose to visit a nonunion shop to give a campaign speech in which he said, “I don’t think you’re picketing for the right thing,” and told them it wouldn’t make “a damn bit of difference” what they got in their contract, because the growth in electric-vehicle manufacturing would put them out of work.

Telling striking workers that they should give up trying to get a better deal is not supporting workers or supporting unions; it is textbook union-busting rhetoric that anyone who has ever been in a union or tried to organize one would recognize. In other words, Trump did not go to Michigan to support striking workers at all. He did what cheap rich guys do every day: He told people who work for a living to be afraid of losing what little they have instead of trying to get what they deserve. This is not comparable to, nor is it even in the same galaxy as, supporting workers on a picket line. It is a poignant metaphor for the emptiness of right-wing populism when it comes to supporting workers—a cosplay populism of superficial “working class” aesthetics that ends up backing the bosses instead of the workers.

The narrative repeated ad nauseam by the political press that Trump was supporting the autoworkers was simply false. Should he reach the White House again, there’s little reason to doubt that his policies and appointments will be as anti-worker and anti-union as they were the first time.

“Just look who Trump put in the courts,” Dave Green, the UAW regional director for Ohio and Indiana, told the Associated Press this week. “Look at his record with the labor relations board. He did nothing to support organized labor except lip service.”

Some narratives, though, are too fun to let go of. So The New York Times reported that Trump was set to “Woo Striking Union Members,” without mentioning that he is appearing at a nonunion shop; The Wall Street Journal likewise left that out. Politico announced that Trump was going to “address striking auto workers,” acknowledging only later in the story that his appearance would be at “a non-union shop.” Many major news outlets did something similar, writing up a Trump campaign event in a way that left the impression that Trump was going to speak with striking autoworkers.

Many reports led with the suggestion that “current and former union members” would be in the audience, but that’s irrelevant. You could go anywhere in Detroit and find a crowd composed of “current and former union members”—it’s Detroit! The relevant fact is that Trump is not supporting the autoworkers’ efforts to win a contract that allows them their fair share of the wealth they create. What the Trump campaign wanted was ambiguous headlines that might suggest he was supporting workers he was not in fact supporting, so that he could get credit for something he didn’t actually do. And the political press largely obliged, repeatedly muddying the distinction between supporting union workers on strike and having a campaign rally.

[Read: The real issue in the UAW strike]

The Trump campaign is very good at manipulating the media, because it understands that liberal ideological bias is not the primary factor in shaping media coverage. The press, instead, is biased toward having a spectacular or interesting story that people want to read or watch or hear about. If you’re clever, you can manipulate the press into telling the story you want by making it seem fun and exciting, even if the story is incorrect or misleading. Given how easily the Trump campaign got the political press to take the bait here, there’s little question we’re in for a long campaign season in which it does it over and over again.

There’s another saying in journalism that’s supposed to be ironic: “Too good to check.” That’s when you hear something that sounds like a great story and you don’t check whether it’s true, because you want it to be true. You are not supposed to do this. But some narratives, it seems, are just too good to abandon.

Suddenly, it just tumbled out: "Honestly, every time I hear you I feel a little bit dumber for what you say."

That was former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s rebuke of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, easily the best line of Wednesday night’s messy and awkward GOP primary debate. Ramaswamy, for his part, produced his own meme-worthy quote during a heated exchange with Senator Tim Scott: “Thank you for speaking while I’m interrupting.”

Such was the onstage energy at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum: Chaotic, sloppy, largely substance-free. Seven candidates desperately fought for fresh relevance; none of them came away with it. Rather than pitching themselves as the candidate who can beat former President Donald Trump, these Republicans seemed to be operating most of the time in an alternate universe, in which Trump was absent not just from the stage, but from the race.

Eight years ago, so many candidates were vying for the Republican nomination that the party took to splitting primary debates into two sessions: the main event and the undercard. The latter contest was mocked as the “kids’ table” debate. So far this time around, there’s only one unified debate night. Nevertheless, Trump has such a commanding lead over his challengers that, for the second debate in a row, he hasn’t even bothered to show up and speak. Voters have no reason to believe he’ll be at any of the other contests. Trump counter-programmed last month’s Fox News debate by sitting down for a sympathetic interview with the former Fox star Tucker Carlson. On Wednesday, Trump delivered a speech in Michigan, where a powerful union—United Auto Workers—are in the second week of a strike.

All seven candidates who qualified for the debate—individuals with honorifics such as “governor,” “senator,” and “former vice president”—spent the evening arguing at the kids’ table. Barring some sort of medical emergency, Trump seems like the inevitable 2024 GOP nominee. As Michael Scherer of The Washington Post pointed out on X (formerly Twitter), the candidates on stage were collectively polling at 36 percent. If they were to join forces and become one person (think seven Republicans stacked in a trenchcoat), Trump would still be winning by 20 percent.

[Read: A parade of listless vessels ]

How many other ways can you say this? The race is effectively over. So what, then, were they all doing there? A cynic would tell you they’re merely running for second place—for a shot at a cabinet position, maybe even VP.

One candidate decidedly not running for vice president is Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has taken to (gently) attacking his old boss. Nor does former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie seem to want a sidekick or administration gig. Christie has staked his entire campaign on calling out Trump’s sins, and, so far, it’s not working. Earlier on Wednesday, Christie shared a photo of himself at a recent NFL game, with a cringeworthy nod to new Kansas City Chiefs fan Taylor Swift: “I was just a guy in the bleachers on Sunday... but after tonight, Trump will know we are never ever getting back together.”

At the debate, Christie stared directly into the camera like Macho Man Randy Savage, pointer finger and all, to deliver what amounted to a professional wrestling taunt. “Donald, I know you’re watching. You can’t help yourself!” Christie began. “You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things, and let me tell you what’s going to happen.”

[Here it comes]

“You keep doing that, no one up here’s gonna call you Donald Trump anymore. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”

“Alright,” moderator Dana Perino said.

The crowd appeared to laugh, cheer, boo, and groan.

The auto-worker’s strike, and criticisms of the larger American economy, received significant attention at the debate. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum laid the strike “at Joe Biden’s feet.” Pence came ready with a zinger: “Joe Biden doesn’t belong on a picket line, he belongs on the unemployment line.” (Another Pence joke about sleeping with a teacher—his wife—didn’t quite land.)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, once seen as Trump’s closest rival, stood center stage but spent most of the night struggling to connect as all the candidates intermittently talked over one another. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, perhaps trying to fight back against those who claim he lacks charisma, frequently went on the attack, most notably against Ramaswamy, who, in the previous debate, claimed his rivals were “bought and paid for.” Later, Scott attacked DeSantis for his past controversial comments about race: “There is not a redeeming quality in slavery,” Scott said. But he followed that up a moment later with another sound byte: “America is not a racist country.”

[Read: The GOP primary is a field of broken dreams]

However earnest and honest Scott’s message may be, it was impossible to hear his words without thinking of the man he’s running against. So again: What was everyone doing Wednesday night? In an alternate reality, a red-state candidate like Scott, Haley, or Burgum might cruise to the GOP nomination. In a way, Fox Business, itself, seemed to broadcast tonight’s proceedings in that strange other world. The network kept playing retro Reagan clips as the debate came in and out of commercial breaks. And those ads? One featured South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem—not a 2024 presidential candidate, but certainly a potential VP pick—making a pitch for people to move to her sparsely populated state. Another ad argued that the Biden administration’s plan to ban menthol cigarettes would be a boon to Mexican drug cartels. What?

It was all a sideshow. Trump’s team seemed to know it, too. With just over five minutes left in the debate, the former president’s campaign blasted out a statement to reporters from a senior advisor: “Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest being dominated by President Trump.” For all of Trump’s lies, he and his acolytes can occasionally be excruciatingly honest.