European Labor Leaders to America: Please Stop Donald Trump

They’ve seen a right-wing surge in Europe, but they’re particularly worried about Trump.

Lucas Jackson/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


When leaders from European labor unions descended on Washington earlier this week, they had one simple message for their American counterparts: Dear lord, please find a way to stop Donald Trump.

The AFL-CIO convened a conference this week titled “Labor, Politics, and the Threat from the Right: A Trans-Atlantic Discussion.” Predictably, one element of that threat was the unexpected rise of Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee.

“Guys, you’ve got to beat this guy, you’ve got to beat this guy,” Antonia Bance, head of campaigns and communications at the United Kingdom’s Trades Union Congress, pleaded. Bance noted that Trump was already feuding with London’s newly elected mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is Muslim, and worried that an American president who has vowed to block Muslim immigrants would hurt relations between the countries. “Turned on the TV [this morning], CNN, and there’s Mr. Trump, and Mr. Trump is talking about how he’s going to make an exception for Mr. Khan,” Bance said. “Mr. Khan is the Muslim who is allowed to come into the US if he’s won the presidential election!”

Some of the European visitors were not as shocked as Bance. “We in Europe are really used to the right,” said Luca Visentini, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, during one panel. “It’s not something new for us.”

I asked Visentini after the panel how closely his compatriots in Europe had been tracking the election. “Sometimes in Europe we are quite cynical. We see a lot of Mr. Trumps around in different countries, so we’re not astonished nor neither shocked,” he said. “But we are really very worried.”

Throughout Tuesday’s panels, the labor leaders discussed various tactics to combat right-wing politicians, like Trump, who stoke the passions of the working class with populist language. The general consensus was that unions both in the United States and around the world need to present clear liberal solutions to their members in order to limit the power of right-wing politicians. “Politically,” said Damon Silver, the AFL-CIO’s director of policy, “the neoliberal consensus opened the door to a monster that many had thought had been driven permanently into the outer darkness of democratic politics: the racist, authoritarian right.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate