In 2021, Joe Biden gave the Teamsters Union exactly what it was looking for,
the American rescue plan.
The $1.9 trillion COVID 19 stimulus package included $36 billion to prevent cuts to union pensions.
Tens of thousands of workers and retirees in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin received aid.
But when election season came around,
Teamsters President Sean O'Brien gave a primetime address at the RNC praising Donald Trump and J.D.
vance,
infuriating White House aides who told the Washington Post
that it was a betrayal of the administration's support for union workers.
That betrayal rested on a concept known as deliverism.
Deliverism refers to the idea that if you deliver good and important policy wins,
then people will reward you for them at the polls.
As the Prospect's David Dayen wrote in 2021,
Barack Obama's reelection run contained a great example of this the phrase bin Laden is dead
and General Motors is alive.
But this line of thinking has come under much scrutiny following Kamala Harris loss to Donald Trump.
As one article from Democracy Journal put it,
if spending trillions of dollars to improve people's lives isn't a fair test of deliverism,
then what is?
My name's Jerusalem Dempsis.