It looks like President-elect Donald Trump decided to start celebrating Thanksgiving early by choosing to put a turkey in his Cabinet: Late Friday, he tapped Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to head the Labor Department.
The Oregon Republican-in-name just lost her bid for re-election after a single term in the House, where she routinely toed the Big Labor line, co-sponsoring the radical PRO Act and opposing school choice — a cause Trump has fervently embraced.
If she had her way, she’d eliminate Right-to-Work laws (which guarantee no one can be forced as a condition of employment to join or pay dues or fees to a labor union) in 27 states, nearly all of which voted for Trump.
That’s why she was pushed by Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the GOP convention (and the Democrats’, too) and whose union went no-endorsement in the prez race.
And why she has the enthusiastic support of Randi Weingarten and her fellow teachers-union bosses — who went all-out seeking Trump’s defeat.
This is a horrible pick: Trump won over the working class because he delivered rising wages in his first term, while President Joe Biden’s Big Labor-loving policies slammed workers in his term.
For all their romantic history and moral posturing, labor unions in America today are overwhelmingly about preserving their leaders’ power and their members’ perks at the expense of everyone else.
They’re now a tiny (and shrinking) force in most of the private sector, but a huge (and growing) bane in government.
Among other ill influence, Chavez-DeRemer will be another barrier to the work of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency — and, indeed, to Trump’s own push to rid the federal government of the highly politicized “Deep State” operatives who did so much to hobble him in his first term.
And, sadly, this is one pick Senate Republicans can’t save him from: Democratic senators will rush to vote her in — they know an ally when they see one.
We get that Trump is determined to not be a captive of old-school GOP orthodoxy, and wants to symbolize his affection for working-call Americans.
But he also clearly prizes loyalty, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s loyalties clearly reside with the prez-elect’s enemies. We hope he belatedly realizes that where he really needs her is somewhere she can do no harm — say, as ambassador to Burma (Myanmar), even if Turkey would be more appropriate.