Jonathan P. Baird lives in Wilmot.

Polls are omnipresent in America and I admit to deep skepticism about their accuracy. I think of Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton and the failure of the red wave to materialize in 2022 as examples that justify that skepticism.

One poll result that has stood out to me is the view that the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is better for the economy than President Biden. An April Reuters/Ipsos poll gave Trump a 41% to 34% lead on who has a better approach to the economy. Earlier NBC polls favored Republicans handling of the economy by a wider margin.

The result is puzzling. During Trump’s presidency, his major accomplishment was a tax cut that favored big corporations and the super-rich. Overwhelmingly the 1% got most of the benefit but the tax cut fit a long-standing narrative that Republicans are the party of low taxes and low spending. In contrast, Democrats are seen as the tax and spenders. They are seen as weak, giving handouts.

I would suggest that this narrative doesn’t capture our current reality. On a wide range of economic issues, Democrats’ policies are far more favorable to working people than the Republicans. The evidence is right before our eyes.

We are seeing a modern resurgence of the labor movement. There was a hot labor summer in 2023. The writer Anat Shenker-Osorio says there were 380 labor actions in 2023. Joe Biden joined a picket line along with United Auto Worker (UAW) members, the first time a president has ever done that. Biden has also adopted union-friendly policies. The UAW won a huge contract victory with double-digit percentage raises as well as cost-of-living raises from the Big Three automakers.

Republicans generally align with corporate bosses and Wall Street greed. They consistently oppose the labor movement. The UAW is currently trying to organize 150,000 workers in 36 nonunion plants across the South. This includes Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, Volvo and Tesla plants. In an April 16 letter, Southern Republican governors in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas announced their opposition to the UAW campaign.

In spite of their opposition, on April 19, workers in a Chattanooga Tennessee Volkswagen plant overwhelmingly voted to join the UAW. This is the first auto plant in the South to organize via election since the 1940s. A Mercedes plant in Alabama is next. They hold an election May 13 to see if the workers will decide to join the UAW.

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Before this year, anti-union sentiment was entrenched in the South. So the Chattanooga victory is historic and it may well set off a chain reaction of union victories. The UAW’s impressive win in 2023 against the Big Three has supercharged their ground game and won over many workers who were previously reluctant to join.

The Biden administration and Democrats also deserve credit for the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The benefits of that law for workers are just beginning to be felt. Tennessee’s BlueOval City electric vehicle battery facility is leading the way in creating clean energy jobs with high pay and full benefit packages. The plant is located in Hayward County, a poor part of Tennessee.

The Inflation Reduction Act has helped to stimulate more than $92 billion in investment in the electric vehicle (EV) production, battery and critical mineral industries. So far it has created an estimated 84,000 jobs. This is a major boost both to EV transition and American manufacturing. Next year, Ford will begin production of electric trucks at BlueOval City, This was only possible because of the Inflation Reduction Act. It is not clear if workers appreciate the role of Democrats in making this effort a reality.

Even though unions are increasingly popular among Americans, only 10% of the workforce is unionized. Much of the decline in union membership has to do with Republican hostility to labor. Trump appointees to federal agencies often had a fox-in-the-chicken-coop quality. They opposed the pro-worker mission of the agency whether it was the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) or the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA).

Trump appointees to the NLRB completely failed to carry out duties. They did nothing to stop the harassment of union organizers, interference in union elections, wage theft that victimized workers and misclassification of employees as independent contractors. Similarly, Trump’s Secretary of Labor, a corporate lawyer, tried to dismantle regulations, especially at OSHA. The Republicans left over 40% of the leadership positions at OSHA vacant during Trump’s tenure.

One other area deserves mention. I had noted Trump’s 2017 tax cuts which saved big corporations and the super-wealthy many millions of dollars. It was his gift to the 1%. Biden got through a 15% minimum tax on corporations. It was the first tax increase on corporations in more than 30 years and he has used that money to fund his climate package.

In 2025, Trump’s tax cuts expire and he is telling billionaires re-elect me and I will again cut your taxes. Companies like Amazon were reporting profits of $11 billion and paying zero taxes. Biden is saying the opposite of Trump. He will raise taxes on billionaires and big corporations. Biden has funded the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats. Trump had deliberately de-funded the IRS so that less rich people would get audited.

When FDR campaigned for president in 1936, he threw down against the robber barons of his day. He said, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate of me, and I welcome their hatred.”

Messaging from today’s Democrats is far more tepid. The way forward is to follow FDR’s example. Taking the side of working people will get much better electoral results. The Republicans have shown that all they care about is maximizing profits for the people who don’t need more money.