Thread by @3vanSutton

Joe Biden and Democrats delivered a fix to the multiemployer pension crisis—the Teamsters' top priority for more than 20 years. They did it without a single R vote. I get the whole "we need to show that our endorsement process is real" argument, but it doesn't hold water here IMO

In an open field, a robust process makes sense. But Joe Biden more than delivered on promises he made to win the endorsement in 2020. The correct approach here, IMO, is to spend the energy explaining to your members how we stick with people who are good on their word

Multiemployer pension fix saved 400,000 Teamsters' pensions. Add on top of that a host of pro-union legislation and rulemaking from Biden and Dems that's benefited Teamsters and compare to Trump's outright anti-union governing. It's not a hard case to make if you have courage

Again, in an open field the "we talk to everyone" approach makes sense. But when someone has over-delivered on promises they made to you, the politically savvy and smart member engagement approach is to re-up your support aggressively and demonstrate to members why.

Another reason this process doesn't make any sense to me is that the Trump members won't be persuaded by "Well we met with everyone and Biden was the best." And in the meantime, you're missing the opportunity to hammer the fact that Biden delivered on promises

The members who are on the Trump train will likely be FURTHER incensed by this process. Trump will have even more reason to yell about a "rigged endorsement" and to the members who love him it'll look like it was all a setup the whole time, which doesn't help your efforts

The disturbing alternative here is that IBT is actually running this as an open endorsement process and considering endorsing someone other than Biden, and I can't overstate what a disastrous message that would send to every elected official in the country

When someone delivers on all the promises they made and you turn around and jump ship, you destroy 100% of your credibility and future power. Elected officials will see that there's no upside in sticking their necks out for you. How will that go when you need them next time?

It feels like people are trying to be too clever by half and instead shooting themselves in the foot. I hope I'm totally wrong in the end and this helps swing members, but I've lived through enough union endorsement cycles to have a pretty good sense of how this is likely to go.

@Bjornapoor @Go_Ask_Alis In any case, you asserted that the membership of the Teamsters "very much leans hard right" which is inaccurate even based on the graphs you showed. You further claimed they're mostly working class white men, which is also inaccurate. But sure, keep defending your assumptions