The Rise of the Pro-Worker Republican

Since his victory earlier this month, President-elect Donald Trump has been steadily rolling out his picks for his cabinet in a made-for-TV nomination process that’s gripped the nation. That the same talking heads who helped the Democrats lose the working class are now losing their minds over his choices suggests that he’s right over the target.

But a few of the picks are making Republican elites equally furious, including Trump’s choice for Secretary of Labor. On Friday, Trump announced he had nominated Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer to the post, an Oregon Republican with deep ties to unions who was one of just three Republicans in the House to co-sponsor the PRO Act—a progressive bill that would implement a suite of pro-union statutes.

In the surest sign that her candidacy is a boon for workers, the big business lobby is already lining up against her. “Trump’s Labor Choice: Unions Over Workers,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board seethed.

Chavez-DeRemer’s candidacy for the position was vigorously—and successfully—championed by Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, one of America’s largest national unions at 1.3 million members strong. O’Brien thanked Trump on Twitter with a photo of himself, Trump, and the nominee. “Rep. Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination for Labor Secretary is a huge step toward fulfilling President Trump’s promise to make a home for the working class in the GOP’s tent,” O’Brien told me. “Lori is a strong advocate for workers and the Teamsters proudly endorse her nomination.”

O’Brien did not become Trump’s union whisperer without pushback. Throughout the 2024 presidential race, O’Brien made headlines for treating it like what it was—a contest—rather than simply coronating the Democratic nominee as most other national unions did. 

O’Brien instead met with both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, and asked to attend both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention. Historically, America’s unions have been organs for donations to Democrats, but O’Brien knew that his members—truckers and warehouse workers and delivery drivers—were split, with many supporting Trump. When the Teamsters polled their members, over 60% were planning to vote for Trump over Harris. 

At the RNC, O’Brien was granted a high-profile speaking slot in primetime on the first night of the convention, one hour after Trump’s first appearance since he was nearly assassinated. Far from being conciliatory, O’Brien delivered an unvetted, blistering, half-hour-long tirade about the importance of workers’ rights and the evils of union busting, to raucous applause. And for having the audacity to deliver this message to Republicans—the people who arguably most needed to hear it—O’Brien was flayed by the Democratic establishment, called a scab and a host of other names, and finally disinvited from the Democratic National Convention. 

Bucking 30 years of tradition, the Teamsters ultimately declined to endorse the Democratic candidate for president, deferring instead to the political diversity of its membership. And O’Brien went further, releasing the results of the Teamsters’s internal polling, which showed his members overwhelmingly supported Trump.

O’Brien was greeted with the same pointed questions that greet anyone willing to admit that the Democrats have become the party of the rich, while Trump’s MAGA movement has inherited America’s multi-racial working class. “What has Donald Trump ever done for labor?” the naysayers asked. “His signature accomplishment was a tax cut for the rich!” O’Brien had the last laugh when Trump announced his pick for Secretary of Labor on Friday. Indeed, Trump’s cabinet is shaping up to be one of the sharpest breaks from the desires of Wall Street (and the Wall Street Journal editorial board) imaginable.

Trump hasn’t been shy to adopt the best ideas from both sides—even from progressives. Recall that it was progressives who used to support tariffs, and progressives who used to support controlling the border and deporting illegal immigrants to protect wages. In both his first term and what he promises for a second, Trump has taken on the old guard of the Republican Party—which has historically preferred free trade and trickle-down economics—to wage political warfare on the entrenched, credentialed caste of both parties, a program that steadily bore fruit until the pandemic. 

“There are many pro-worker Republicans who are moving the party away from the corporatist elites,” O’Brien told me. “And workers are taking notice. During the campaign, we watched Democrats cozy up with Big Tech and lean further into corporate mega-donors. They raised more than a billion bucks but it cost them the election.”

Both Trump and O’Brien showed immense leadership simply by listening to what their constituents—the people who elected them to serve—were asking for, and following through, rather than lecturing them or lying to them. Both were willing to take on an establishment that told them to sell out workers, either to the Chamber of Commerce or to the peccadilloes of a Democratic Party that abandoned labor to cater to the cultural concerns of the elites and the economic interests of the dependent poor. 

That Trump has married his proposed tariffs and hawkish immigration policy with such an aggressively pro-labor secretary for the Department of Labor shows how serious he is about representing the working-class Americans who gave him his victory. 

The lesson here is clear: Democratic elites need to stop lecturing people who have much less than them and start listening to the people who used to be their voters. They can start by taking a page out of the playbook used by Sean O’Brien, who chose to meet workers where they are at and demand for them a seat at the table—whichever table that may be. 

Needless to say, that move paid off.

“Trade unionism and democracy are one and the same—they’re won by those who show up. And they’re preserved by those who refuse to give up,” O’Brien told me. “The 2024 election created an opportunity for both parties to do the right thing and work with us to protect workers. Time will tell who really shows up and follows through.”