Labor Leaders, Alarmed By Trump, Reach For A German Analogy
Hours after President Barack Obama tried to lower the country’s temperature by pitching Donald Trump as a “pragmatic” rather than an “ideological” leader, a group of top labor leaders compared the election results to the rise of the Third Reich.
Leaders of the Jewish Labor Committee -- a group founded in 1934 as a direct response to the rise of Nazi Germany -- reminded members on Monday night of their founding mission fighting totalitarianism and standing up for the most vulnerable. And they urged their members to regard the results of Tuesday night's election as an existential threat.
“Our founding principle was the importance of bringing together the Jewish community and the trade union movement to oppose the Nazis,” said Stuart Appelbaum, executive vice president of the 1.3 million member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “The JLC worked to get the State Department to issue temporary tourist visas to Democratic socialists who were immediate targets of the Gestapo.”
Appelbaum, a longtime ally of Hillary Clinton, also noted that “back in the 1930s, our founders saw the importance of building alliances and coalitions that could stand together for their values, and stand up against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry.”
He added: “The unthinkable has happened and now we must organize and proclaim our values.”