For decades the union movement has been losing strength in this country. Good. But it has its remnants of support and a political mission. So much so that it caused entrepreneur Elon Musk to recently say, “The general public is not aware of the degree to which unions control the Democratic Party. One does not need to speculate on this point.”

He continued, “Last year, Biden held an EV summit where Tesla was explicitly not allowed to come, but the United Auto Workers was. Tesla has made two-thirds of all the electric vehicles in the United States. So, deliberately excluding us from an EV summit at the White House — but including UAW — tells you everything you need to know,” Musk said.

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He reiterated, “They have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla from an EV summit — insane.” Musk quipped that UAW’s slogan ought to be: “Fighting for the right to embezzle money from autoworkers.”

What Musk sees is the hypocritical union two step: Take cash in dues from culturally conservative rank and file working class members while doing the exclusive bidding of the effete leftist Democrat Party and making sure to supply party coffers to overflowing.

There have been exceptions. George Meany of the AFL-CIO and his rebellion against Democrats in the 1972 presidential election is an example. Then, a solid Democrat and union leader like Meany could say, “I very much agree with the free market system. When you don’t have anything, you have nothing to lose by these radical actions. But when you become a person who has a home and has property, to some extent you become conservative” in response to hard left agitation.

In the 1980s Jackie Presser of the Teamsters, who granted died before being brought to trial for corruption, was a political ally of President Reagan and openly supported other Republicans. But with the ascension of white collar unions at the expense of the building trades unions since that time, union leadership has been completely coopted by the Democrats. Which, let’s be candid here, makes unions convenient calamities of the Democrats and leads to what Musk complains about above.

As a working Republican political consultant for over twenty years I consistently noticed unions bankrolling most opposing Democrat candidates. Without that financial support many of those Democrat candidacies would have never left the ground.

While it is their perfect right to do so, unions as Democrat financiers end up actually representing the interests of posh white collar unions like AFSCME and the NEA and not those of their blue collar base. It’s a major reason Trump did so well in northern industrial states in 2016.

Thus Musk, as he has been in regards to much lately, is right. Unions have betrayed their members and only serve as Democrat piggy banks. Any use they may have had to working class Americans was two stepped away long ago.