As France, Italy and others wonder if the working-class voters who now vote far right will ever return to the left, the sight of a US president walking a picket line in support of striking auto workers certainly grabbed headlines here. We ask about Joe Biden's embrace of his blue-collar roots and his open support for trade unions, often seen as an endangered species on both sides of the Atlantic.
Biden was in Michigan one day before Donald Trump's own pitch to auto workers, albeit at a non-union plant outside Detroit. It was so-called Reagan Democrats who switched allegiances in 2016 to put Trump over the line in key Midwest Rust Belt states. What's the message they want to hear in 2024?
More broadly, what does the US want? Four decades after Reagan busted unions and said government was the problem, what to make of high-profile strikes everywhere from the auto industry to Hollywood? Will regulation and the role of government in guaranteeing a social safety net be on the ballot in these uncertain post-Covid times?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Imen Mellaz.
