The Teamsters are mostly or only long-haul truck drivers and they were one of the most powerful unions in the country. Naturally, this meant the GOP made the Teamsters the sole object of its hatred until they cracked and, as you see today, they aren't much more than a social club. When the GOP hates just about everything except the GOP, achieving that level of focus was extraordinary.
The question is how they did it and if Republicans applied this kind of ingenuity to solving problems rather than creating them, it's a marvel what the country might be.
But they don't.
The Koch Brothers have been in it from the beginning as has Karl Rove and they dreamed up the best way to fight the Teamsters ... was not to fight them at all. (RID: How the GOP Broke the Teamsters)
In analyzing the situation, the Koch Brothers saw they could set up schools for big-rig truckers and they could do this for very small money, much less than a straight-up attack to break the union as they did with PATCO when Reagan was their stooge. That was expensive, particularly in paying off Reagan as he always thought he was a better actor than he really was.
Their reasoning was they can't fight the Teamsters so let's get the truckers to fight each other. And so they set up the schools which you may have noticed have been increasingly common in recent decades. The purpose of these schools was to train or at least partially-train thousands of independent truckers.
You see the result. When was the last time you heard of a Teamsters strike. The Koch Brothers brought Wal-Mart to Interstate truckers.
The question is how they did it and if Republicans applied this kind of ingenuity to solving problems rather than creating them, it's a marvel what the country might be.
But they don't.
The Koch Brothers have been in it from the beginning as has Karl Rove and they dreamed up the best way to fight the Teamsters ... was not to fight them at all. (RID: How the GOP Broke the Teamsters)
In analyzing the situation, the Koch Brothers saw they could set up schools for big-rig truckers and they could do this for very small money, much less than a straight-up attack to break the union as they did with PATCO when Reagan was their stooge. That was expensive, particularly in paying off Reagan as he always thought he was a better actor than he really was.
Their reasoning was they can't fight the Teamsters so let's get the truckers to fight each other. And so they set up the schools which you may have noticed have been increasingly common in recent decades. The purpose of these schools was to train or at least partially-train thousands of independent truckers.
You see the result. When was the last time you heard of a Teamsters strike. The Koch Brothers brought Wal-Mart to Interstate truckers.
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