A significant number of Harley motorcycle riders would not dream of voting for Donald Trump. There is even a group of independent thinkers who are members of Mensa or hold Ph.D.’s who are easy riders. The president would have people think otherwise.
POTUS appeared on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures and made a totally outrageous statement. He claimed that all Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners had, indeed, voted for him during the contentious 2016 presidential election.
‘I guarantee you everybody that ever bought a Harley-Davidson voted for Trump. I don’t know if you know that. I would have to — they call them bikers for Trump. There’s hundreds.’
Trump did a huge disservice to American manufacturing companies when he announced tariffs for aluminum and steel on our allies in the EU. The man sitting in the Oval Office was responsible for the EU seeing the need to raise Harley-Davidson tariffs. The EU jumped tariffs from six percent to 31 percent, after the dismal announcement.
The former leader of the free world was a huge Harley-Davidson fan. That was until the famous motorcycle Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based manufacturer decided it would open off-shore manufacturing plants. Then, he tweeted:
‘Harley must know that they won’t be able to sell back into U.S. without paying a big tax!’
Actually, Harley-Davidson announced that it was closing its Kansas City, Missouri plant last winter, along with 800 good jobs. This was after the state had invested tens of millions of dollars in incentives over the plant’s two decades of existence.
Members of Congress found out about the plant closing through the media. They responded in a public letter, The Journal Sentinel reported:
‘We understand that the domestic and global sales environments are key drivers in business decisions like this. But we also believe Harley-Davidson’s Kansas City assembly plant and its workers produce a top-quality product that can compete with any other facility in the United States or around the world. We urge you to reconsider the decision to close the plant.’
Union leaders believed that the KCMO plant’s operation was destined for Thailand. The plant’s engineers and other subject matter experts traveled to that country to advise the new plant. Not only that, management had the heartland plant’s equipment boxed up to ship there.
Harley-Davidson’s management said that the close of the Kansas City plant had nothing to do with the opening of the Thai plant. Unemployed workers still find that difficult to believe.
In a world market, people do not talk about the cost of living for some reason. U.S. employees earning a middle-class wage always lose out to third-world countries who earn cents on the dollar. Their cost of living is dramatically lower.
This was at the root of the decline of the middle class. Corporations bent upon earning every last penny in a global economy eroded companies’ loyalty to their employees until it rarely exists.
Republicans repeatedly support big business, but they do so at their own peril. The U.S.’s economy is based upon a strong middle class making significant purchases. It does not take to genius to understand: No jobs, no purchases.
Politicians try to pit one American group against another, so that they will not notice what Congress is doing. Yet, voters in the 2018 election are more informed than ever, and they will vote out Congress members who do not work for them.
After Harley-Davidson announced the opening of the Thai plant, Trump turned on them with a dire warning. He said that the company would suffer, and he said on Fox that it would take a “big hit.”
Trump has the ability to seriously damage any corporation with one of his weaponized tweets. Yet, Harley-Davidson does not appear to care.
Featured Image via Getty Images/Nicholas Kamm.
