IAFF: Schaitberger, Trump and Biden
It’s complicated…
Harold Schaitberger, president-for-life of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), a labor union in the U.S. and Canada, is an uber Biden supporter while much of the IAFF membership is in love with Donald Trump.
Schaitberger’s politics have nothing to do with policy but rather are grounded in his intense desire to have access to the president with the attending glamour and cachet.
He’s been rooting around the Washington political sty for decades and has a long relationship with Joe Biden; Schaitberger gave Biden a big political lift in the current campaign and aims to leverage it to the nth degree.
Even though Joe Biden isn’t especially liberal or progressive, he is light years ahead of Schaitberger who is utterly indifferent (and insulated) from the concerns which animate working Americans.
In that respect Schaitberger and Donald Trump are one and the same. Schaitberger spent a handful of early years as a suburban fire fighter before moving on to the luxurious life of a D.C. lobbyist and Trump has never toiled a day in his life.
Schaitberger, during his 20-year reign of tyrannical rule, has retained the IAFF as a bastion of white male privilege and power, giving minor lip service at best to real worker’s needs.
His big issue for many years was the pursuit of numerous deferred compensation laws from which he would benefit; hardly something of concern to firefighters living paycheck to paycheck.
In fact, his penchant for pensions is biting him in the proverbial ass right now.
You need only see Schaitberger’s IAFF to know the real man and his politics.
If Donald Trump were a union president he would be Harold Schaitberger and the similarities go much deeper.
Both Trump and Schaitberger are absolutely amoral, completely unconcerned with the notion of either doing the right thing or ethical considerations. They have no higher calling other than assuaging their insecurity or stoking their vanity.
Both lie at the drop of a hat and crush former loyal allies without hesitation; it’s as if they are evil twins separated at birth.
They also treat their respective “business entities” as cash cows, each plundering in their own fashion while assiduously hiding the results of their criminal behavior.
Schaitberger hates Trump not because of policies but because he has staked his pursuit of power within the Democratic party and a Trump win blocks access to the Oval Office.
They are equally corrupt and may be about to face the music for their many acts of deceit and self-dealing.
In past U.S. presidential campaigns, Schaitberger has gloried in IAFF on-the-road bus tours where he would enjoy joint appearances with the Democratic nominee; given the dark and menacing clouds around him, Biden would be a fool to be seen with him now.
To the perennial political saying “the only thing worse would be if Biden were found with a dead woman or a live boy” can now be added the name of Harold Schaitberger.
The IAFF endorsement of Biden is diminished by a robust “fire fighters for Trump” movement, they love Trump’s white supremacy rhetoric tarted up to be a thinly veiled KKK rehash of America first.
Schaitberger is in complete agreement with many of their protectionist and conservative sentiments but his ego and self interest has led him down a different path.
At the end of the day, unions are about economic and job security and the “fire fighters for Trump” crowd are foolishly backing Trump, a man who despises working families and regular Americans.
They do, however, have a grain of truth on their side. Trump harps on the trope of fat cat union bosses and Schaitberger perfectly plays the role of the corrupt labor leader out to feather his nest.
What Trump’s fire fighter supporters miss is that he and Schaitberger are two peas in a pod, both out to cynically play the crowd as a way to buck up their damaged selves.
Luckily, many fire fighters, IAFF members and their families will vote for Joe Biden for the right reason: he actually cares about workers.
And many will do so hoping that Harold Schaitberger also disappears for good.
