If you listen to the press and self-aggrandizing activists from pro-labor conservative groups (some of which, like American Compass, are funded by left-wing Big Philanthropy groups such as the Hewlett Foundation), the Trump administration is making a major shift by appointing a pro-union labor secretary in former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer rather than a supporter of the Republican “Taft-Hartley consensus” approach followed by Trump’s first administration.

In reality, Trump II is treading a long-worn path that was rejected by conservatives and Republicans for good reason: In the Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford administrations, Big Labor got its seat in the Cabinet, too. The results were attempts to enact bad policies to benefit union bosses, internal political dissension on the Right as defenders of worker freedom rallied to block those policies, and Big Labor bosses sticking with their 100-year alliance with liberal and progressive Democrats.