You know all those new regulations requiring that airlines pay you for cancellations and advertise the full price of fares upfront, including mandatory fees and taxes? They’re very popular and seem to have made the airlines more responsive. Well, the airlines are very happy that Trump is promising to roll all that back:
The chief executive of Delta Air Lines says the incoming Trump administration will be a “breath of fresh air” for airlines after what he called government “overreach” under President Joe Biden.
The airline industry has chafed under consumer-protection regulations imposed by the Biden administration. And Delta is facing a federal investigation into its slow recovery from a global technology outage this summer.
[…]
On Monday, the airline industry trade group praised Trump’s pick for transportation secretary, former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy. Duffy, a former reality TV star who is co-host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business, lobbied for U.S. airlines and their unions during a dispute with Persian Gulf carriers.
I’m sure that when they roll back those consumer protections the media will somehow blame the Democrats but I hope that the Democrats fight back hard on things like this. When there’s another travel crisis, as is likely, they need to hammer the Republicans and force the media to cover it properly instead of going along with the Trump lies. These are the sort of things that people feel in their own lives and the Democrats cannot allow the Republicans to escape responsibility for them anymore.
There’s going to be a lot of this and it’s not going to be enough for AOC and Jasmine Crockett to give good speeches during hearings. The Dems need a concerted plan to hammer again and again that the Trump administration is rewarding its corporate buddies at people’s expense. These are the specific kinds of things that bring that home.