It’s not REALLY about jobs, is it?
June 22, 2020
“It’s about JOBS!” many Trumpists shout to the hills to justify why they enthusiastically support a racist, misogynistic, mentally deteriorating reality TV game show host. Or, at least they did before the Covid-19 economic collapse. In fairness, the pandemic can’t be entirely blamed on Trump—even if we had a sane president who was proactive about fighting the virus instead of assuming it would just magically go away, some kind of health and economic crisis was unavoidable.
That said, even before the Covid crisis, the MAGA cry of “JOBS!” rang hollow. Yes, the employment rate was at a high point before the virus, but a person can’t really be taken seriously if they cite “jobs” as an excuse for tolerating (or celebrating) Trump’s lack of decency or empathy, unless they meet the following criteria:
They ALSO celebrated Obama as a job creator when he dug the country out of a recession and set the economy on an upward trajectory. If they wore Obama hats and waved Obama flags during his two terms, then it would be more plausible that their admiration for Trump was about jobs. How many people fall into this category? Anyone? Bueller?
Their livelihoods depend on earth-destroying industries, whether it’s fracking, or shooting hibernating bears in their caves, or any similar industry that Trump has released from the shackles of environmental responsibility. If a person is grateful to get back to those 15-hour shifts contracting black lung in the mines so that the coal barons can get richer, then perhaps their praise of Trump as a job creator is sincere.
They were unemployed for any reason at all at the end of 2016 and found employment after Trump took office in 2017. Even if their specific jobs weren’t really created due to anything Trump did, it’s understandable how it might seem that way, and why these people might legitimately cite “jobs” as a reason for supporting the most proudly ignorant man to become President in our history. But considering that joblessness was low when Trump took office, there are still very few people in this generously expansive category.
It’s even more cringeworthy when the Trump crowd tries to disprove Trump’s decades of well-documented racism by citing the high employment rate of African Americans (pre-Covid). How grateful should African Americans be if many have to work 50+ hours a week to earn just enough money to keep themselves fed and clothed and housed so that they can go back and work 50+ hours again the next week?
It’s pretty safe to assume that not many of the slaves on the antebellum plantations spent their days lollygagging around with nothing to do. Being constantly busy isn’t indicative of success and prosperity. Obviously actual slavery was much, much worse than our current economic conditions for a whole long list of reasons, but the point is that most people don’t want to work long hours just to fatten the coffers of their wealthy overlords—they want to work for the sake of living and having independence and financial freedom. Trump’s tax scam turbo-charged the redistribution of the fruits of the working class’s labor to the nation’s billionaire class. (To be fair, the concentration of wealth with the top .1% in this country was already extreme when Trump took office, but his policies are intentionally designed to make income inequality worse.) The boast about keeping workers gainfully employed (and underpaid) has nothing to do with helping their quality of life. It’s nothing that anyone in the working class should celebrate.
And the “high black employment rate” praise is even more cringeworthy after Covid-19. Now minorities who work in low-paying, high-contact jobs also risk their health and their lives to feed the unfettered capitalist greed machine. It wasn’t lost on anyone that, like clockwork, immediately after publication of the study that identified that minorities were disproportionately hurt by Covid-19, that’s when the heavily armed white folks waving Confederate and Trump flags stormed government buildings demanding that those in service industries get back to their low-paying/high-risk jobs, because, to slightly paraphrase, Master wants a haircut. And the white nationalist in the white house started tweeting aggressively for his foot soldiers to “liberate” the states—presumably from the tyranny of having to care about their minority communities.
(After weeks of watching white nationalists demanding that minorities get back to their low-wage/high risk jobs to serve them, and then seeing George Floyd’s horrific murder under the knee of a sadist cop, I can understand the sentiment of, “well f*ck your stores then.” Looting is wrong, and almost always harms innocent people and creates more victims. Violence is always inexcusable. But I’ll shed no tears for Macy’s or Target shareholders.)
Many articles have pointed out how Covid-19 has exposed the flaws in our economic system, shining the light on how a large number of Americans of all races work with no financial or health security. The MAGA fans who fawningly lavish praise on a golden-spoon-fed megalomaniac because of “jobs” should set their expectations higher. A country where most of the people live paycheck-to-paycheck, vulnerable to sickness and financial catastrophe isn’t worthy of praise. Instead, a country where the majority of the population has financial security, upward mobility potential, disposable income, and consistent affordable healthcare is what we should aspire to achieve. It will probably take a while to get there, but I hope we can start taking the right steps forward soon. It’s not just about “jobs”—it’s about life.
Vote for Biden 2020!
