In the March leak of an internal memo, the Biden Administration was exposed prioritizing a radical climate agenda over energy security and American jobs. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) pressed Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on this during a Senate hearing in early May.
Secretary Haaland’s response was glib. “I know that there is like 1.9 jobs for every American in the country right now,” the Interior secretary said. “So, I know there’s a lot of jobs.”
“You’re telling me we’ve got too many jobs in the country?” Senator Hawley responded.
“I’m saying we don’t have enough people.” Secretary Haaland detailed the unfilled low-level bureaucrat positions open at her department.
Senator Hawley called this an “extraordinary response” that “reflects the mentality of your administration, which is when it comes to blue-collar workers in this country, ‘You’re on your own. Good luck, good luck to you; we’ve got plenty. Just shut up and go get a job at McDonald’s. Whatever. Quit complaining about the loss of American industry.'”
As the White House blocks American mining and drilling, they send taxpayer dollars to fund these projects in Canada and Argentina. Washington’s attitude toward blue collar America can no longer be excused as ignorance—this is malice territory.
Quote-tweeting a short video of a decimated rural mining town in West Virginia, user @FactsChaser demanded to know why Republicans point to homelessness in West Coast cities but not this. As though the rampant crime and drug abuse destroying major American cities is equivalent to the neglected ghost towns of Appalachia, once thriving but now gutted by globalism, robbed of industry, and left to rot.
During the fat years of the 90s, with America lulled and in a giving mood, the interests of the collective corporate left and right met little resistance. Our titans of industry sent Rust Belt jobs to third world countries—and we the people didn’t put up a fight. Cheaper consumer goods, after all.
Thirty years later and the goods are cheap, but it turns out those exported jobs never rose the people of India and China out of poverty or totalitarianism. We emboldened dictators, enriched oligarchs, and hurt our own rural neighbors here in the States.
It’s been a long time since it was fashionable to give money to educate the poor children of Appalachia. Church youth groups send their missions trips overseas. How could anyone in the United States be suffering?
I often think back to early November 2016 when that neglected muscle class made its voice heard. They’d elected a bully spokesman in Donald Trump and they would not be ignored. For a moment, Washington listened. The machine paused, became almost human, took whole minutes and even a day or two to reflect on itself. Ink was spilled, the think pieces flowed. What went wrong here?
But Washington never listens long; its grim roll toward progressive utopia won’t wait. It took four years of demonization and contention, silencing and hoaxes, witch hunts and Maoist struggle sessions, but at last the vision of liberalism as working-class champion is gone, shed like old skin. The nation emerged bruised but clear-eyed, disabused of old prosaic notions about Democrats and the poor.
Daddy was a veteran, a Southern Democrat
They ought to get a rich man to vote like that
The old days are gone and the Washington uniparty has emerged. It does not care about jobs or equity or working people or free speech or human rights. In its infancy, the party used such slogans to gain power. Now so empowered, slogans are superfluous. The party exists to maintain itself.
Three million jobs have been sent to China, Senator Josh Hawley reminded Deb Haaland. “Jobs for blue-collar workers in this nation are valuable resources. The ability of America to have our own industry and not be dependent on China is a valuable resource.”
Valuable to whom?
