The American Working Class and the Failure of the Left and Right Wings

America’s working class has had it hard from day one. Ever since the presidency of FDR, and the creation of Social Security, or the so-called “welfare state” to take care of America’s disenfranchised workers (thereby creating what has come to be known as “the middle class”), American workers have struggled to be taken seriously by a political establishment that seems cut off, separate from, and blind to the struggles of working Americans. There seems almost a palpable hostility to the average working American, whether that American is a documented immigrant working hard and raising a family, a working mother holding down two or more jobs to feed her kids, a single father struggling to go to work and take care of a baby in a state with “at will” employment that can fire him at any time, for no reason, or the average nuclear American family, with one or more spouses working full time to keep food on the table, and trying to prevent their house from being foreclosed on.

I myself am a 29 year old disabled college graduate, trying to find a job in law or law enforcement, with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice that I earned just before Christmas. I live on my own in an apartment, and I receive Social Security disability insurance for my cerebral palsy, which nets me less than $9,000 a year in government benefits. My apartment rent is subsidized, my family helps me with food, and this past month since my graduation I do everything I can to find gainful employment, and not find myself too sick to go to work. Without the assistance of my family and the government to make ends meet, I likely would never have earned my degree. Without that help, I may not have lived long enough to write this article. This is what life is like for many of us in the 99%. This is the reality that Americans are in, whether they are considered by others, or by themselves, “middle class” or lower.

The label itself does not matter, as every American has at one time or another faced those hardships, and struggled to keep their heads above water. 99% of American people know what this is like. Last I checked, some 40% of homeless youth under 18 who are living on American streets were thrown out of their houses for being LGBT. An overwhelming number of homeless veterans are homeless precisely because the government and the Veterans’ Affairs office either cannot, or in some horrible cases will not help them. Economic hardship crosses all demographic lines. Poverty hits home regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability or veteran status. This is our daily reality, and this fact is lost on the 1% who are insulated from these realities by a cushion of money, protecting them from economic fallout; the rest of us do not have this luxury.

My political awakening came with the economic crash of 2008, when Wall Street billionaires, real estate moguls, actors, athletes, and politicians all made moves to secure amounts of money so vast, the possession of that sheer volume of money in itself becomes almost criminal on principle. If we remember, the 2008 crash came about because of subprime mortgage speculating, and other fraudulent manipulation of real estate investments. These moves were made so that a small handful of people made windfall in the billions of dollars, all meanwhile tens of millions of average, hardworking, everyday Americans lost everything they had; savings, mortgages, homes, vehicles, and possessions. I remember Ben Bernenke on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, meekly trying to defend himself from the justified anger of the American people, saying he “slammed the phone down many times” in frustration over trying to fix the 2008 crash. Jon Stewart rightly eviscerated him, saying that this gesture simply was not good enough to the millions who had lost their entire livelihoods. This lit a spark in me that has slowly stoked into a raging fire.

The 2008 crash decimated the working class, while the rich were largely immunized, hiding their wealth in offshore accounts and barely legal (if not technically illegal) tax shelters overseas. We did not have the luxury of tax havens to secure our small savings accounts in. We did not have the luxury of Swiss bank accounts. It is estimated that some tens of thousands of people died later on from that crash, some through suicide, others through poverty and homelessness, and the resulting hunger, sickness, injury, and exposure to the elements that is a natural consequence of homelessness. The real cost of the 2008 crash is not only the estimated trillions of dollars that the American taxpayer had to pay in order to bail out the corporations which gave nothing back to us, or our failing banks that were thought to be “too big to fail”. We paid the bill for the mistakes and greed of the rich, not just with our wallets, but with our lives. We were forced to, we did not have a choice. The wealth of the rich was bought and paid for with the money and the blood of the American worker.

And yet we are told by a political elite ruling class on both sides that this was all necessary, that tens of thousands HAD to die, and millions HAD to lose everything, to protect the economic elite who created the very problem that nearly destroyed the United States of America. For years, corporate news media operating as a modern day propaganda machine told us that everything was ok, that the economic crash was more like a “hiccup”. “It’s not THAT bad,” they told us. If they were honest, they would have said, “it only killed a few thousand of those worthless working plebs, and who cares about them anyway, right?” It was then that I realized that the people who “rule” over us could not care less if we live or die. We are nothing more than pawns to a political elite ruling class of both Democrats and Republicans, who lie to our faces. I am far past the point of simply asking why we eat up their lies as gleefully as a child eats their favorite sugary cereal. The question becomes what will we do about it, how will we do it, and when? When will we demand change? When will we realize that our votes are as useless as clicking a button to sign an online petition? Enough of these barely conscious, empty gestures of political slacktivism.

We are the fodder of the American political machine. We are their dumping ground for all of their filth and waste, their drama and political scandals, and while they distract us with Hollywood rapists and the antics in the White House, the Justice Department under Sessions struggles to justify charging and indicting journalists for reporting the news, as well as dozens of protestors of all kinds for exercising their right to protest, even after they dropped the charges on over a hundred more. Congress reauthorized dangerous surveillance legislation that erodes the privacy and freedoms of every American, and instead of leadership, our so-called “leaders” give us meaningless promises and empty platitudes. They trot out religious snake oil salesmen and greedy businessmen on the right, and empty-headed placeholder celebrities and corrupt liars on the left. Voters on the left have become so filled with hate over Donald Trump, so eager to have him thrown out of the White House, they fail to realize that a presidency under Pence would be worse for us all, as he is literally a religious theocrat who would attempt to impose his religion upon everyone as a matter of law. Meanwhile, voters on the right have been duped into trusting bible thumping psychopaths, and lying rich carpetbaggers.

When we look at the working class in America, the majority of them are right wing. In my mind, the takeover of the American right wing by religious theocrats and self-interested rich men is the greatest political con job since Hitler or Stalin; the greatest act of duping working class people to actively work against their best interests in the 21st century. But perhaps even worse is the response, the elitism of the American Democratic Party. You see, some of the propaganda that has been repeated ad nauseum by American religious and political right wing leaders may not be so inaccurate. There IS a political elite ruling class that is indifferent to the average American, blind to the everyday realities of our survival. There is a political elite that does not care about us, does not care if we lose our jobs, our homes, or our lives. The flaw is, this elitism is not relegated to the so-called “left” in America.

Our representatives are a joke, taking corporate money from lobbyists in order to gerrymander their districts, and in so doing avoid their politically appointed responsibility of serving us and addressing our needs faithfully, and honestly. The etymology of the word “politics” is thought to come from the Greek root word “polis”, meaning society, or literally “affairs of the cities”. We are the polis, the people make up the society that we all agree to live in and abide by its laws. This is the Social Contract, an idea from Jean-Jacques Rousseau which influenced the philosophical foundation of American society. Politics is supposed to be about our needs, and politicians are supposed to be elected of the people, by the people, and for the people. But when is the last time that one of these elected representatives, or their giant parties, truly cared about us?

The last I can think of in my time is Bernie Sanders, but he was blackmailed, defeated and then kicked and spat on by the political establishment, until he started to obey them. This is the same Democratic Party that sought to anoint their Queen, cackling as she talked about starting World War 3 with Russia, and bombing countries in Africa that we have no business bombing, with a cold, detached, business-as-usual smug indifference. She hilariously tried and failed to relate to today’s kids through internet memes, references to “Pokémon Go” and “dabbing” while on the Ellen DeGeneres show. But as long as I live, I will never forget the horror I felt as I heard her say, “We came, we saw, he died! Hahaha!” With that cackle, hopes of an African Union led by Libya were dashed, and thanks to interference from “The Greatest Country in the World ™”, Libya is a destroyed nation, and Libyans are sold into slavery by terrorists and other forces who have taken control, what with the Libyan nation and government in tatters. Slavery in the modern day, the greatest barely-talked-about scandal in years, and the only scandal of the Obama presidency, all because the Democratic Queen who didn’t listen to the experts during the Arab Spring thought that Gaddafi needed to die, and never weighed the consequences of that invasion and assassination. What do the Democrats say about this modern day war crime of slavery in Libya? Nothing constructive; they might as well have said, “Whoops, oh well. I mean, they’re just Africans. Who cares about them?”

I was truly duped by former President Obama, whose message of hope and change I fell in love with, until I realized it was a lie. This is the neoliberal M.O., their business as usual. The Democrats are so eager to beat Trump, and many of them have the wealth to do it. But who among them has the right ideas, empathy, and honest service to do the job well, rightly, and ethically? Certainly not the Democratic Party, with their bought and paid for token black representatives Corey Booker and Kamala Harris, both of whom have proven themselves to be motivated by money over ethics. Certainly not the presidential ticket the Democrats are currently fielding, of “Creepy Uncle” Joe Biden and Oprah. Certainly not Tom Perez, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, or Nancy Pelosi, all of whom completely ignore, and have contempt for, working class progressives in America.

I myself am no Trump supporter, and I find many in the conservative party equally as heinous, Chris Christie, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Jim Inhofe, and many others. But the reverse; bought and paid for corporate lackeys from the Democrats? What ethical voter would choose either of them? This is a Congress with an over 95% re-election rating, and an approval rating from the American people that struggles to stay in the double digits, and likely will fall into single digits over time, if it has not already. The fault is with the entire system, but the system itself tells us to obey it, and worse, act as the system’s life support. By our money and our blood do tyrants stay in power, completely cut off from us working class Americans, so completely convinced of their immunity from the law, enamored with their own power, and absolutely foaming at the mouth to let us all die if it increases their wealth.

There is an elite in American politics; it is the elite that referred to frustrated, angry, disenfranchised American workers as a “basket of deplorables”. An elite that refuses to understand, empathize with, or even listen to the average American worker. An elite that tells us every day that they are better, wiser, more successful than us, and that is why they must ship our jobs overseas to Africa or India, to exploit, abuse, and underpay those workers instead of exploiting, abusing and underpaying us, in order to give themselves a fraction of greater wealth. A political elite which says “we love the poorly educated” without guaranteeing American workers access to a better one. A political elite which slashes our pay and benefits, if they even give us benefits, and tells us we need to be grateful for the wages we have, after they slash our pay when we ask to be transferred to a different department in the grocery store.

There is a political elite which bombs countries for no clear reason, lies about weapons of mass destruction, and lets terrorist groups blow up our young people, after our “leaders” lie to these young patriots who truly believe in making a difference, who value service and self-sacrifice, some of them as young as 16 or 17, and telling them that they’re keeping the world safe for democracy, and that’s why they had to lose a dozen of their buddies, their vision, and their right leg. The right wing exploit us and the left wing are lying to us, both turning their noses up at us instead of listening to us.

But understand that I am not advocating for some bourgeois, apathetic, and holier-than-thou political centrism. They are often small business owners, growing larger and richer, who care about nothing beyond their own wealth. These are among the rich, simply lesser rich people, who also separate working people from our democracy. They too are the politically ignorant, the apathetic, and the politically unengaged, self-important whiners who have given up on democracy, and join their rich to abuse us because they just don’t care anymore. Many of these political centrists are among the economic elite who think that all of us are stupid for caring about politics, and hopeless for trying to engage and trying to take back democracy. We don’t need more of the political elite ruling class, or more of the apathetic centrists. We need laborers, who care about labor issues. Irrespective of left or right, we need protections for our workers. Their jobs, wages, benefits, vacations, and their livelihoods must be protected, and we can do this through unions.

In many cases, unions can be formed by 2/3 of the working people in any job deciding to unionize. This can counter many of the “at will” employment regulations made by local and state legislatures. The Justice Department has been hard at work trying to counter union formation for years, and this is how the political elites counter our attempts as working people to look out for ourselves, and guarantee our voice as a citizenry. This is why our next president should not, must not be some out-of-touch rich person who paid tens of millions of dollars thinking they can buy the presidency. Our next president should not be of this elite, but of the workers. Political ideologies don’t matter anymore, we have all bled for this nation, some literally and some figuratively.

The political elite doesn’t understand that we are proud. We love our families, and many of us love this country, and our religions just as much. We work hard, we try not to complain that much, and maybe we just want something or someone to believe in, someone or something that will make all of our sacrifices, our losses, and our hardships worth something. At the core, we don’t just need to be told that we’re doing a good job, that everything we’re working so hard for has a purpose, that it all is leading to something great, and that one day, we are going to get the recognition and compensation we deserve. It is not enough to tell us this and never deliver it, it actually has to happen. We need to be paid what we are worth. We need to have our wages and our jobs protected. We need to be able to have benefits to take care of ourselves and our kids; our very job security has been stolen from us.

We must not remain enemies of each other when we are all being lied to, abused, and exploited; we have been for decades. There may not be even a single representative among them in Congress who understands this anymore, because even though some came from the same foundation, the same “lower class” that we did, a large majority have come from money. Money has tainted them, made them greedy, blind, and unempathetic to our needs, our struggles, and our realities of how we survive. This is the barrier that keeps them separate from us, living above us, and dancing on our heads. It is time that we punch through that ceiling above us, the economic and political barrier that has been insulating political elites from our lives.

When are we going to stop being apathetic? When are we going to demand democracy for all of us, for all of the people, the workers of the United States? Political engagement is critical to citizenship, and we have the ability with our technology to become a very politically educated, politically aware citizenry. The political elites are largely comprised of business moguls and lawyers, and a minority of them are anything else. As celebrity scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson said, “Where are the scientists, the engineers? Where’s the rest of…life?” And to that I would add, where in the political system is there room for the everyday working class American? This is not some case of a passenger demanding a right to, untrained, fly the plane. This is about destroying the barrier that insulates the political elite ruling class from the rest of us. This is about American workers taking care of ourselves and each other, when our political elite ruling class masquerading as “representatives” will not.

We have been abused, we have been beaten down, we are disillusioned and tired, but most importantly, we are angry. It is futile to ask our political elite ruling class to be nice to us, and take care of us. We must rescue our democracy from those who strangle it to death for the sake of their power, their wealth, and their dominance over our lives. It is time to separate American democracy from the political elite cancer that threatens to destroy our democracy and our society. Regardless of whether we are democrats, progressives, modern American market libertarians, or conservatives, we are all workers, and we are all exploited. Regardless of politics, our soldiers, our police officers, our doctors, our teachers, every factory worker, every mill worker, every hard laborer in America, we are all exploited. That is why we should all work towards our best interests as workers, not to try to become rich, but to have a nation where we all take care of each other, because if we do not preserve ourselves and each other, the political elites who rule our lives will exploit us all until we are dead. An American Workers Party should rise up, demanding to be heard, and advancing the needs of the working class to the elite that have shut us out of the workings of our own nation.