Watching workers go back to their jobs in life-threatening conditions to serve the economy punctuates the degree to which American myths are killing us. If the behavior of the acting president’s base seems cultish, it is because cultish behavior permeates the culture. A “deep sickness,” Digby called it the other day.
I frequently refer to the Midas cult, those of a certain economic class who view every human interaction as a potential for-profit transaction, who behave as though anything that might be turned into gold (profit) should be, especially not-for-profit public services such as education. For the Midas cult, anything less than private percentage off the top is a crime against capitalism.
My friend Anat Shenker-Osorio regularly challenges notions popular among the less well-off that reduce human beings to cogs in a for-profit economy configured to serve others and not them. She refers instead to the American “cult of hard work” that forces people to choose between risking their lives and, you know, eating. The two cults are cousins.
It is disturbing watching people indoctrinated in those beliefs take to the streets (some with weapons) and risk contracting a deadly disease they might bring home to their families for the chance to throw their bodies again into the economy’s furnaces.
What’s even more disturbing is how they can do so after watching penny-pinching deficit scolds in Congress dole out hundreds of billions to keep investors afloat, again, barely a decade after doing it in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. Anger over that atrocity supposedly paved the way for Donald Trump the Swamp-drainer and was just as quickly forgotten.
“Let us work! Let us serve! Let us die!”
In a series of March tweets, Shenker-Osorio critiqued how easily we reinforce the right’s “who loves the economy best” narrative:
Every time we argued that a program would “grow the economy,” we helped the opposition cement the view that this is the singular objective of policymaking.
Every time we touted raising wages as a means to have people be “customers in our stores,” we reaffirmed that our value is as consumers and not humans.
Every time we led with what a great “investment” it is to, say, feed children, we primed expectation that how we treat each other ought be based on financial returns.
Paycheck workers could be demanding that their government support them and their families during this natural disaster with as much zeal as they do the economy, but no. They’ve been conditioned to believe that only deadbeat Irresponsibles accept government “handouts.” The fact that self-described job-creators among the nation’s wealthiest are the first at the trough does not register. Protesters could be demanding their government provide them the same kind of concierge service, but no.
Several European governments have concluded it is “better to pay up and keep people on payrolls than risk economic disruption from mass layoffs.” To “mitigate the social and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic,” the government of Bahrain decided it would pay the salaries of 100,000 registered private sector employees for three three months beginning in April.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-WA) Paycheck Guarantee Act resembles actions taken in Denmark and would cover an employer’s base payroll for up to three months (up to $100,000 per worker). Don’t count on seeing it come up for a vote.
Instead, the acting president urges workers to feed themselves to the virus, to march back to work processing meats so His economy might live.
(For a look into just how out of scale economic inequality is in this country, I invite you to scroll right in this graphic: Wealth shown to scale. h/t SR)
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.