From LA Progressive: Smash All Gilded Podiums: Trump and the Working-Class
The hands that built America’s skylines and powered its dreams are calloused still, but now from grasping at survival, not opportunity.
By PETER McCLAREN
It is no exaggeration to say that politicians throughout the United States have forsaken the working class, casting them adrift like an unmoored ship in a relentless storm. Standing tall on their gilded podiums, flanked by the gleam of their mega-donors and the rustle of freshly minted Benjamins, they proclaim their triumphs for the middle class as if cradling the crown jewel of their governance. Yet, beneath their polished rhetoric and choreographed gestures, lies a truth they dare not confront: the working class, abandoned and forgotten, drifts further into the shadows.
These champions of prosperity, perched high above the fray, trumpet victories that rarely touch the calloused hands of those who built the nation’s foundation. The working class—battered by the winds of automation, crushed by the weight of stagnant wages, and drowning in the undercurrents of systemic neglect—becomes little more than a faint echo in their speeches. They are cast aside, not with malice but with the quiet indifference of those who have traded solidarity for spectacle, progress for profit, and justice for power.