Growing up during the Great Depression, my parents understood the value of a job on a visceral level. My father, who grew up in Chicago, recalled that the first thing his father and his friends would ask one another, upon meeting, was “Have you found work?” My mother, who grew up on a family farm in rural Oregon, recalled that her mother included “hobos” at their dinner table of eight in exchange for chopping wood when they showed up after jumping from a passing train in search of a meal. My parents told me about this in the same way they told me about other painful lessons from our history: to instill in us kids a sense of gratitude that as a society we’ve come so far from those bad old days when everyone understood that the insatiable need for profit always comes before human need.
Between then and now, relative prosperity brought some measure of security for Americans: Social Security benefits, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other benefits that shielded ordinary people from unforgiving but inevitable cycles of rampant capitalism. But they don’t replace having an actual job, a job that not so many years ago typically came with pensions, health insurance, and company matches in employee savings plans. What happened?
Back in the go-go ‘80s, companies searched gleefully for ways to enrich the fortunes of their shareholders and, especially, their execs at the top of the heap. Employee pensions stepped up to first place on the chopping block. In 1970 when Baby Boomers were beginning their careers, 52% of them would land in jobs with defined pensions. Today an estimated 10% will. In other words, young people starting out then had basically a 50/50 chance of starting out with a pension; today 90% of young people will not — just one more example of how young Americans are getting screwed. Yea, yea, I know, there’s the much-ballyhooed 401K, über cheap for companies to administer compared with pensions. One company I worked for during this unfortunate transition even came up with a slogan: “Your new company is Me, Inc.!” I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually throw up the first time I heard that pandering, dishonest HR gem, designed to destroy, once and for all, any lingering old-fashioned notion that your company has any responsibility for you. Pair this with dead-end jobs, no housing, and a steady, full-strength social-media drip, is the disenchantment of our young so hard to understand?
This morning’s broadcasters “reported” in doomsday terms that Trump is firing (or demanding resignations from) thousands of career federal employees, by letter, no less. If these unionized civil servants are actually thrown out on the streets without either notice or due process, it will reveal unions to be the paper tigers they’ve become. Powerful unions built this country’s foundation for the large middle class that flourished briefly for just a few decades in the last century, but are today nearly nonexistent outside the public sector.
A few courageous federal supervisors have advised their threatened employees to defy Trump’s termination deadline and keep working, presumably hopeful that the judicial system will save them. We’ll see.
Those supervisors are courageous because Trump’s greatest talent — raining revenge on his enemies — has been right in front of us over the last decade. Just ask those who lost their primaries because of him. They lost their jobs. Those supervisors, almost certain to lose their own jobs by publicly defying Trump, are today’s civil rights heroes. Where are the voices of the representatives and senators we elected to protect us? Their silence is louder than any shout.
I misjudged Trump, saw him as a not-very-bright buffoon destined for a footnote in American history. In retrospect I see now that his cunning was and is breathtaking. First the U.S. Supreme Court. Then the midterms where he torpedoed the reelection campaigns of his perceived enemies. Their crime: insufficient loyalty. This week I watched the confirmation hearings for two of his most controversial cabinet picks. As I watched in disbelief, senator after senator — even those who had initially expressed grave doubts about the grossly unqualified candidates — folded, one by one, before their very real fear of Trump’s certain retribution.
They’re afraid to lose their jobs. If Trump sets his gimlet eye on you, probing your fear, and the worst comes to pass and you lose your job, who will be brave enough to hire you? McCarthyism will look like a walk in the park. And even if you find another job, will you spend the rest of your life nervously looking over your shoulder, fearing Trump’s long reach until the day either you or he dies?
The Golden Age here in America is now far back in the rear-view mirror. Those of us old enough and fortunate enough to have lived through it know what has been lost. But Trump didn’t start the decline, or do it all by himself. There was a time when the Democrats, and even some Republicans, stood up for the people. That time disappeared slowly over the decades. It won’t be coming back. Politics is currently a food fight in the cafeteria. A pathology has infected the zeitgeist. Speaking of jobs, recent revelations about the enormous personal wealth accrued by some members of congress is an example. These are the people who are supposed to be steering the ship.
Our country turned a decidedly dark corner on 9/11, with both heads of the two-headed party system actively participating. It was done in plain sight, though also camouflaged with deceptive rhetoric. Exactly how it all happened could be the subject of a very long discourse. The enemies morph into each other, and move in and out of focus. Countries and civilizations wax and wane; history is full of examples. Ours is presently on the downslope, with a number of ominous shadows lingering at the horizon.