In a history-making act of performativeness, President Joe Biden appeared at a UAW picket line. But he didn’t picket or offer meaningful government support.
Look for the Union Libel
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Performative. I think that’s the word that will be the pivot for the coming election. All the acting is finally reaching the tipping point as the cold equations start to overwhelm the song-and-dance.
We can all hate Donald Trump as much as we want, and we can wear ourselves down to stubs going over his numerous failings, but one thing he was right about? The wall. Not building a giant physical wall (that’s just crazy). But the idea that migrants have to be kept out? I think Trump may have been the only U.S. president who didn’t sleep through history class. Go through our history. The only time the U.S. has welcomed the tempest-toss’d yearning to breathe free was when they were a source of cheap labor. The millionaires and billionaires needed disposable people to work in the hongs. Now? All the factories are in the Global South. We have no need for illiterates who can’t speak English. “Tortured by the regime? That’s terrible. Does he know Python?”
And Joe Biden is now playing catch up. And botching it badly. Pretending to stand with the working class before scuttling away hastily isn’t going to do it.
Even if we ignore all the positive humane and cultural reasons for welcoming more immigrants, we also do need them for their labor. We have too many retirees to support relative to the number of people still in their working years. We have shortages of workers in the jobs usually associated with immigrants, including in middle-class professions like nursing.