[2006alum]

Hah. That column was written by a rich (estimated net worth of $3 million) old white lady (Peggy Noonan) who was a speechwriter for Reagan and who married the chief economist of the Chamber of Commerce. Remind me of her qualifications to speak about the downtrodden everyman vis-a-vis the elite class she has been part of for 40 years? 

And what galls me so much about these kinds of arguments is that the vast majority of the working poor are people of color: "Among the 10.6 million U.S. low-income families with an employed adult in 2013, racial/ethnic minorities constitute 58 percent, despite only making up 40 percent of all working families nationwide." They are also disproportionately the ones who have been the victims of COVID-19. 

Meanwhile, almost every armed protestor I've seen occupying the capital building in Michigan is a white person, many driving large expensive trucks. I don't get the sense that they are on the brink of homelessness - rather, it's the infringement on their entitlement to operate a motor boat or have a low income worker polish their nails or landscape their yard that is bringing them to the edge. 

This in no ways discounts the tremendous economic dislocation that has taken place, but it says a lot that the Wall Street Journal has suddenly decided to take up the ostensible cause of the working poor that has been utterly ruined by the policies they've spent decades advocating for.

[2006alum]

Hah. That column was written by a rich (estimated net worth of $3 million) old white lady (Peggy Noonan) who was a speechwriter for Reagan and who married the chief economist of the Chamber of Commerce. Remind me of her qualifications to speak about the downtrodden everyman vis-a-vis the elite class she has been part of for 40 years? 

And what galls me so much about these kinds of arguments is that the vast majority of the working poor are people of color: "Among the 10.6 million U.S. low-income families with an employed adult in 2013, racial/ethnic minorities constitute 58 percent, despite only making up 40 percent of all working families nationwide." They are also disproportionately the ones who have been the victims of COVID-19. 

Meanwhile, almost every armed protestor I've seen occupying the capital building in Michigan is a white person, many driving large expensive trucks. I don't get the sense that they are on the brink of homelessness - rather, it's the infringement on their entitlement to operate a motor boat or have a low income worker polish their nails or landscape their yard that is bringing them to the edge. 

This in no ways discounts the tremendous economic dislocation that has taken place, but it says a lot that the Wall Street Journal has suddenly decided to take up the ostensible cause of the working poor that has been utterly ruined by the policies they've spent decades advocating for.