“The factory is closing.”
“There will be layoffs.”
Shocking words for generations of Americans out here in flyover county.
For decades my people had their livelihoods snatched from underneath them by callous decisions in Washington, D.C. I grew up in the shadows of the smokestacks of a closed textile plant. I could sit on the porch at night and see the bats flying in and out of those silent towers. When that factory was built, a town was built around it. On our main street were thriving grocery stores, beauty shops, a barber shop with one of those spinning poles, pharmacies, a hardware store, a movie theater, and the best cheeseburger I’ve ever tasted at the City Cafe.
From the day the plant closed, our area became a town in decline. Somehow, the town was able to coast off its former prosperity for a couple decades until a rapid acceleration of bad public policy led to an exodus. Now the town of my memories is gone.
It’s a story repeated throughout the textile South, the coal mines of Appalachia, the steel mill land of Pennsylvania, and the automotive heart of the Midwest. It’s a story that comes and goes from the oil drillers of the West. Whether we thrive or barely survive depends on some collective metaphoric Caesar in D.C. giving us a thumbs up or thumbs down.
When Bill Clinton teamed up with Republicans to pass NAFTA and CAFTA, factory workers were told that better high-tech jobs would replace the jobs they had known. An “Investment in new training” would change the world for the better. The old factories were torn down while we waited. Much of it never came. In the gap came an opioid epidemic – thanks to corrupt pharmaceutical companies who paid Washington to look the other way.
Both political parties allowed the border invasion, and with it, increased fentanyl deaths. The already failing schools can’t keep up with the new arrivals from across the world. What remains out here are the giant box stores and corporate chain franchises that ran the locals out of their own businesses. Man, I miss that cheeseburger.
The arrogant ones of Washington only consider it collateral damage when they ruin the lives of Americans with sore backs and dirty hands. For example, when Barack Obama declared war on American energy and wasted billions on green debacles, lives were trashed in an instant. His understudy, Joe Biden, tried to finish us off with pipeline closures and fracking bans. Biden lectured pipeline workers and coal miners to “learn to code.” They had a planet to save you see.
Now it’s Washington’s turn to be in shock. America voted against their elitist detachment from the rest of us. Trump is following through on that mandate. It’s time to close the Washington, D.C., factory.
Washington is a factory that produces nothing – unless you consider bad trade deals, reckless spending, unsustainable debt, insider dealing, kickbacks, pay-to-play political contributions, and choking regulations to be products.
But those Washington, D.C., factories also produce fake science. They hamstring the real police and fund the thought police. They have been using our money for censorship of speech and sponsorship of approved speech. They’ve overthrown governments and started wars, then asked us to pay for and send our kids to fight in those same wars.
The D.C. factory produces no real value, yet it is a multibillion-dollar industry. Its revenue is generated by confiscating the pay of productive people and laundering it among themselves.
There are all kinds of positions at the factory. You can be a politician or a politician’s spouse. You can be a political staffer or an appointee. You can take a no-show job and call it civil service. There is money to be made at the factory by lobbyists and consultants and fundraisers. Now we are learning that “journalists” and other activists are fully employed. You can even get a job doing fake research or vulgar art at the factory. You can make up whatever foreign need for funds you choose – as long as the factory management gets a piece of the action.
Things got that way in bipartisan fashion. One Republican’s defense spending item for a contractor campaign contributor is traded for one Democrat’s USAID social activist dark money project. When everybody gets their piece in, they call it an omnibus spending bill and not a living soul knows all that is in it.
That day is over. Grifters who suckle at bosoms of entire agencies are getting laid off. Even the cottage industry of street-level parasitic social services fraud is closing. Pink slips are raining down like a ticker tape parade for the American worker. The whole town is in shock. All they’ve known of life is being taken away. Some of us out here can relate.
From those of us whose families have had to live through such sudden, life-altering economic news, a word of advice. Perhaps you Washington people should be like Big Balls over at DOGE and “learn to code.”
Leland Whaley is the host of Leland Live, the most listened-to news talk radio show in Alabama. He can be heard weekdays from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. on Talk 99.5 WZRR in Birmingham.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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