The Irony of the "American Worker" Debate

The Irony of the "American Worker" Debate

The whole debate about tariffs and manufacturing jobs is exposing some serious contradictions in how people view the American worker.

On one hand, you have all these folks proclaiming their undying love for the "American worker"—the ones they believe are just waiting to jump into factory jobs and save the economy. But here’s the kicker: these same people are the ones who complain nonstop about every worker they actually encounter. Servers, teachers—you name it—are all somehow incompetent to them.

Yet, in their minds, there's this mythical group of American workers out there, ready and eager to work in factories. But if you've ever walked into a Home Depot, you’ll see the truth: American workers are more likely to be hiding in the paint department, hoping you don’t ask them for help.

The reality is that the vision of 1950s Ford plant workers is long gone. Manufacturing is highly automated now. The jobs that remain? They’re the ones machines can’t do, like the precision work of gluing chips onto other chips all day. The kinds of jobs that China uses women and children for because they have smaller hands.

Let’s be honest: if you didn’t like wearing a mask to the grocery store during COVID, you’re definitely not signing up for hazmat suits to assemble PlayStations for 12 hours a day.

Even China, with its massive population, is struggling to find workers for these kinds of roles. And here we are, pretending that the American worker is going to line up for that? It’s pure fantasy.

And don’t get me started on late-stage capitalism—the idea that this is the end of the line and everything’s going downhill. But honestly? Late-stage capitalism is where you want to be. Regular capitalism has you working 14-hour days in a Chinese factory. Late-stage? You get to listen to music while you work. Now that’s progress.