Lip Service and Exploitation: The Truth About Workers, Mothers and Veterans
They pretend to care. The policies say otherwise.
Do you know what mothers, veterans and the working class have in common?
Hint: It’s nothing good.
I won’t make you guess. Here’s the answer:
We’re pandered to on symbolic days and discarded every other day of the year.
If we truly cared about mothers, we’d have safer childbirth, longer maternity leave and economic policies that don’t punish women for taking time away from work to raise children.
If we truly cared about veterans, they wouldn’t be dying by suicide, living on the streets or waiting months for basic medical care.
And the working class? We don’t even get performative appreciation anymore. Labor Day is just a time to buy a mattress on sale.
We are used, dismissed and divided
If we’re poor, we’re treated as the underclass. If we are paid anything besides starvation wages, we’re expected to shut up and be grateful.
But these are hard times for workers of all kinds. AI is coming for STEM jobs. Gig work is replacing careers. And our political system is at the mercy of a convicted felon clinging to power to escape justice.
It’s hard to watch working-class people fall for a rich con man who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life.
I burn with anger
But I also understand why so many working class people walked away from the Democrats. The party talked a good game, but since the 1980s, working people have gotten little more than empty promises.
Meanwhile, production has soared. Workers broke their bodies to make that happen — and the wealth we created was siphoned upward.
I almost miss the days when we were pandered to. At least then, they pretended to care.
Now? We’re a resource to be drained. And if you doubt it, look at the obscenely titled “Big Beautiful Bill” the Senate just passed (the House will surely follow). It promises hunger, homelessness and medical neglect for millions.
We are to work like hell until our bodies break down, and then we’re supposed to die quietly and cheaply.
And yet we’re still called lazy for asking to be paid fairly for the wealth we generate, or for expecting a basic safety net when life gets hard.
The truth is simple
Billionaires are not the most important people in this country.
Not by a long shot.
It’s the mothers who birth us, the veterans who defend us and the working people who build and sustain it all.
Don’t miss my current special series, Poverty and Privilege, which comes out every Saturday:
Part 1, Unlikely Allies in an Unequal America
Part 2, The Country Club Lunch
Part 3, One Family’s Fall From the Middle Class
Part 4, Billable Hours Don’t Pause for Birth
About Michelle Teheux
I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. I also have a new Substack aimed at authors who want to self-publish books, called The Indie Author. My most recent book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules. If you prefer to give a one-time tip, I accept Ko-fi.
All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park
For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.
Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.
When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.
Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.
Our country would be just fine without the billionaire class. It’s time to raise their damn taxes.
Amen amen amen!!!