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The Feudalist

Boy howdy, the lords of the manor are having a conniption.

The graphic heading this piece is from some necrotic scribbling in that journal of freedom, The Federalist. Now, that's bad enough. But the Federalist wasn't done. Compare:
The horror! Her Chipotle bowl went up by a few cents!! All because lazy peons don't want to return to work! 

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio also bemoans this state of affairs:
You hear that? Get back to the fields, serfs! You're living it up too much, and that pizza won't get delivered on its own!

The GOP mantra is that the best social program is a job. Well, tell that to Tennesseans looking for work on the Tennessee unemployment office website:
I wrote here about what we could learn from previous pandemics and how they upended labor and social constructs. I just didn't think the great and the good would make it so easy. From the Federalist to the GOP to other precincts of the Right, those who would be lords with thousands of serfs are quaking in their boots that the serfs aren't rushing to go back to work for poverty wages, and that the federal government led by Joe Biden is in no rush to make them do so. What we're seeing is akin to a down-low general strike, with workers holding out for better wages to go back and deal with a public which has shown itself to be untrustworthy. Their complaints would have been common in 1788 France or 1354 Europe recovering from the Black Death. The cornpone peasants are getting too big for their britches, and we have to do something to put things back to where they were.

And if the former guy had managed to hold onto the presidency, that's what we'd be seeing. He and his fetid followers in Congress were already trying to do that towards the end of his regime by not taking up stimulus bills coming out of the Democratic House. Then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted nothing to do with more stimulus, even though politically it would help his party's electoral prospects. Some things were more important, like reasserting the proper order of social relations.

Red state governments have stopped disbursing the extra unemployment benefits provided by federal programs. They think this will force workers back to their menial jobs, and teach them a salutary lesson. Because of course, Republican states are the nation's economic engine with their laissez faire economics.

When misfortunes multiplied during the coronavirus pandemic, observers seized on a four-letter word signaling end of days for the largest state with one-eighth the U.S. population and 14% of its gross domestic product. “California doom: Staggering $54 billion deficit looms,” the Associated Press concluded a year ago in May. “California Is Doomed,” declared Business Insider two months earlier. ”Is California doomed to keep burning?” queried the New Republic in October. California is “Doomed” because of rising sea levels, according to an April EcoNews Report. Bulletins of people leaving the world's fifth-biggest economy for lower-cost states because of high taxes and too much regulation stifling business continue unabated.

No one anticipated the latest data readout showing the Golden State has no peers among developed economies for expanding GDP, creating jobs, raising household income, manufacturing growth, investment in innovation, producing clean energy and unprecedented wealth through its stocks and bonds. All of which underlines Governor Gavin Newsom's announcement last month of the biggest state tax rebate in American history.

By adding 1.3 million people to its non-farm payrolls since April last year -- equal to the entire workforce of Nevada -- California easily surpassed also-rans Texas and New York. At the same time, California household income increased $164 billion, almost as much as Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. No wonder California's operating budget surplus, fueled by its surging economy and capital gains taxes, swelled to a record $75 billion.
Now, y'all know that I take any opportunity to crow about my state. Yes, we have problems; but creating a vibrant economy which has rebounded from the recession is not one of them. While red state governors are aping Dickensian poor-houses, blue states are showing a different way, where people can earn a living wage and the economy booms. We've taken the exact opposite lessons from workers not wanting to work for pennies while CEOs earn a thousand times their salary. Because of the GOP's fevered dream of having a plantation economy, their states are being left behind. So much for the mass exodus from California to Texas. 

Infrastructure. Education. Living wages. That's how you get a booming economy. We face a very real possibility of a bifurcated recovery, where Republican states—under-vaccinated and underpaid—are left in the dust by their progressive Democratic neighbors. That, obviously, is not good for the people living there. But as long as a majority keep electing Republicans, that will continue to happen. One hopes that they finally tire of their betters. There are too many good people in those states who shouldn't be left to the whims of their blinkered neighbors. Because the fact is: they're not worth as much as a cheap meal from Chipotle.
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