When he turned 45, my Father had been a coal miner for 30 years. His hair was white, his face rugged, and his body broken. In his day, the coal mine bosses didn’t want men his age. They wanted young men as Ernie Ford declared in his classic tune, to load sixteen tons. To find work, Dad migrated north to Chicago. We soon followed. There in a Chicago factory, he spent the rest of his working life before returning home to his beloved West Virginia.
At the age of 16, I too was working in a Chicago factory. Approaching my 19th birthday and observing men twice my age performing the same physical labor as me. I did not like the view of my future. I made a change. I walked into the Army recruiter’s office on North Clark Street and 3 days later I was in basic combat training at Fort Ord, California. Forty-eight years later, I spend my quiet time pondering. I’m retired from two successful careers and am firmly fixed on the rungs of America’s Middle Class.
What I learned from my Dad and men and women like him throughout my life was the middle class, working class ethic. Christian values, working hard for those dependent on you, honesty, service, respect, God, family and country.
I hope I didn’t bore you with that short biographical picture, but I think, as I write, it’s important you understand that I am as middle class as middle class gets. I am content where God put me.
What separates the United States from the third world is our World Class Middle Class, America’s backbone. It is now and always has been the core strength of our nation – the strength of any free western nation.
I don’t like harping on globalism, or for that matter any topic, but the largest roadblock to globalism is a strong American middle class. Our country’s middle class already fills the ranks of our first responders, the military, medical professions, public education, and countless other service-oriented professions. Our country is also filled with men and women skilled in other professions found in manufacturing.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), we were told, was to create a million U.S. jobs. Instead, since NAFTA and entering the World Trade Organization (WTO) “trade deficits have soared nearly 600 percent…close to five million American manufacturing jobs were eliminated from the U.S. economy…shuttering of nearly 50,000 U.S. manufacturing facilities”. The devastation of closing those factories extends well beyond the lost jobs. Entire communities are devastated. Much like here in Wild and Wonderful during the war on coal. Entire community economic systems rely on coal miner income. Politicians address this as free trade when truthfully, it’s artfully camouflaged global wealth redistribution and destruction of the American middle class.
The other major impact is the widening wealth gap between American upper, middle, and lower income households.
Politicians once plied their bovine scatological tales of humble blue-collar beginnings. They all claimed to be champions of the middle class. Always out to help it. Always out to fix it. Taking off their ties and tailored suit coats, and rolling up their sleeves to get out there among’em. I’m one of ya’ll. I feel your pain. With all the years of blowing smoke up America’s rear end, they’ve nearly destroyed the middle-class glue holding our country together. Now, they are out there appealing to another group with I’m gonna have me a beer videos, teeth cleaning videos, and bragging about their pot smoking days. If there is anyone who can see a phony coming from a mile away, it’s someone whose spent their life being with and working with real people.
For many years, Donald Trump has been in public life. When he shows up to a crowd, there’s no pulling off the coat and rolling up the sleeves. He may put on his MAGA hat when he’s had an abnormally bad hair day. He’s not a politician and does not try to be one. He speaks to everyone in the plain language common to most Americans. He reinforces what everyone knows is wrong with how our government functions or doesn’t function and how the globalist political class nearly broke the back of our middle class. He connected. President Trump doesn’t pretend to be anyone other than who he is. By bolstering our economy and putting people back to work, he has solidified the support of our World Class Middle Class. He is the biggest threat globalism has ever encountered. For that reason, he needs our prayers and support. In my lifetime two Presidents have been as outspokenly pro-America as Donald Trump – John Kennedy and Ronald Regan. One was assassinated and the other shot.
Our world is filled with places where there exists aristocracy and peasants with nothing in between. It’s the perfect environment for wealthy elitists to solidify control. Donald Trump is leading America back from that abyss. He is bucking an age-old movement with a biblically defined end of one world government and one world religion. God Speed Mr. President.
© 2019 J. D. Pendry – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail JD Pendry: jd@jdpendry.com
