Attention please: First Daughter Ivanka Trump has just made an important pronouncement.
By the way, does Tiffany get to be a first daughter too, even though she’s farther down the line of success, I mean succession, and needs more plastic surgery to make standard? No matter. We’ll go ahead and call Ivanka the first daughter, although there’s probably no way of knowing at this point how many there really are, either fleshed or flushed.
Anyway, back to Ivanka’s important pronouncement. She really isn’t getting enough credit for it. She is now in a high enough position she can look right down into the hearts of Americans, most of them anyway, and she likes what she sees. She says:
“I don’t think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something. People want to work for what they get. So, I think that this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want.”
And she is absolutely right. Most people not only want to work, they also want to be paid for it, and not at a wage that has been driven down over the years by employers’ willingness to exploit a vulnerable immigrant slave class for their personal profit. I’d go so far as to say most people who put in at least a forty-hour work week would like to be able to rent some kind of shelter and feed themselves, and it would be super awesome if they didn’t have to worry what would happen if they got sick, too. You know, they’d like to be able to live modestly with some security, like they do in those backwards countries like Sweden and Denmark.
And all that is totally possible as long as we listen to our First Daughter, The One That Counts. Because if it is true that most Americans want to work for what they get, things are about to change for the better around here. This means Americans like little Ivanka and her peers–and who knows them better?–must be totally on board with a maximum wage. You make a million a year, five million, fifty million–we should be able to decide on a reasonable limit somewhere–that really ought to do it for you, assuming you want to work for what you get.
We could even cross our fingers and pretend everyone in that range has worked hard to make the world a better place. Ha ha! But there’s got to be a certain amount above which we can all agree that, no matter who you are, you cannot possibly have earned it. Then we scoop up your soul-corrupting excess, everyone else gets a decent minimum and health care and a modicum of support and security, and you still get to be rich as all fuck. Nothing but winners here.
And, Skippy? You might make a case that you’ve earned all your money, up to a point, but once you’ve started just piling it up instead of paying your workers decent wages or safeguarding the environment, it’s time for the grownups to take over. We don’t let the entitled brats run the show. They’ll get spoiled, and we want them to be civilized members of society.
It doesn’t even have to be tied to merit. A generous society can even reward those who haven’t worked a day in their lives, if we want to. It would be nuts not to confiscate most of the utterly unwarranted millions they got from dear old dead dad, but we can let them have a real nice start without penalty, a bit of a boost, and after that it’s all up to them.
There is such a thing as a “self-made man,” but of course Ivanka’s daddy isn’t it. If you were going to make a man, would you make one like that? Of course you wouldn’t. But we can let folks like him get that nice good running start before we start relieving them of their unearned excess. What we can’t do is abolish the estate tax altogether. That would be morally corrupting, and sweet Ivanka wouldn’t hear of it.
Because we’re Americans. We all want to work for what we get.
Well, I guess she is an expert on how people struggling to get by feel.
And what amazes me is how many people who should be the prime audience for the message of someone like Sanders will condemn his message and endorse hers.
The poverty rate in rural areas is higher than in urban areas. There are fewer organizations that can help out there. And yet rural America goes solidly for Trump, in most cases. I hate to resort to race as the blame, but I suspect white people, no matter how poor, often think of poverty and welfare as things that involve non-white people.
And many feel diminished and left behind, and Trump promised he'd get their old country back. Whatever that means.
Nicely done, Murr. John Oliver also did a pretty good takedown on Sunday. Miss Strump didn't earn anything that she has.
There is a giant disconnection between what one has and what one earns in this country.
Never have so many unqualified sat in high positions of an administration. And sitting is about all they do. Of course it's probably called "executive time" for them as well. They do need a lot of time to determine how to extract more personal wealth from their political positions.
I guess that's work, huh?
Beautifully and wittily said, as always.
Thanks.
I didn't even get past the title before I was snorting to beat the band!
I couldn't really believe my ears when she came out with that line. Well and resoundingly volleyed, Murr.
No one in that family has the capacity to hear him or herself. Stuff comes out of their mouths and then it's just like a fart–step away and hope everyone thinks it's someone else.
If I work as hard as sweet little Ivanka I could be rich, too! But in my heart I know she has the secret and it is, "Know what to kiss and when." See? Minimum wage is irrelevant when you know the secret!
P.S. I was going to say 'suck' instead of 'kiss', but that would be less polite.
Glad you held back. By the way, she did her hardest work in utero.
You need to add a "like" button – I never have anything clever or useful to say in a comment but I sure as heck enjoy everything you write!
Grace, I agree! There needs to be a "wow, awesome! Murr is the greatest!" button. Maybe a bumper sticker.
Aww, you guys. Y'all can share my posts as much as you want! I had a share button on here but it no longer shows up on my computer–maybe nobody's, I really don't know. Help! Send over a young person!
Murr, there's a share button just under the text of your post, to the right of "Posted by Murr Brewster at 3:00:00 AM", and just above the "labels." It looks like a little envelope with an arrow with "Share This" to its right. Maybe it just doesn't show up on your computer since it is your post.
I agree you Americans, most of them anyway, want to work for what they get. on the other hand, what you et, your minimum wage is horrendously unsatisfactory. sharing the wealth of the super-rich sounds good in theory, but I'm betting not too many super-rich people will take that to heart and start splashing around their cash without benefit to themselves.
No, we have to help them with that sharing business. They ain't been reared right.
Brilliant!
Thanks.
Thank you for commenting on the unspeakable with grace.
Oh, Grace just commented up there.
There is a major conceptual difference between a "guaranteed basic income" (without a job) and a "guaranteed minimum wage" (with a job). I suspect Ivanka, like many Americans, may not read past the word "guaranteed" to understand the difference. Either that, or she is conflating the European Green Party (pro GBI) with the Green New Deal (pro GMW).
I am ashamed to admit I have not read the Green New Deal and have just heard the basics, but I'm on board with all of them. And I would support both the guaranteed basic income and the guaranteed minimum wage. Guess I should look up which she's espousing.
Why don't we hear more about this nepotism in the White House? It is absolutely sickening to me, totally disgusting, that these unelected people are running our government and making policy! I'm going to go make another donation to the Michael Cohen Gofundme campaign.
Well let's see. Looks like Jared might be getting himself into some hot water.
OMG, Murr, you have outdone yourself. I need a bumper sticker.
My all-time favorite bumper sticker is "Don't believe everything you think."
I am rendered speechless by these people. Probably a good thing.
I could use more speechlessness, myself.
Although I would normally be the last person to stop and spend time thinking about anything said by a person deep at the center of the blackest, most evil con ever perpetrated on our country, in trying to make some sense of Ms. Trump's statement, I actually dug a bit deeper. The option for guaranteed basic income without a job is actually part of the Green New Deal Draft document (section 6, B, vii). It's right in there with the option for universal health care. I'm not sure what Ms. Trump was actually referencing, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to Ms. Trump's comments as if she were talking about minimum wage, not minimum income.
Thanks. I'll call you my research department, because my current one is lazy.
I'm still trying to get over the total hypocrisy of "Lock her up" and "Drain the swamp". Talk about the pot calling the kettle black….And don't get me started on these Trump children….