How Trump is putting the squeeze on American workers

This is the fruit that voting Republican bears

A welder.
(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

"The forgotten men and women of our country," Donald Trump promised on election night 2016, "will be forgotten no longer." It was a key part of his appeal as a political outsider, that the two parties' politicians had failed to shield ordinary people from the cruelties of modern capitalism, but he would be different.

Voters had plenty of reason to be eager for such a promise. The days when you could graduate high school and head right into a good, secure job with good benefits that would plant you firmly in the middle class are gone. The problem isn't that there are no jobs, but that in so many places there are only crappy jobs, jobs with low pay and ill treatment where if you ask for more, the boss will just tell you to take a hike. There certainly won't be a union to protect you, and they can always find someone to replace you — and every worker knows it. As much as conservatives in particular like to talk about "the dignity of work," workplaces have less dignity than ever.

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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect magazine and a blogger for The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, and he is the author or co-author of four books on media and politics.