NOTE: the following article is satire, not a statement of fact. Treat it as such,
Speaking to union workers in a recent campaign speech, President Joe Biden decided to try to explain economics to the autoworkers, with predictably poor results. In fact, he ended up explaining away the shift in economic thinking by talking about NAFTA, which led to fury among the gathered union members. Kicking things off, he said:
But, look, folks, I’m going to be brief because I know you have been doing a lot of work here. First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you. You know, that old expression in a little town I grew up in in Delaware called Claymont, Delaware: You all are the ones that “brung me to the dance.” And I never left you. I never left you.
To me, it’s a basic, basic thing. And I mean this sincerely. You know, Wall Street didn’t build the middle class. Labor built the middle class. And the middle class built the country. Really. And when labor does well, everybody does well. No, no, I’m not just saying it. I know I’m the most pro-union, you know — anyway. We won’t go into all that.
But the reason I say it is true. I asked the Treasury Department to do a study on the impact of unions on wealth and society. The single biggest reason why we have — unions are growing, the single biggest reason why the economy is growing, because you are the best workers in the world. That’s not hyperbole. No, you really are. You really are. And when labor does well, everybody does better. You even — you even got non-union shops a raise. They owe you. They owe you.
Folks, look, this is — I’ll — I’m going to go on a little — just a little bit more. There used to be a theory called trickle-down economics. No, I mean it. Democrat and Republican presidents adhered to it for a long time. It was that if the wealthy do very well, the whole economy will grow, and it will all trickle down. Well, not a whole hell of a lot ever trickled down on my dad’s kitchen table. No, I’m serious. Not a joke.
He then added, “But heck, we stopped adhering to that. Now that’s a fact, Jack. We did! Just look at the ummm, the trade deal with the Mexicans. NAFTA! That’s it. That wasn’t trickle down economics. That was globalism! Different thing. Way different. Well, for us, at least. You got screwed either way. Heh. But not us! We managed to food on the – put food on the, that’s it, put food on the table.”
“For us. That’s globalism thing. When we passed NAFTA, everyone knew nothing would trickle down. But we knew y’all hated trickle down economics and thought it’d be something different. Well it was! Heh. I made a killing off it, in fact. Paid for my new house…which was built with immigrant labor for way cheap. Heh.”
As Biden laughed to himself and gloated, the outraged union workers started booing and pressing toward him on the stage, leading to the Secret Service having to escort him out of the facility and to safety.