I don’t think anyone would describe me as a leftist at this point in my life, nor would I accept the label. But all the same, I can’t help but think that anyone who does not include a very large dose of class analysis in their views now simply cannot understand what is happening.

The June US unemployment rate was about 11%, after temporarily peaking over 14%. That’s with trillions of dollars in federal aid.

Look around at The Discourse on twitter, the pundits, the journalists; how many of them have lost jobs in this?

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

How many of them have ever experienced long-term unemployment, with all the social costs and permanent damage that entails? How many have had to explain a long employment gap on a resume? How many have postponed dreams for years as a result?

How many have ever truly been scared?

I’m not going to pretend to be tribune of the plebs on here; many people have it worse than I do. And that’s part of the problem: if a temporarily jobless LA lawyer is the lowest rung on the economic ladder who’s part of the conversation, the conversation is profoundly distorted.

Social justice sometimes has a point about how some voices are invited in to the discussion while others must wait outside for orders. Sometimes that’s about race or gender; sometimes education; sometimes class. And those on the outside never seem quite real to those within.

It is obscene that we are discussing cutting unemployment benefits right now. It is inexcusable that aid to keep people’s heads above water and ward off catastrophe is being held up for unrelated horse-trading. It is pathetic that this is an afterthought in the news cycle.

We are carving the hearts out of people’s lives and cursing them for years to come, and we do not even have the basic decency to honor their sacrifice by acknowledging it. It is, and I use this word with more feeing that you can know, dishonorable. Every day I am disgusted.

But they wait out there at the edge of the fire, outside the tent, us but not-us all at once, waiting for word from on high and orders to direct their lives. Until one day, if this keeps up long enough, they may not be content to wait. And oh, the sights you will see on that day.