Labor Day 2020: Riots — But, Because Of Trump, The Immigrant Workforce Population IS Falling
09/06/2020
Above, a gif of Trump campaigning in West Virginia, 2016
It is now almost twenty years that I’ve been writing Labor Day columns for VDARE.com. My first, at the bottom of the list below, is titled Happy (Fairly Priced) Labor Day! That gets to the point of Labor Day: It’s about the American worker, the man the American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers (an immigrant himself from England) wanted to protect from cheap foreign labor. A more recent one was titled Happy Riot-Free Labor Day! — No Thanks To The Economic Policy Institute.
That later article was a general critique of the EPI’s “economistic” approach to labor importation, with no thought of the rights of specifically American workers.
EPI had written: Brazilian Protests: Could They Happen Here? June 24, 2013. I replied: “Well, the answer to that is: It’s much more likely that the United States will suffer riots of the kind that rocked Brazil in June if it keeps importing the kind of people who do that kind of rioting.”
I’m no longer able to wish the US a “Riot-Free Labor Day.” But in 2020, the problem isn’t mass Latin American immigration. The recent riots are the result of the previous importation, between 1619 and 1807 of the ultimate in cheap labor — African slaves.
Slavery was and is an African custom which should never have been imported to the US. The reason for this importation, back in the day, is that Africa was (and is) the only place that people were for sale. But pre-Revolutionary planters could have found English or Scots immigrants to do the work — like the modern day US Chamber of Commerce, they just didn’t want to pay them.
At the moment, American workers, especially those with what I may call “real jobs” — i.e., not sitting at a computer, like me, but moving, building, fixing, or actually doing something — are suffering from the lockdown. It’s been going on for quite a while: An earlier, non-Labor Day column was headed “Easter During Coronavirus: The Resurrection Of America Will Come” five solid months ago.
However, there is one bright side — immigrants are by and large not taking the jobs that are left…and there are fewer of them to take American jobs.
Here are the headlines of Edwin S. Rubenstein’s National Data columns for the last six months showing that:
- NATIONAL DATA: Immigrant Workforce Population Falls For ELEVENTH STRAIGHT MONTH. But Displacement Rises — Immigration Moratorium Must Be Made Permanent
- NATIONAL DATA: Unreported Trump Triumph On Immigrant Population, American Worker Displacement Rolls On
- NATIONAL DATA: Covid Crash Flushes Out Immigrants, Gives Trump Great Opportunity — If Locked In With Immigration Moratorium
- NATIONAL DATA: April Jobs Data Show Pandemic Has Stalled, Reversed, American Displacement, Dispossession. But Immigration Moratorium Vital To Secure Rebound’s Gains
- NATIONAL DATA: Coronavirus Kills Jobs — And Displacement! Immigrant Population FALLS For 7th Straight Month! IMMIGRATION MORATORIUM NOW!
- National Data: Pre-Corona, Immigrant Population DOWN For SIXTH Straight Month — But Wage Growth Slowed, Displacement Up
(Ed is updating tomorrow — it’s dramatic; watch this space!)
What this means is that Trump’s election mattered a lot. And his re-election is likely to matter more.
Trump is the only candidate of either party to appeal to American workers against the plutocrats and the immigrants coming to take their jobs. My 2011 and 2012 Labor Day columns were headed No Jobs For Labor Day In Obama’s America and No Jobs For Labor Day In ROMNEY’s America, Either?
I don’t know what my headline will be in 2021. But I hope for the American worker’s sake that it reads “In Trump’s America” rather than “In Biden’s America”.
Happy Labor Day to all our readers, especially those lucky enough to have a job to take the day off from!
Previous Labor Day coverage, back to 2001.
- September 1, 2019 — On Labor Day, Remember That Immigration Enforcement Is About Jobs For Americans
- September 2, 2018 — Labor Day In Trump’s America: "Labor Shortage" Means Higher Wages — Which Was Why Trump Was Elected
- September 3, 2017 — NRO’s Labor Day Pieces Asks "Why Haven’t Wages Grown?" DOESn’t MENTION IMMIGRATION
- September 3, 2017 — On Labor Day, Good News For American Workers In Trump’s America — But Look Out For “DREAMers”!
- September 5, 2016 — Labor Day 2016: More Automation, More Foreign Workers, Fewer Jobs for Americans
- September 3, 2016 — Happy Labor Day from VDARE.com — A Celebration Of The AMERICAN Worker!
- September 7, 2015 — Labor Day And Immigration — Two Ways Of Looking At It
- August 31, 2014 — Rick Santorum, Labor Day, And The Workers Who Would Vote Republican If They Thought The GOP Was On Their Side
- September 2, 2013 — Happy Riot-Free Labor Day! — No Thanks To The Economic Policy Institute
- September 3, 2012 — No Jobs For Labor Day In ROMNEY’s America, Either?
- September 4, 2011 — No Jobs For Labor Day In Obama’s America
- September 5, 2010 — A Labor Day Dissent — Dysentery and Immigration
- September 6, 2009 — Message On Labor Day: Working America Needs An Immigration Moratorium.
- September 5, 2009 — Labor Day Motto: Moratorium Now! More evidence from Canada
- August 31, 2008 — Labor Day In Mississippi — Job Openings For Americans After Raids
- September 2, 2007 — The Fulford File Labor Day Lament: Where Have You Gone, Samuel Gompers, Dennis Kearney, Cesar Chavez, A. Philip Randolph?
- September 1, 2007 — Happy Labor Day —AFL-CIO fights to lower US wages!
- August 31, 2007 — For Labor Day, Good News From The Lodi, CA. Vineyards — Plenty of Workers (and Machines) For This Year’s Grape Harvest
- August 31, 2007 — Happy Labor Day Teamsters–Here Come Mexican Truckers!
- September 4, 2006 — Labor Day through the Looking Glass
- September 3, 2006 — Labor Day In Cardinal Mahony’s Alta California
- September 4, 2005 — Labor Day vs. Day Labor
- September 2, 2005 — View From Lodi, CA: Labor Day — As the Rich Get Richer….
- September 5, 2004 — Thinking About Jobs On Labor Day
- September 3, 2004 — UnConventional Opinions for Labor Day
- September 3, 2003 WSJ Edit Page’s Labor Day Revisionism
- August 31, 2003 — Unhappy Labor (Investor/Taxpayer) Day?
- August 30, 2002 — View from Lodi, CA: A Labor Day Lament
- September 2, 2001 — Happy (Fairly Priced) Labor Day!