A few months ago, Christopher Anthony Lunsford (better known by his stage name Oliver Anthony) gave himself to Christ and promised to leave a life of drugs and mental illness to serve the Lord. A month later, his song “Rich Men North of Richmond,” went viral and skyrocketed to number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. If you haven’t listened to it yet, or you just want to hear it again, here it is:
Of course, his style speaks most to rural working-class Americans. The song became an overnight anthem for the forgotten men and women. These are the people who grow most of our food, produce most of our stuff, and work many of the hardest jobs.
Oliver Anthony’s popularity has faded over the past few months. One day, he’s top of the charts and the most famous man in America. Because elites on both the right and left thought he’d be useful to their cause. But then he started saying things he wasn’t supposed to, like how politicians on both sides were guilty of selling out the American people. Or how drugs and porn will destroy a man’s soul. He even read the Bible on the Joe Rogan Experience, one of the largest cultural platforms in the country. So they cast him aside.
Isn’t Oliver Anthony a perfect analogy for the forgotten men and women he represents? The elites are quick to use the working class (or the song) as a political prop when it suits them, only to betray them when election season passes.
The forgotten men and women are some of the most important people in America, but they aren’t treated like it. They work long hours and don’t get paid nearly as much as they should. The average farm worker makes $20,000 to $40,000 a year (depending on the source). Is there anyone in the US more important than our farmers? Factory workers aren’t much better off, making an average of $40,000 a year. That’s an injustice.
Rich Men North of Richmond wouldn’t have reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 unless LOTS of people listened to it. More than just the farmers and factory workers. 80% of the US lives in urban or suburban areas. While we often think of blue-collar workers as rural, many live in the city too, and they clearly resonated with “Rich Men North of Richmond.”
One of our very first articles gave an updated definition of the working class. Instead, we call them the Producing Class. Anyone who provides labor for the production process. Yes, farmers and factory workers, but also engineers, IT technicians, and entrepreneurs. The backbone of our economy.
These are the forgotten men and women of America. They’ve been selling their soul for nothing in return. And they demand a reckoning. Below is one of our previous articles on the Producing Class.
In previous editions, we discussed how the United States is built by main streeters like you and me, how the elites that control the economy are our enemies, and how we can beat the elites and take back our future. This edition will examine what it historically means to be a Main Street Insider.
There Are Two Types of People…
Members of the elites see two groups of people in society. The first group is the top 0.1%. Their job is to develop all the ideas, make all the decisions, and reap all the rewards. In their perfect world, they own everything. Just take a look at this since-deleted video from the World Economic Forum, an organization whose current or former members include Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Justin Trudeau.
The other group is the bottom 99.9%. In the elites' world, we own nothing. Our job is to provide the labor hours and grunt work for their plans. They're the queen bees and we're just the workers. That's why historians and politicians call us the working class (the term “middle class” fits into this group too).
The working class has long been considered the backbone of America. Traditionally, these are the blue-collar workers who fulfill the uncelebrated jobs. Factory employees. Tradesmen. Maintenance crew. The forgotten men and women of America.
We’re All In This Together
The way elites treat the working class follows a predictable pattern throughout history. Exploit the labor of the masses to build empires, then discard those masses when the desire for efficiency or “creative destruction” renders them obsolete. That’s how once-great American towns became rusted out and deserted. The elites got what they wanted out of those communities then informed everyone their services were no longer needed. Thanks for playing.
With that pattern in mind, the definition of the working class needs updating because elites will exploit any type of labor they can. This means engineers, IT workers, managers, and other white-collar workers are on the same path as the traditional working class of previous generations. The elites have their plans for you whether you primarily work with a machine or a computer.
While the label "working class" conveys hard work, it fails to capture our significance. We're more than just cogs in a machine. We have goals, hopes, and dreams. That's why Main Street Insiders proposes a new name for America's everyday men and women: the producing class.
Earlier, we discussed how production leads to income. If you want to earn money, you have to make things and bring value. You are part of the production process when you work, so you get a piece of the income.
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