So much for the old lefty propaganda slogan: "Putting People First."

Joe Biden is coming for your job.  Your livelihood.  Give it up, or he'll give it up for you, because he's got bigger priorities than your mere putting food on the table.  You can give up that job for an "opportunity" of his choosing.

He said as much at last night's Democratic debate.

Debate moderator Tim Alberta of Politico asked the Democratic frontrunner this:

Three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of economic growth, due to a boom in oil and natural gas production, as President would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers, in the interest of transitioning into that greener economy?

Biden's reply?  (Emphasis mine.)

The answer's yes. The answer's yes (hands up), because the opportunity for those workers to transition to high-paying jobs, Tom [Steyer] said, is real. We're the only country in the world that's taken great, great crises and turned them into enormous opportunities. I've met with the union leaders, for example, we should be making sure right now that every new building built is energy contained, that it doesn't leak energy, that in fact, we should be providing tax credits for people to be able to make their homes turn to solar power. They're all kinds of folks — right here in California, we're now on the verge of having batteries that are about the size of the top of this podium that you can store energy when in fact the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. We have enormous opportunities. For example, you talk about, would we relocate people who in fact were in a position where they lost their homes. We have to not rebuild to the standard that existed before, when we talked about (mumbles), we have to rebuild to the standard that exists today. For example, we shouldn't build another new highway in America that doesn't have charging stations on it. We have an opportunity to put 550,000 charging stations so that we own the electrical vehicle market, creating millions of jobs for people installing them, as well making sure that we own the electric vehicle market. There's so many things we can do and we have to make sure we explain it to those people who are displaced that their skills are going to be needed for the new opportunities.

Former VP Joe Biden says he’d be willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of blue collar jobs in order to transition to a greener economy.pic.twitter.com/9wyhSZny28

— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) December 20, 2019

Seems it's not enough for the such leftists to come for your toilet paper, your salt shaker, your meat, your SUV, or your air conditioner; Biden wants your job, too.  Your livelihood. 

All for your own good.

Oh sure, he promises to replace it with something else, something green, see, as the state central planners dictate.  We all know how well that worked out last time Biden got his way and did what he could in the Obama administration to put coal miners out of business.  That was the actual policy.  Remember this trope from Team Obama back in the Obama salad days?  "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business"?

He expects workers to fall for it a second time with himself at the helm.

This is inhuman as heck.  Throw people out of work, reverse the Trump administration's job gains, launch into economic upheaval to achieve some utopian ideal, and pay no attention to all the collateral damage to workers.  Instead of paychecks, they can live on promises instead. 

As if workers give up their jobs all the time for pie-in-the-sky "opportunities" over actual jobs with paychecks.

Joe was vice president under the Obama administration, and that moldy carrot has been offered to displaced workers before.  Those so-called "opportunities" were called "shovel-ready jobs" at the time based on the stimulus for a new green economy.  What did President Obama have to say about all those shovel-ready jobs two years after he held them out?  "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected."  As Reince Priebus noted, he actually chuckled as he said it.

Biden also says the state is going to own all electrical cars, too, something that should have raised some eyebrows but didn't, so there's your "opportunity."  Instead of doing something meaningful, you get to work as an "installer," like those guys in the Dire Straits song who moved microwave ovens.  Maybe you get to be an installer, maybe you don't, but instead of a paying job, you get the promise of a job maybe someone more politically connected will actually get, but you've had your "opportunity" and too bad about the lost job. 

That's the plan, and since you're just a worker ant, you can be ordered to do anything.  If you don't like the job Joe's got planned for you, too bad.  You won't even be able to go to a competitor for a better deal since the state is going to own it all.

It calls to mind something the late great longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once said: "Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind."

I knew Eric Hoffer, Hoffer was a friend of mine, and I am pretty sure that Hoffer the authentic longshoreman would kick Joe's ass for that kind of crap.  Biden's statement is a blithe promise to destroy the economy and so out of touch with the the lives of working people that it can only call attention to the fact that Joe Biden has smooth hands, he's been wearing a suit for a long time, he hasn't seen the inside of a factory in years, and he's already so well set up for life that his son Hunter got that $80,000-a-month no-show job based on his dad's political connections.  No-show jobs for the well connected cocaine user who got booted from the Navy, but you, dear worker, are lucky to get a job as an "installer."

It shows that as part of those political elites, Biden's got no idea of what working people go through when central planners command the economy — the monstrous turmoil, the displacement, the phony worker "retraining," the promises of the Obama era that never never never materialized.  Workers have heard that story before, and not too long ago.  The only possible conclusion here is that Joe is out of insanely out of touch with working people.  For him, they're just collateral damage for something bigger, in a view utterly redolent of the old Soviet era. 

With Biden looking more and more likely to become the Democratic nominee, it's obvious he's comfy with throwing people out of work.  When he meets President Trump, Trump should blast him for it.

Image credit: CNN,Twitter screen shot.