Thread by @SorrentinoSean

@IonaItalia I see this every day. My job puts me in close contact with the (almost exclusively) men who make the world work. They keep the lights on, the water flowing, and sewage treated. Yet most ordinary people have little respect for these hidden events.

@IonaItalia These are men who transform out ugly, cold, dangerous world into the magical place where I drink fresh clean water in a heated, well lit home. Thanks to them I’m so wealthy that I literally poop into water clean enough to drink.

@IonaItalia They provide the foundation that our entire society rests upon. They’re the base of the pyramid in which every American starts off richer than 90% of the developing world.

@IonaItalia In previous eras our politicians at least pretended to care about the men who labored. They showed respect for the strong backs that lifted the rest of us out of the mud. But now the party who used to claim to work for the common man actively attacks their worth and dignity.

@IonaItalia Those of us who come from working class backgrounds look way up at the people who tell us they have the right to rule us and think, “you people couldn’t organize a grocery store shelf, much less an economy.”

@IonaItalia Yet you keep trying. You keep telling the common man he’s too dumb to know what’s best for him. You look at the guy who processes your sewage, makes your electricity, or puts hauls your freight and think “why does his vote count as much as mine?”

@IonaItalia You think we can’t see it. You think your contempt (or the contempt of your social class) for us is hidden. But it’s not. We know. We feel it. We’re not as dumb as you think we are.

@IonaItalia According to your bio you have a PhD in English from Cambridge. Do you know what would happen to the world if every English PhD in the world was suddenly kidnapped by aliens? Not a damned thing. We’d keep on keeping on.

@IonaItalia Now kidnap every sewage treatment plant operator. We’d all choke on human waste in 36 hours.

@IonaItalia None of us begrudge your ability to make a living talking to people on a podcast. Or whatever you do to pay your bills. But take a moment during your day to remember the (almost exclusively) men who labor down here in the trenches making a world safe and clean for you to do so.