This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you! And a hearty “thank you” to my latest free and paid subscribers—I appreciate your support!
UAW workers strike for “a fair shot” — Dec. 10, 1945: In Detroit, striking UAW members, carrying windblown signs, hunch into their overcoats as they picket in front of the General Motors Building, which is decorated for Christmas. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University
I’ve not seen much substantive analysis written about former President Biden’s farewell address — most reporting and commentary noted his reference to President Eisenhower’s final address to the nation and its warning about the military-industrial complex, verus Biden’s “tech-industrial complex” admonitions and the potential dangers of unchecked AI.
But President Biden also issued a warning to the American people that evening, about growing inequality caused by the “concentration of power and wealth”. He warned that this stark disparity among our citizens can and will cause division, distrust and unrest. How a growing oligarchy can lead otherwise hardworking people to give up, to sink into complacency, because they see their chance at a “fair shot” disappearing. The playing field in front of them is no longer level, or there is no playing field at all.
…And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process. I know it’s frustrating. A fair shot is what makes America America. Everyone is entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, just a fair shot, an even playing field. Going as far as your hard work and talent can take you..” President Joe Biden in his farewell address to the nation, January 15, 2025.
The idea of the American economy providing a “fair shot” for all of its people through its laws and policies, is central to the American Dream. And as Biden said last week:
“[the oligarchy] taking shape in our country, literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
Our laws, policies and culture are supposed to keep the economic playing field level, so it’s at least possible for most people to dream of a better future, to get ahead of their expenses, have a higher standard of living than their parents and to feel that their hard work is paying off. It is fitting that President Biden highlighted the idea of a “fair shot” in his closing address to the American people, because that is what he’s worked for his entire presidency and in his decades of public service — to make sure we all play by the same rules and there is no undue advantage among the competition.
I wrote earlier this year about the four major pieces of legislation Biden and other (mostly) Democrats passed from 2021 through 2022 that helped working people keep up and feel included in the American Dream. These laws invested in regular Americans by extending the child tax credit and lifting millions of children out of poverty, repairing and replacing our transportation infrastructure while putting hundreds of thousands of people to work in renewable energy jobs, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations and capping the prices on the most used prescription drugs for those eligible for Medicare.
It is not a level playing field when money buys better schools, teachers and entrance into elite colleges, better food, medical care and housing, and not everyone has the same access to money, for whatever reasons. Wealth distribution, of course, doesn’t have to be equal, but that’s not what giving as many Americans as possible “a fair shot” means. It could mean wages and benefit packages that allow the average worker to live comfortably on one job, with or without a college degree. That’s why former President Biden has always supported unions, because the higher wages and more complete benefit packages union organization can negotiate for their workers quite literally give people a fair shot at a safe, comfortable life — a security, and with it the hope, that they too can be included in America’s promise of success.
Former President Biden supporting striking UAW workers, November 2023 — the first president to walk a striking picket line.
But Biden wasn’t the first president to talk about and work towards a fair shot for the American people. Both Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt1 spoke about government working for the common good, and the peril of greedy companies grabbing more than their fair share. In late 2011, President Obama gave a major speech on economic inequality, in Osawatomie, Kansas, where he recalled that President Teddy Roosevelt had spoken there over 100 years before:
“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance.
I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them…. Former President Barack Obama, from a December 6, 2011 speech in Osawatomie, Kansas.
____________________________________________
Let me know what you think about the idea of a “fair shot” for all Americans. Is it even possible today under the Trump administration? Can it be resurrected in four years, or will an ultra-rich oligarchy have taken over?
All comments are welcome below:
Share this post