Heraclitus once stated, “a man never steps into the same river twice,” which implies that both the river and the man are continuously changing. The United States, and we as its citizens, are also constantly changing, but change can be managed and directed towards improvement and away from chaos. Among the most important decisions facing us is that of illegal immigration and who is going to do our work.

Over the past decade, several political luminaries such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chuck Schumer, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have declared that we need illegal immigrants to do the work that Americans won’t do. In an obtuse way, they are correct. Americans will not do the work for wages that have been eroded and diminished by thirty years of unabated illegal immigration and 30 million illegal immigrants. They will not do the work that has been remuneratively devalued and culturally denigrated.

Image by ChatGPT.

Continuing with our river analogy, this statement by Democrat politicians regarding what work Americans won’t do overlooks a more important change in cultural currents. For two generations, young Americans have been encouraged to pursue college degrees and white-collar jobs and to eschew career paths that require any form of muscle work. The river of our culture persuaded young people that their futures were in air-conditioned offices and comfortable cubicles, and to look with disdain on those who toiled in the elements or on factory floors. As the river rolled on, it changed who we are.

Parents, too, were influenced by the currents, encouraging their children to avoid hard work that required physical strength and grit. They wanted “better” for their children and spent tens of thousands on prep schools, universities, and graduate programs, and billions more were spent by the government through grants and loans.

Now, in the time of Trump, it is all crashing down. For decades, Democrat politicians, including Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, decried illegal immigration as an attack by the Republicans on their working-class voter base. As the DNC shifted to a party of the elite and Trump scooped up the working-class remnants, the Democrat Party was forced to import a new working class and do so in a hurry, confident that the popular media and the lockstep elite would have more empathy for third world newcomers than the remnants of the detestable blue collar deplorables.

If Trump and subsequent administrations are successful in the structural changes required to preserve an American working class, it will create the conditions necessary to change both the river and the man. The river is the culture, and it takes time to change.

There are signs that the river is changing. We are beginning to hear complaints from men that the younger generations are soft, that they lack drive, ambition, and “toughness.” Young men have been accustomed to rolling out of bed at perhaps 9 am to attend a 10 am class instead of jumping out of the rack at 5:30 to be on the jobsite by 7 am. Young men are accustomed to having a relaxing mid-day latte at Starbucks or the student union before an afternoon class instead of gulping down a quart of lukewarm water as the leadman yells to get the sheathing loaded on the second floor.

Another benefit to a thriving working class is the acculturation of young men. Today, young men are acculturated in classrooms and offices with other young men and women, which is not beneficial to either. In his book, Tools for Conviviality, published in 1973, Ivan Illich suggests that education reform should include young men being educated by working alongside older men to shape them to the needs and expectations of the local society. This, shockingly, proves that a Jesuit Maoist can have a good idea from time to time.

On a larger scale, we need to think about the media products we consume and how to influence them. Consider how the media landscape changed after the George Floyd riots and BLM movement. Whole channels of streaming services were devoted to African American content, and woke themes were wall-to-wall, beginning to end. For a film to be nominated for an Academy Award, it has to meet defined inclusivity goals, but what’s not included in these requirements are depictions of working-class Americans doing the work that “Americans won’t do”.

Thanks to Trump, the river (culture) is beginning to change, and as the currents shift, the man (Americans) will change too. However, this change will take time and sacrifice. It will take decades to repair the damage, and labor costs will rise. The rise in labor costs might be stressful for some, but it will find an equilibrium between supply and demand without the distortion of unlimited supply created by floods of illegal immigrants.

While it might be true that there are jobs that Americans won’t do today, they might do them tomorrow, and in the future, they must do them, or neither the river nor the man will be recognizable as American.

Chris Boland can be reached at Cboland7@outlook.com.