I called up Elizabeth Warren’s Labor Day message and said, “Check it out, Swamp Rabbit. Woody Guthrie could have written it.”

Today’s a federal holiday because on the eve of the 20th century, machinists, carpenters, and people who worked in mills, mines, factories, and more joined together to fight for better wages, better conditions, and a day to honor the power of working people.

Labor unions are still fighting for an America that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected. They were on the front lines then, and they are on the front lines now.

This year, many essential workers have been working in high-risk conditions without appropriate protective equipment, adequate safety standards, or basic job protections. So I’m going to keep pushing in Congress for an Essential Workers’ Bill of Rights to ensure safe working conditions, fair pay, paid leave, health care security, support for child care, and more…

“OK, so what?” Swamp Rabbit said. “I’m guessing Joe Biden sent out pretty much the same Labor Day message. Kamala Harris, too. All the Dems say the same thing on Labor Day. Hail to the workers.”

“Biden can hail the workers all he wants,” I replied, “but his first loyalty is to Wall Street, not Main Street. To the billionaires and corporations. And that goes for Harris and the other neolibs.”

Swamp Rabbit threw an empty beer can at me. “There you go dissing the neolibs again. Where would the Dems be without the big-money guys? Just because Biden sucks up to the .01 percent don’t mean he ain’t for working peeps.”

I showed him this, from the WP: “While Biden publicly calls out Wall Street excesses and promises to rein them in, Biden staffers privately are reassuring industry leaders that he won’t focus on the issue in office.”

“Big deal,” Swamp Rabbit said. “He’s gotta tell ’em that or they might jump to Trump.”

Here’s the thing, I told him. Biden and most other high-profile Democrats speak up for working people when it’s convenient. Warren walks the walk. Read up on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. How many elected politicians other than Warren and Bernie Sanders and a few others actually make working people’s interests their first priority?

“Trump would have called Warren a socialist every day,” he said. “She woulda sunk like a stone sinks in the Tinicum swamp. Who you gonna vote for, one of them Jill Stein-type losers?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m voting to chase the hog monster out of the White House. Biden’s not the best, but he’ll do for now.”

Footnote: As a writer in Esquire bluntly noted, “If Democrats do not address the economic cataclysm currently in progress during their first two years in (theoretical) control, they are signing their own death warrants in the midterms, and possibly the presidential two years later.”  

Another: Guthrie and “Old Man Trump.”