She has no job, but she’s never not working.
She works at call centers. She works in food delivery. She tries her hand as an influencer between deliveries, making sure to get the selfie and the food in the same shot. People love it when you get both in the same shot.
Her phone pings constantly, but never with good news. She—let’s call her Rosie—is gigging herself to death.
She is crushed by the weight of expectation. Everyone in her phone wants something from her. Just about the only thing she doesn’t do to pay her bills is start an OnlyFans, to her great credit.
Finally, she’s making a drop-off at a factory, just as some women are leaving. She asks them, “What do you do?” This opens the door to a new life.
Inside the factory, they work jobs. Not gigs. Inside the factory, they work on a contract, not on tipped wages. The indignity of the gig economy pales in comparison to the dignity of stable work.
The 90-second ad I’m describing, which has made the rounds on Twitter, points us to a better way. The Detroit way.
I saw my grandfather, Roosevelt Hunter, in the journey of young Rosie.
After many years of making do in Louisiana, working the gigs of his time, he was ready for a real job. Henry Ford had more of them than anyone. So grandpa made the great migration north to Michigan.
Steady work turns a job into a livelihood. For generations, so many people found that work in auto factories. This was when Michigan was at its strongest and best.
To win the future, we must make Detroit great again. And to do that, we must make Detroit build again.
Let’s dispense with the fiction that laptop jobs are the “jobs of the future” in Michigan. What Michigan needs are the jobs of its past. They still exist, they just head to parts south of here, pushed there by union bosses and the politicians who love them. That giant sucking sound you hear is more jobs leaving our pleasant peninsula for Mexico and China, as they have for the past 30 years.
Work has been our curse as humans since Genesis. It is inescapable, so all that’s left to argue are the terms. And what’s inarguable is that Detroit and Michigan are better off when we build things. And a viable Detroit is the tide that lifts all boats in Michigan.
All my life, I grew up in a town where people who worked with their hands could afford homes, cabins, and college educations. The distinction between white collar and blue collar mattered less in Detroit than anywhere else on earth.
We were the king of manufacturing, once. We didn’t lose the crown, so much as we gave it away.
Now we must take it back. It’s in our economic and national security interest that we start building things again.
Don’t just take my word for it. Look at Rosie and how happy she feels to finally be working a real job.
James David Dickson is host of the Enjoyer Podcast.
