I’ve just learned today that a man who has had a great impact on this country, and on me, has passed away. I stumbled across this sad news that Ed Schultz has died while catching up on my Jimmy Dore‘s. It’s so weird. I admit I hadn’t thought about Ed in a while. But seeing President Trump come through on his tariffs, I got to wondering – I wonder what Ed Schultz thinks of all this. So I did some searching, found him on youtube, and – I knew it! Ed Schultz still has a soul! But now, he has left this life.
I first came across Ed Schultz on a progressive radio station in Jacksonville, FL in 2009. In the depths of the Great Recession, as I was working odd jobs scrapping to not let my student loans go into default, here came a progressive I could relate to.
Schultz isn’t the stereotypical “pinhead” you hear Bill O’Reilly talking about. Schultz is a working man’s progressive. One thing he really drew (or rather reminded me of) my attention to is the need to bring back American jobs. Schultz was passionate about ending the bad trade deals, restoring America’s manufacturing sector, building our infrastructure, taking care of our veterans, sensible national security and foreign policy, and single payer healthcare. (I think my Trumpian friends can agree with at least the majority of that.) But “BUY AMERICAN” is what always resonated. Hardly an Ed Show went by without him talking about that!
In those days, Schultz was an Obama supporter, fiercely critical of the Republican Party establishment, a bit race-baitie, I admit, but that’s forgivable. People like Ed Schultz are authentic. Their wear their good qualities and bad on their sleeve. You may not like everything you see, but what you see is what you get.
Once he had Pat Buchanan on his show. When he announced it, I was expecting a fierce argument. But it was nothing of the sort. They were pals. And why not? Pat Buchanan is an old paleo-conservative who cares about American jobs. Ed Schultz is an old school progressive who cares about American jobs. They’re two sides of the same coin!
Things started changing in the late Obama era, and not the kind of “change” that Obama campaigned on. No, it was the Democratic Party establishment. It became less about working Americans, and more about political correctness, virtue signaling, “marginalized groups”, and consequently, globalization and corporatism. Schultz could have gone either way on the PC stuff, though he was never a man to pussy-foot around. But he was pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-racial integration. But for Schultz, that all took a back seat to the heart and soul of the Democratic Party of the past – the working class. When the working class started getting pushed to the back in favor of all the PC stuff, and then the corporatists starting driving the bus, and then insisted they’d only keep driving the bus if the working class weren’t on it, there was no place for a principled man like Ed Schultz anymore.
Consequently, he was kicked off MSNBC (now owned by Comcast) and took refuge with the RT network. From there, he kept telling the truth, while the hacks at MSNBC kept telling us about Russia. Schultz took Trump with a grain of salt. Some accused Schultz of changing, but he never changed. Schultz cared about American jobs just as much in 2009 as he did in 2016. Schultz saw some of the things he cared about in Trump, other things, not so much. But rather than being a partisan hack, and flipping his positions just so that he could opposite of the President with an “R” next to his name, he simply started evaluating Trump issue by issue. When it came to steel tariffs, ending TPP, infrastructure, etc. Trump earned Schultz’s support.
Like our President, Schultz puts America first, not political party, not political correctness, and sure not the “global community”.
Any American who works for a living, building things, these are Ed’s people. If you don’t built things yourself, but appreciate those who do, close enough. Ed, after all, spent much of his life as a media personality doing just that. But make no mistake. He wasn’t some spoiled, lily white liberal admiring from afar people he wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. He had no problem meeting with workers and helping them fight for better wages, better working conditions, and to protect American jobs from soulless multinational corporations.
I almost titled this “Rest in Peace”, but that’s not how Ed would want it. He lived to fight the good fight. So I went with the Orthodox “Everlasting be your memory!” He won’t rest. His spirit will live on! It’ll live on in every Trumpian hard hat who used to vote Democrat, but voted Trump this time for American jobs. It’ll live on in every solid progressive who won’t sell their souls to Comcast or the DNC. It’ll live on in the Justice Democrats who fight to restore the soul to the Democratic Party. And wherever there’s a Clinton or a Bush trying to sell out America to the “global community” – Ed Schultz will live on, ready to fight for us.
Another note:
Before this news, I was working on another article – How the left brought me to Trump – and Ed Schultz certainly makes up a chunk of that. I’ll finish it pretty soon and post it here also.
For now, if you want to honor Ed Schultz, support Wounded Warriors, or buy something American made, or contact someone in Congress and tell them that no matter what they think of Trump, to stand by him as he fights for American jobs.
Ed Schultz also drew my attention to this site
I have an ongoing project, developing news links showing jobs being saved or added due to Trump’s trade policies. Take a look, and share some links if you have them
https://politicallywag.wordpress.com/2018/03/19/trumps-tariffs-bring-jobs/
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