Who Really Fails at Life

“Seriously, look. I don’t mean to be ugly with you people. . . . If you’re a 30-something-year-old person and you’re making minimum wage you probably failed at life. It is not that life dealt you a bad hand. Life does not deal you cards! It’s that you failed at life.” This is someone named Erick Erickson speaking as the guest host of Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, and speaking in an imitation Limbaugh way. Mediaite describes him as “a conservative blogger and author” and ranks him number 82 among newspaper/online editors in its “Power Grid.”

He goes on to distinguish conservatism from libertarianism and declare himself the first, and therefore thinks “there is some value in some level of a social safety net.” “Some value” probably means “little” and “some level” means “very low,” but at least he recognizes that some people need government help.

He then says, “I don’t believe we should be forced to pay you a minimum wage” and that abolishing it would increase employment. The value and effect of the minimum wage is a matter of debate. Fair enough. But why in making that point does Erickson begin by criticizing people who haven’t succeeded in making a comfortable living? It doesn’t take much knowledge of people’s actual lives to know why some struggle to do what most people do easily.

For life does deal you cards. It deals you your parents and genetic code, your extended family and your childhood friends, your class and race, your neighborhood and schools, the wiring in your brain and the chemicals in your body, your opportunities and connections, your chance encounters. A few people get a royal flush, most get two pair or three of a kind, and a lot get two twos or a random collection of cards hand after hand. They’re never going to win. The idea that life doesn’t deal you cards is just stupid.

But convenient, if you want to blame the poor for being poor, and therefore applaud yourself, and please your listeners, for having money. In failing to understand how the world works, and in failing to show compassion for those who have not done well, you, Erick Erickson, have failed at life.