Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Ain’t That America?

The most f*cked up aspect of this is the "DoorDash grandma" t-shirt she's wearing, and the implications of this: I checked and this is a pre-organized PR stunt between DoorDash and the White House (they boast about it on their website: https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/dasher-visits-white-house-to-celebrate-no-tax-on-tips).

The lady - Sharon Simmons, "a grandmother of ten" who has "completed more than 14,000 deliveries" - isn't even from DC, they brought her over from Arkansas as a prop for this.

Think about just how uniquely rotten things need to be in order for this to happen.

She is literally a grandmother relying on gig work because she can't afford healthcare for her husband's stage-3 cancer. She doesn't even get paid a living wage and needs to rely on tips. And as an "independent contractor," she gets no benefits, no healthcare, no retirement.

Which means she is an almost perfect illustration of the failure of the American social contract on almost every level: healthcare, labor rights, retirement, wages, etc. Any decent human being looking at her story - let alone policymakers - should feel only one thing: shame.

Yet DoorDash and the White House looked at this woman and saw a photo op. They flew her from Arkansas, branded her "DoorDash grandma" and used her as a mascot for a tax tweak - no tax on tips - that wouldn't even begin to cover her husband's chemo sessions.

Watching the actual video of her "delivery" to Trump (https://pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-speaks-about-no-tax-on-tips-with-a-doordash-grandma) is almost unreal. Trump opens up by saying, smiling at the camera, "who says it looks staged? It doesn't." They immediately proceed to do a joint press conference to a bunch of journalists who were conveniently standing right there.

None of the questions that follow during the next 15 minutes are related to Simmons' situation who just stands there. Journalists, the President, and cameras all obsessing over culture wars and the actual war in Iran, while the walking embodiment of the country's deepest structural failures - healthcare, labor, retirement - stands silently in a corporate t-shirt, unmentioned and too uncomfortable to confront.
Well, except, it’s a con all the way down: I can’t reach a conclusion on any of this. Is she a grand? Does she actually drive for Door Dash? Is her husband without medical care? (Why? Where’s Medicare or Medicaid?) Regardless, this crude attempt at…whatever this was, exposes the reality of how the poor are treated (and represented) in Trump’s America. Which we can’t have because, you know, socialism. Or war. Opinions vary. (Even though we established Medicare during the Vietnam War.)
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)