We’ve stopped valuing workers. The country apparently no longer believes people who work hard deserve wages that pay them enough to afford the rent or a modest mortgage, or deserve a pension to keep them from penury in retirement. We’ve stopped expecting those things from employers – or at least they’ve stopped providing them. We’ve even stopped valuing public schools, stopped expecting them to have mowed lawns and drinking fountains that work.The author is dismayed at the deterioration of American life, that is, the lives of ordinary Americans. However she fails to make the connection with the class of people who run US society. This class no longer needs ordinary Americans with their high expectations of living standards. American workers are no longer of interest to them after they have been able to tap into cheap foreign labor through the efforts of so many--the World Bank, IMF, Bill Clinton, etc.
And now this ruling class, through their powerful mass media, is brainwashing Americans to believe that it's migrant workers and Muslims who are responsible.