Mike Rowe is a blatant shill for anti-labor practices and it's clear even in this clip.

I wouldn't go that far. I think he's just reflecting typical blue collar culture which tends to be more conservative

No, he doesn't. He straight up attacked Bernie on the College for All saying that we all don't need college, which is true. But the College for All bill included non-college related education and secondary education like trade schools and training programs. But he decided to ignore all of that to squeeze his head up Trumps ass and bitch about a program designed to give America blue collar people a fighting chance.

It's possible that College for All was a bad bill overall but happened to have a few good parts.

e.g. CANCELS $1.6 TRILLION IN STUDENT DEBT FOR 45 MILLION AMERICANS

The fact sheet says it would pay for all of this (in total $2.2 trillion) by taxing Wall Street speculation. So, somehow create a tax that represents almost 10% of total US GDP to cancel student debt and allow all future college to be almost free.

I can't imagine any world where that would actually happen. Bernie is living in the clouds.

This isn't giving anyone a fighting chance because it's not an actual, feasible solution.

Ref: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/college-fo...

> the College for All bill included non-college related education and secondary education like trade schools and training programs

This is not commonly known. If they had emphasized trade school and training, I feel like it would have had much less pushback from the right.

> In April 2021, when asked about the debate about raising the minimum wage, Rowe said, "I worry that the path to a skilled trade can be compromised when you offer an artificially high wage for, I hate the expression, but an unskilled job."

Very much an advocate for the working man, there.

There's more to that quote if you click through to the source. Before it was this: “I want everybody who works hard and plays fair to prosper," Rowe said. "I want everybody to be able to support themselves. But if you just pull the money out of midair you're going to create other problems.”

“There is a ladder of success that people climb,” he continued. “Some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour, in my view, they're simply not intended to be careers. They're not intended to be full-time jobs. They're rungs on a ladder."

"[Those jobs] are ways for people to get experience in the workforce doing a thing that might not necessarily pay you as much as you'd like, but nevertheless serves a real purpose,"

And picking up where it left off: "So to me, the brightest line needs to be drawn between skilled and unskilled work. We need to encourage more people to learn a skill that's actually in demand."

Given that the minimum wage was last raised in 2009, and even until then was always raised in arrears, I'd argue more that it's irresponsible of business owners to not be saving for an expected increase at some point in the near future (hopefully). It's not "pulling money out of midair" - these employers have been able to effectively "underpay" employees since then.

> Some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour, in my view, they're simply not intended to be careers. They're not intended to be full-time jobs.

This is a huge conservative talking point - the federal minimum wage was intended to be a liveable wage, not "for teenagers/high schoolers/part timers" - this whole spin of "these jobs are not meant to be liveable" is a wholly after-the-fact revisionism.

fulltime jobs that are not livable should not exist.

jobs that are not meant to be livable should never be fulltime.

people stuck in a fulltime non-livable job don't have the time or resources to upgrade.

I'm sorry.. what's "anti-labor" about this video?

Well, pitching "dirty jobs" as a solution to the decline in gender roles seems like a shallow effort to get people to accept shitty jobs as some sort of performative masculinity. I can't think of any other reason to do this—I don't know many men who long for dirtier jobs so they're seen as more manly. In fact I'm confident I've never met anyone who felt this way.

> to accept shitty jobs

Welding is a "shitty job?" I'd disagree entirely, and I think that would be Mike Rowe's position as well, and I think he directly cautions against the mentality you're attempting to take to these careers. You're also seemingly leaving no space for owner operated businesses.

> I can't think of any other reason to do this—I don't know many men who long for dirtier jobs so they're seen as more manly.

Doesn't that just undercut your own thesis, then? Or are you operating on the presumption that the advice being given by Mike Rowe is meant to be universal and you should upend your life in order to chase it? I don't see that at all.

I'm still baffled as to how you'd see any of this as "anti-labor."

Well, that makes it worth listening even more.

You probably just disagree with him about what constitutes anti-labor practices.

I can't think of many other public figures that have spent as much time as him, advocating for blue collar work.

> I can't think of many other public figures that have spent as much time as him, advocating for blue collar work.

The trick is not advocating for the work but the worker. Employment, without fail, sucks ass.

Don’t really agree with your assertion, but I imagine that blue collar work has much higher rates of self employment, compared to white collar work.