us senators: the most oppressed class

Mike Pesca's career as a journalist had revealed to him the ugly, unfair underbelly of society. The brutality inflicted on those most exploited by late-stage capitalism caused bile to scorch the back of his throat. But he recently uncovered an injustice so horrendous his mind simply could not accept it. Sure, he knew about prison slave labor and systemic racism. Police brutality and the caging of children. Worker exploitation that forced the working class to construct their entire lives and identities around laboring and enriching the few billionaires at the top of the capital class. He had accepted all of that as easily as he drew breath from the smog-laden air. But this new fact really opened his eyes to the horrors of modern American society.

4th year NBA players make 10x more than US Senators.

Even typing the sentence out on Twitter nearly caused a stroke with how much it angered him. Mitch McConnell had dedicated his life, his entire being, to blocking Obama legislation and court appointees for six whole years. He worked harder than any human has ever worked with the explicit goal of accomplishing absolutely nothing. That he makes less than 1/10th of what NBA All-Star Jayson Tatum does is inexcusable. Forget that McConnell is worth more than 3x what Tatum is worth. Forget that, like Tatum, McConnell is given lucrative endorsement – or lobbying – deals. Forget too that McConnell has access to all the information one could possibly desire to make a handsome profit on the stock market through insider trading. The fact remains that McConnell only gets $174,000 a year. How is a man worth over $22 million supposed to feed his family on that meager sum? Like any smart journalist, Mike followed the money and found Jayson Tatum and the 2017 NBA draft class specifically is taking cash straight from the off-shore bank accounts of our hard-working, oppressed senators.

This isn't even the worst of it. Markelle Fultz, the first overall pick four years ago, has stacked an absurd $5 million fortune from his salary and endorsement deals despite hardly playing in actual NBA games. Meanwhile, for all the Very Important legislation he has written and helped pass since his election in 2008, Mark Warner is still worth a mere $90 million. How could Warner effectively govern when his finances so closely mirrored the bulk of America's middle class? Thanks to theft by Markelle Fultz and his ilk, Warner could never hope to truly fall out of touch with the common man by amassing enough money to crack the top 0.01%. And if he couldn't obtain stratospheric wealth, he couldn't hope to pass legislation that would have meaningful positive impact on the majority of his constituents. This is basic political science.

Perhaps the most indicting statistic of all lies in how much NBA salaries hurt the ability of senators to build wealth. Dennis Smith Jr. has somehow seen his salary over the last four years balloon by 77% while poor Susan Collins, senator from Maine, had seen her net worth increase at an annual rate of merely 138%. After all her years in the senate, Mike reasoned Collins should have seen her net worth increase by at least 10,000%. After all, the purpose of serving in the US Senate is to stack as much cash as possible. That such a hard-working, incorruptible, effective, and popular institution was so exploited, degraded, and underpaid was simply unacceptable.

The data burned an afterimage into Mike's retinas. Everywhere he looked, all he could see were the untold fortunes stolen from our poor senators and deposited into rich basketball players' bank accounts. How America managed to oppress the very people who shaped the country's laws, tax codes, and financial regulations, he didn't understand. Nor did he understand why people were mad at him for uncovering this fact. The plebs couldn't seem to comprehend the dire need of their poor, exploited representatives. Only Mike understood that, if this were to go unchecked, Mitt Romney could starve in the street all so Jaron Blossomgame could make $77,000 sitting at the end of the Cleveland Cavaliers bench.

But Mike was never one to bow to public pressure. He recognized people were called to action by different crusades. This summer, millions were galvanized by the killing of George Floyd and joined protests against police brutality. Greta Thunberg had built a movement to fight the existential threat of climate change. This is Mike's protest, his movement. Members of the US Senate need protection, and they need it now. Abandoned by the public and abused by the wretched NBA, they would die if no one came to their aid. So Mike did. He took to Twitter to “foment change” and speak up for the most oppressed members of society. He is a true ally, and he won't stop until his voice, and the voice of Mitch McConnell, Mark Warner, Susan Collins, and the entire senate is finally heard.

inspired by: