These hands stuffed chips into the motherboard of your computer, washed the dishes after your restaurant meal, and steadied your mom when she went to the bathroom in her convalescent home. But on Tuesday, there's one thing these hands didn't do. They didn't punch the wrong hole on a presidential ballot in West Palm Beach. In fact, they didn't punch any hole, in Florida or anywhere else. These hands didn't vote.
Voting is a rare activity in communities of low-income and immigrant workers.
Kono is too kind. Immigrants and low-wage workers do figure into national politics, but not as voters. Nationally, less than half of the eligible population voted in this election, a pool that gets comparatively smaller every decade. And demographically, it gets older, whiter, and its median income goes up. This is fine for Republicans, traditionally the party of employers and the better-off.