SPOILED RICH BOY WHO BOUGHT A CONGRESSIONAL SEAT WANTS US TO DIE ON THE JOB

I see we're being lectured by our Randian betters again.

Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN) said Tuesday that Americans need to get back to work immediately, even if it means significantly increasing the spread of COVID-19.

In an interview with an Indianapolis radio station, Hollingsworth acknowledged that ending social distancing could result in major public health harms and "loss of life," but he said it was better than letting the economy fall apart.

"It is policymakers' decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say it is the lesser of these two evils," he urged.

So who is Congressman Hollingsworth? Well, let's start with the nickname.

Wikipedia tells us his full name is Joseph Albert "Trey" Hollingsworth III. I'm the son of a truck driver, and I can tell you that people who grew up the way I grew up don't use roman numerals after their names, or call themselves "Trey" as a shorthand way of saying "the Third."

Joseph Albert Hollingsworth the Second and his boy Trey are rather well-to-do, as The Indianapolis Star reported in 2016.

[Trey] Hollingsworth grew up in Clinton, Tenn., a small town about 30 miles northwest of Knoxville. It is notable in part for the "Clinton 12," who in 1956 became the first African-American students to desegregate a public school in the South, a rancorous saga commemorated by a statue of the students.

Hollingsworth, however, didn't attend Clinton High School. He went to the private Webb School in Knoxville, Tenn., whose alumni include a former governor, a state Supreme Court judge, CEOs, the owner of the Cleveland Browns and professional athletes.

By all accounts, Trey lived what can fairly be described as a privileged life....

In 2003, Joe Jr. wrote a book called “The Southern Advantage” that extolled the benefits of doing business in the South, without a strong union presence....

In addition to business and politics, Joe Hollingsworth Jr. has a voracious appetite for adventure.

He was featured in Megayacht News in 2009 for his 29-day chartered cruise of the Caribbean aboard the 118-foot boat Savannah....

His adventures aren't even limited to Earth. A 2012 story posted on his company's website described Joe Jr. as among 300 people who signed up for a space flight on Virgin Galactic. The price for the two-and-a-half-hour ride: $200,000....

Trey Hollingsworth made a mark early. When he was 15 years old, he was touted as someone to watch in a Washington Post article headlined “How I Got Rich On My Summer Vacation.” The story was about high school students in a summer entrepreneurship camp in Oregon....

After Hollingsworth graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School, his father set him up in business. The younger Hollingsworth's personal worth, according to campaign documents, is at least $58 million.

Hollingsworth said he raised funds for his real estate business at first by feverishly pitching potential investors and scouring the Midwest and South for vacant industrial sites that could be rejuvenated.

But his father also helped finance the start-up business. A press release from Hollingsworth Cos. noted that in 2005 "Hollingsworth Capital Partners was formed with Joe's son, Trey, as managing partner and majority owner."

You may be asking yourself why, if the Hollingsworths lived in Tennessee, Trey is a congressman from Indiana.

Well, he moved to Indiana in September 2015. In October 2015, he announced his candidacy for the congressional seat he now holds. He was called a carpetbagger, but money made that a non-issue.

Trey Hollingsworth, a wealthy businessman who has lived in Indiana less than a year, is spending more than $1 million of his own money in the crowded congressional contest in south central Indiana, according to recent disclosure reports.

In addition, Hollingsworth’s father, has spent another $370,000 on a super political action committee, which has run ads praising Hollingsworth and criticizing Attorney General Greg Zoeller, one of the four other Republicans vying for the nomination to succeed Rep. Todd Young.

The combined amount spent by Hollingsworth and his father through March is 10 times the amount spent by Hollingsworth’s next closest financial competitor, state Sen. Erin Houchin.

Houchin and Zoeller have accused Hollingsworth of trying to buy the congressional seat....

So this is the guy who's lecturing policymakers about being unwilling to put on "big boy and big girl pants" and demanding that others risk their lives on the job. Has he ever worked a day in his life on a shop floor or in a cubicle farm? Does he have any idea what it's like for ordinary people -- as opposed to start-up executives financed by Daddy's money -- to go back to work under these conditions?

And I'll remind you that, as a congressman, Hollingsworth just had his own enforced time away from the workplace extended to at least May 4.

If Hollingsworth had ever lived like a normal wage slave, I might take him seriously. But he has no idea how the rest of us live.