Our little Wax Trax Records is just one of 33 million small businesses in the US, and our staff are just 20 Americans out of 340 million, so we don’t have any illusions of being central or even important amidst the massive shifts going on in the country right now, but for anyone who cares, here’s just a little about how these current events are affecting us.
Ever since I came back home to Denver in March of 2020 to take the reins of Wax Trax during the pandemic, I’ve stated our goal as ‘preparing for the next 50 years,’ and up until now, things have been going exceedingly well. Our business has grown, we have expanded to two new locations, and we’ve been able to create new jobs, even creating more specialized jobs more than we have in the past, and not to mention doing what we can to diversify our staff as we hire (more diversity is always a goal here, whether the government likes it or not). Along with investing in this growth in the business, we have also been investing in our building, trying to modernize its systems to prepare ourselves for any possible future.
In the last three months however, we are starting to see major challenges on the horizon – not only the threat of a tariff-induced recession, but also challenges to the personal safety and well-being of our staff. Given the ever polarizing political climate, it makes sense to carefully divide this into policies we disagree with (correctable in the next round of elections), and erosions in our democracy that create an existential threat (preventing a fair election). The former presents a difficult challenge but is basically legal, and the latter threatens us to the core and goes against the U.S. Constitution.
On the policy side, we were preparing to finance a major renovation to our building on 13th Avenue, including replacing our aging furnaces with modern heat pumps and solar power, but Trump’s tariffs have recently made that project difficult. We’re currently finding it impossible to apply for financing because the prices on the equipment we’d need are entirely unpredictable due to Trump’s tariffs. Not to mention the possibility of the federal and state tax credits for these climate-friendly appliances being clawed back or eliminated mid-project. And while that’s a shame for our staff who have to deal with uneven heating and the like, the project (and many others like it across the city) also would have provided work for people in the construction trades, so there’s another drop in the bucket for a worsening economy. I can only assume that this is happening to hundreds of thousands of building owners across the country right about now. And that’s a lot of blue collar workers soon sitting idle.
We are also seeing the first indications that prices will rise for our customers due to the Trump tariffs. Audio-Technica and Ortofon, our suppliers of turntables, cartridges and styli, have both announced price increases, prompting us to stock up on both before they hit (it’s a good time to buy if you were already planning to). On vinyl, we’ve already seen some tariffs on our UK imports, though the real increases may come when whatever stocks of raw materials they have at the pressing plants run out. The PVC used in LPs is produced in Asia, where tariffs have gone through the roof, and many records published domestically in the U.S. are actually pressed in Europe. The only hope on the horizon now is a nebulous deal with the UK, just one of around 200 that need to be made to end Trump’s all-out trade war.
On the erosion-of-democracy side, in addition to the president attacking the media, the Democratic party’s fundraising apparatus (and their lawyers), and destroying the social safety net here and abroad, the president has said he doesn’t believe in due process, and people on staff are very concerned about executive actions that have targeted the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants, some staff even warning management they may flee the country soon. All this makes hopes for future elections changing the policy picture, and directly threatens many already vulnerable populations.
I myself am a green card holder – my dad (aka my business partner) being an American and my mom a Canadian – and based on the recent experiences of many others, it’s not outlandish to say that I could be detained at a future border crossing just for writing this – as a spy for the Canadians! This is just one of the many threats to our democracy that eats away at my heart. Both of my Canadian grandfathers fought in WWII alongside Americans and one of them lost a leg to the Nazis. And for what, to have the Americans elect an authoritarian and then try to invade Canada? It should have been unthinkable, but as Trump recently told the new Canadian Prime Minister “Never say never.”
Another young member of our family, in line for owning part of the store someday, is trans, and therefore no longer recognized by the U.S. as who they are and always have been. America has never been perfect, and it has always othered people and trampled on their rights, disinvested in their neighborhoods and education and so on, but in my lifetime I have not seen such a huge step backwards in this too-slow progress.
We also know many folks who have been fired from their jobs from the federal government, many of whom were engaged in highly worthy tasks saving lives here and around the world.
Added to all these personal connections is what we can see in the news. Because my grandfathers fought in WWII, I was very invested in the fight against Russia’s dictator, Putin, in Ukraine. I see it as a continuation of the fight for freedom that we began in 1941, when the Japanese tried to neutralize our Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor. Seeing the death and destruction in Ukraine and in Gaza worries me about the safe harbors we might try to find in the rest of the world if we live. If our leaders become like Putin or Netanyahu – willing to take land and nations by force, who is left to stand for freedom and democracy? Europe? Australia? Their militaries are not able to withstand these evil forces on their own.
World politics is not something a small business should need to worry about. Yet they have become a massive and unavoidable distraction from everything the world needs to be focused on right now. We need to (and were starting to) take on the massive task of rebuilding our systems around sustainability to save the planet, and making moves for all people to get a fair deal in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – but instead we’re reverting into our dark past – struggles we are now doomed to repeat apparently.
The store has been through five decades, six recessions, a pandemic (not to mention the rise of compact discs, and the Napster era). ‘We’re not about to quit now’ is my first take on the current unfolding crisis. And I think that more of us (particularly those far more powerful than little old Wax Trax) need to think about what we can lose collectively (our freedom) than what we can lose individually (our status, position, money), because those things are so much less without the ability to make our own choices about the collective future we want (especially if the other option is climate disaster).
Wax Trax is holding strong as of this writing, as we hope you are, because if we run we may not find anywhere safe to run to. The voices of resistance need to be too many for them to handle. We encourage you to stay and draw the line on threats to our democracy so that we can one day hope to correct the terrible policies being enacted through unilateral executive orders now. Even the least powerful among us can demonstrate their views, so that the more powerful can feel that resistance is worth the sacrifice. And to those powerful folks, if you’re reading, I would like to point out that it’s already clear the resistance already has and will always have the better artists, bands, and parties.
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