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by TheTacoMerchant
1984 days ago
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Is it not possible for people to remain in small communities and not be seen by you as "refusing to make any effort to catch up"? I'm not American, so if I can offer ab outise perspective it's this: Trumps base was/is made up of majority poor white rural Americans, with a coalition of racists and extremists bolted on. What's crucial in that is the majority are just poor white townspeople. They lost their jobs because overseas laborers are willing to do the same work for less; because consumers don't care if the latest iPhone is made in Cali or in some Chinese interment camp. Same thing for coal and oil jobs. The world changed and these are the people who lost their livelihoods for it. I've been watching American politics my whole life, and Trump was the first politician I saw to truly acknowledge that there is a large portion of the population that are suffering economically for things out of their control and told them it wasn't their fault. |
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Leaving aside fault for the moment...
The jobs are gone. So we have a few options:
* people can do what I said, retrain, maybe move, do something else
* people can do nothing and get benefits to sit there doing nothing.
I don't think there is a third option, but let me know if I'm missing something?
The issue is, 80% of people refuse to the first one. They sit in rust belt towns and die deaths of despair.
So what do we do?
Trumps solution, which they have chosen, is nothing. We do nothing. No healthcare for them, no improved benefits, no retraining.
Since they chose that, I could live with it. But I don't want to be tied to them and live with the rest of the shitty things trump wants to do.
I'm more than happy to hear a solution here. I've tried not to blame anyone. I honestly believe that it wasn't their fault the coal mine (etc) closed. I just don't see an option beyond waiting for them to die before we can progress economically or socially.
And that's not really acceptable to me. I'm gay, and I don't think I should be forced to be a second class citizen just because other people are bitter about their life and voted for a Fuck Everyone candidate. I'm sure there are women who will want reproductive health rights that feel the same way. I'm sympathetic, I came from just suck a place. But there does come a point where I feel like saying "you're not dragging me down with you".
Full disclosure: I'm actually a brit. But we have the exact same thing happening here. Only its Boris Johnson and Brexit (which will last much longer than trumpism).
I hope you can understand where I'm coming from.