This from Elsa Alcala (retired Texas judge who has announced that she is leaving the GOP). Bold italics are mine:
“Even accepting that Trump has had some successes (and I believe these are few), at his core, his ideology is racism,” the 55-year-old retired judge wrote Monday in a Facebook post. “To me, nothing positive about him could absolve him of his rotten core.”
True enough. Unfortunately the subtext is that there’s nothing even resembling a democracy in our modern Plutocratic thingy we’ve got going here.
Sounds like she retired WAY too early…
More like an ologarchtistic kakistocracy.
Inbred, too. Like Alsatians with hip displasia.
Yeah the problem is I have already lost one job thanks to hating Trump. In 2016 I had to quit because the shop that I worked in literally hung an American flag on every machine and when I threw mine out I thought in secret someone saw and then hung a full size flag directly behind my machines.
They used my own countries flag as a weapon to piss me off and politicize the shop. Between that and shity management I finally had enough self-respect to quit and look for something better.
The working atmosphere included an active alcoholic (who nearly took out my kneecaps after his idiocy and lack of machine setup intelligence led to a part flying at full speed directly at my machine) and an admitted white supremacist who drove around on a forklift hailing Hitler as a joke, along with showing people photos of black people being lynched also as a joke.
The funny thing is I started as a teacher of language and became a machinist because of complex reasons.
I knew I would run into different types of people but I never expected to work with such scum.
To be fair not everyone I have worked with has been like this these are the extremes but in general most people I have worked with were extremely conservative and since Trump has been elected I have found most support him
So in the end laughing hard or putting any bumper stickers on supporting Bernie or anything that I listen to like black metal with upside down crosses in band logos I have to keep my entire self secret just to keep my job.
I have to pay my bills so I don’t have much choice but to not laugh.
Even my fucking landlord has a tea party Gadsden flag flying in his front yard and two separate further flag poles with full American flags in his front lawn and he lives right next to me. I live in an extremely red area that I never thought I would end up in.
The only peace I have is inside my house.
Excuse me now while I get drunk and try to cope with the insane reality I am forced to live with
I was a tool and cutter grinder in a previous life (among other things), and while it would seem that somehow we may have re-encountered each other after a long gap, I know by experience at many types of factory jobs it’s just the nature of many US factory workers to be conservative.
It really does suck to be enlightened in a retrograde workspace.
A toast! To Plato and his Cave.
Is your shop unionized?
Only lit by the flickering lights of the tool shop.
Both the place I left and the place I work are under the USW. Place I work now is a proper local that union rep seems to give a damn at least the one in the shop previous local was utterly useless and did nothing for us
I love it. The thing is I love machining I just hate machining for a living. Actually that’s not entirely true either.
I hate working in a machine shop for a living I would rather work by myself and not deal with any other personalities at all so… I think I may start my own shop that uses my specialties in watchmaking, toolmaking, and micromachining someday
I want to be able to drink and smoke and curse and play metal and Japanese hip hop as much as I want while I work😁
Honestly wondered if there was any other machinists on here nice to see that some people understand what a Tool & Die machinist does
I don’t understand how you anyone can possibly be pro union and pro republican. Much less pro trump.
The whole thing about unions is getting fairly compensated. The whole thing about trump is never EVER paying anyone for the work they do if he can possibly get away with it.
I am pro Union and absolutely anti-Trump, but I’m one of the strange ones I guess because I have a college degree in a foreign language before I became a machinist.
Seconded I have no idea how people are ok with being in union but conservative Republican either. It boggles my mind every day the amount of cognitive dissonance they entertain
One sentence. “I got mine.”
Together we bargain, apart we beg. Don’t expect to keep yours long with that kind of mentality.
Not trying to derail the thread or anything, but I can say even though both shops were USW, again- one local the first one that I left did nothing for the workers.
I’ve come to realize though unions are not innately good or bad.
Personally I believe people should have the option to unionize as it’s a layer of protection between the employer and the employee ideally. Historically it was needed and I think it still is but there are some unions that don’t do a damn thing for their people and I think it’s because they’re run by people who don’t care.
And at that same first shop there was someone who should have been fired many times but the union protected him and he was legitimately dangerous.
The stereotypes of the lazy man being protected by the union are unfortunately true too at times.
I am extremely liberal but even I understand they are not perfect and in fact deeply flawed in some cases.
Fortunately the people I work for now are generally very nice despite the ever-present Trumpness, its not overt in this place and most people leave my politics and religion alone.
pro-“us,” anti-“them”
??? Doesn’t political opinions/affiliations not being protected mean that they are more free to fire him for his political beliefs, not less?
A reminder: Before unions in the US, ‘vacation’ was the period between jobs.
Sounds friggin’ awful dude. I encourage you to move to Canada for your mental wellbeing. We are pretty welcoming to immigrants up here, even freaks that listen to Japanese hip-hop. 
