Similarly, if parties who claim to be of the left want blue collar voters, they have to offer better jobs, not sociology lectures.
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Which in various left-wing circles of late seems to get translated as, “Embrace their racism and homophobia,” for some reason.
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Living in Illinois I can tell you two things:
- They really do believe that jobs will come back. One person honestly believes that the Maytag plant will come back from Mexico (for example).
- Every single person that I know who voted for trump says nigger every chance they can get away with it - and it’s derivatives they think make them not racist like “thug, animal, nigs, savages, etc.” Every. Single. Trump. Voter. I. Know. My city was red even though Illinois is blue - the KKK is big here. 20 years ago when I moved here they burned a cross on a guys lawn (about two weeks after I got here) and that same town used to have a sign (again within the last 20 years) that said “No blacks after sundown”
Not racist my ass.
Fuck the smarmy pandering fucks who try to pretend this election wasn’t about one fucking thing.
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Racism was part of it, but it’s never about one thing. Don’t fall for that.
As far as I’m concerned this discussion by two scholars is required viewing for anyone who is really interested in what happened (and it’s fairly watchable):
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Class struggle isn’t class struggle if you are just going to create a new class below yourself when you win.
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I’m unsure what you mean by that and don’t want to assume - would you elaborate?
This is very good - I’m only about halfway through. And I agree - I just think the people who wanted economic change were sold a bill of goods and the price of our country was too high a price to pay for dreams and hopes.
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I’ll wager the following:
Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has never gone to public school. She’s never worked in one, and she didn’t send her kids to one, either.
She’s an advocate for “school choice,” which allows the spending of public funds at private and religious schools. I’m not a fan.
To that end (and given Trump being Trump), I’d say we’re looking at the start of a war against teachers and teacher unions. Because teachers “aren’t held accountable” (they are) and have “cushy jobs” (they don’t) and “only work part of the year” (not really true).
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But why would Trump and the Republicans more generally want Americans’ education to suffer?
Yikes!
ETA: Taking another look at those lines, where is the point where educated people cross over with less educated people and started favouring the Democrats? Oh, it was George Bush Jr.
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So I’m totally fine with people being able to pull money intended for their children’s education from the public system and re-direct it to the NGO of their choice- maybe a nice catholic school where nuns with no educational training can beat their children like God intended.
IF
I’m also allowed to pull my tax dollars from the US military and apply those funds to the military of my choice.
Fair’s fair, right?
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These folks look like they could use some funding.
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It does not work if some enjoy the benefit of Union negotiated wages, while not being members of the Union. Otherwise all will take the higher wages, and pay none of the dues. This is the point of so called “right-to-work” laws - to undermine and break Unions, once accomplished then take advantage of the uncollected work force.
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There were many one things though. Trump did a great job picking divisive issues and appealing to single issue voters on those issues.
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That’s why people are lining up to pay out of pocket then for that private roadway, school, fire department, police, military, post office, etc… Living in a socialist country is a drag - so much more expensive and less reliable than a profiteer’s utopia would be.
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I’m going to build my own sewage treatment plant. It’s going to be awesome! And no, you can’t use it, you freeloaders. Build your own.
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Americans need to read more history.
The positive effects of unions on the landscape of employment today are huge. People died to secure things we take for granted in the workplace. Billions have been spent by business to convince us that unions are bad. It’s been working, unfortunately. Workers themselves have helped this happen by not being active in their own unions.
Do your own research. Let’s not be forced to repeat our bloody history.
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White collar workers have (relatively) decent salaries and a greater degree of freedom with regard to scheduling, location, and time off. They have networks and cliques with loyalties that transcend company boundaries, and in some cases an ability to get a 30%+ raise by laterally transferring to another company if the company they’re in doesn’t treat them well enough. It’s not all kittens and rainbows, there are pushes for long hours, always-on-call status, ridiculous non-compete agreements, etc. But the hardships are nothing compared to what others face. Perhaps more of a negative to unionizing is that many workers take pride in suffering those hardships as a tradeoff for those benefits.
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This here Jew would not only cross the street but might even go a few kilometers out of the way of these folks.
I grew up hearing from my often mentioned Grandfather about the positive benefits of unions and their history in America. As I grew a bit older and was more capable of understanding I spent lots of time asking him questions and reading on the subject.
My concern now is that Unions were a solution to problems of the past and that Trump or not, some kind of better solution is needed in the present.
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If you’ve been a good teacher, or had good teachers in your family, or had 2-3 kids in school, you know that in many public school systems there is a small minority of teachers that hate their jobs, hate the kids, and are just coasting until retirement.
I don’t want them teaching my kids. I want them out. With the help of the teacher’s union, or without it.
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Ok, this is what I don’t get. This justification has been used to burn every single public service to the ground in order to purge this heretical tiny minority, but it has never once worked ever.
Why are you so obsessed with literally not seeing the forest for the trees?
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