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The fact that the Democratic Party abandoned the white working class is in doubt?


InDefenseOfPOMO

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InDefenseOfPOMO

I do not know what it would be like if I was bringing this up, oh, 40 years ago. Maybe people would respond with things like, "I had never thought of it that way before" or "Interesting new perspective. Thanks for sharing that!".

 

But the political climate today almost invariably means that you had better brace yourself for "Do you believe everything that you read?!", "That is right-wing BS!", "That is historic-revisionist nonsense! Please do everybody a favor and not give it any credibility by spreading it any farther", "That author has repeatedly been exposed as a right-wing hack", etc.

 

Welcome to liberal democracy.

 

Anyway, what I just discovered is not new to me. Furthermore, it is not some recent new perspective. Many years ago a book in library stacks randomly got my attention. I checked it out and read it. It was a book written in the early 1970's--well before Ronald Reagan took power; certainly well before Donald Trump was elected President. I do not know the title, author, publisher, etc. I have tried to get the library to check my borrowing history for that information, but they say that they do not have records that far back. However, I do recall that in the book the author states that the Democratic Party had abandoned the working class. He probably said white working class, but I am not sure. Also, I can assure you that the author was not some future FOX News contributor--he would be considered liberal by today's standards--maybe even progressive--and the book was mostly about poverty in the U.S.

 

I do not know if Christopher Lasch ever specifically said white working class or Democratic Party, but I do know that the Left abandoning the working class was a recurring theme in his work.

 

Honestly, I did not know that there was any doubt or controversy in the matter.

 

Yet, in the following interview I discovered a few minutes ago the late Judith Stein felt that a myth needed to be debunked: the myth that says white working class voters, motivated by racism, abandoned the Democratic Party and headed over to the Republican Party. No, she says. It was the other way around, she says: the Democratic Party elites abandoned white working class voters:

 

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/white-working-class-new-deal-racism-reagan-democrats/

 

I will now brace myself for the onslaught of "How can you believe such right-wing historic-revisionist nonsense?!"

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 I agree that at lot of Democrats abandoned working class Americans, while (rather absurdly) Donald Trump courted. them.  It is perplexing that one of the ultra-elite (trump) is somehow seen as the champion of the "common man".  

 

IMHO this was the Democrats screwup and I hope they fix it before the next election. 

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The DNC is incredibly broken and mostly cowardly, and has been for a long time. The entire political spectrum went to hell, and we end up in a period where unions are utterly demonized and undefended. Even mentioning workers is bad form now, despite... you know, the workers. And this is the problem with the DNC and most candidates; they have no plans to change anything. Better than Trump, yes, but that is all they have.

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The parties, the unions and some people are so corrupted by the elite to where they'll kill or imprison anyone who dares to speak out.

'Freedom to live a happy life' they call it only if you conform to everything, blindly obey orders, and buy their gimmicks.

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Alawyn-Aebt
7 minutes ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

the myth that says white working class voters, motivated by racism, abandoned the Democratic Party and headed over to the Republican Party. No, she says. It was the other way around, she says: the Democratic Party elites abandoned white working class voters:

Both are incorrect. White working class voters left for of multiple reasons, certainly racism did have some part to motivate the South to switch from a Democratic stronghold to a Republican stronghold, the actions of Barry Goldwater and other Republicans show how they, even if not racism themselves, used language that could be seen as mildly sympathetic to the most powerful racists.

False consciousness played another major part and continues to this day. It is like Herman Göring said, "the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Make the white middle class voters afraid and you have their votes.

Another part is economic, this is a major component. Fear of economic catastrophe in the late 1960s and 1970s allowed those pushing neoconservative (and neoliberal, which sometimes align economically) economic ideals to find fertile ground in the minds of many workers, despite how those economic ideals were detrimental to those very same workers.

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Scottthespy

That's interesting...because most of the people I talk to talk about the revisionist  crazy left-wing nonsense. I'm a centrist myself, and I hear more and more stories of 'anti fascists' practicing fascism, segregation of race being touted as progressive and positive by the far left, and any body who doesn't embrace world wide socialism being called 'nazis'. Its getting a little scary.

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21 minutes ago, Scottthespy said:

I'm a centrist myself, and I hear more and more stories of 'anti fascists' practicing fascism, segregation of race being touted as progressive and positive by the far left, and any body who doesn't embrace world wide socialism being called 'nazis'.

Legitimately never heard those stories used by legitimate sources. Where are you getting these? (Not being accusing, just curious cause I've read that shit on Breitbart, for example, or maybe even Fox, but nothing more central than that.)

Though some people are just stupid and use terms wrong (*innocent whistle out of past events of doing just this*). Some people claim the nazis were socialist and it just makes me blink and stare because how do you counter such stupidity? 

 

I've heard more horror stories from the right. Like our president using the univerally known to be racist line "Go back to your country" being brushed off and even people once again claiming he's not racist for assuming people of color aren't (or weren't) Americans. But then, I'm hella fucking left. There's no wonder why I dislike our country's politics. 

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Identity politics etc are a problem, but I think that is getting a bit off topic

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28 minutes ago, Scottthespy said:

That's interesting...because most of the people I talk to talk about the revisionist  crazy left-wing nonsense. I'm a centrist myself, and I hear more and more stories of 'anti fascists' practicing fascism, segregation of race being touted as progressive and positive by the far left, and any body who doesn't embrace world wide socialism being called 'nazis'. Its getting a little scary.

There is a lot of exaggerated rhetoric from both sides, but IMHO liberals have been especially bad about this. It has become very difficult to be a moderate in the US because you are viewed as complicit in the offenses of both sides. 

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One of the tings I've found interesting about America is everyone's self-perception. We have a tendency to view ourselves as middle class, even when we technically aren't, or at least to not think of ourselves as working class. (That is a different issue from the working class not self-advocating). The average/median incomes and cost of living have been out of whack, especially charted against general quality of life, which is increasing for everyone when you think about prevalence of computers and access to media compared to cost of living like tuition or debt.

 

The mere fact that so many exceedingly rich people and corporations straight-faced talk about unions being greedy (often in their internal propaganda campaigns against unions) and mange to convince the majority of workers is sad enough.

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Part of the problem is that "middle class" income depends a lot on location in the US due to variations in cost of living.  People may also have a middle class culture, but considerably higher income, which can lead to confusion on how to label themselves. 

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That is very true. And anywhere around a major city, especially San Francisco, is insane. You can earn $100k+ and still be priced out, which would make you rich almost anywhere else. Being "poor" is relative, even here, where we have an exploding homeless problem, even with a "liberal" minimum wage approach.

 

Edit; you always hear the "they aren't poor, they have cable TV" argument, but that is really avoiding the issue for most people.

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Neither of the parties of America’s political duopoly really gives a damn about us. I can’t say when they stopped caring about people, or if they ever cared to begin with, but I see no reason to doubt that an author in the 70’s wrote that one of them abandoned the working class.

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I'm middle class. Maybe lower middle class, but I've come to recognize that I'm not working class. I have friends who are though because of where I grew up and went to school.  I don't believe the democratic party has "abandoned" the white working class, and I think saying so is framing it intending to upset people. I believe the white working class might not be a priority, but I don't believe the republicans have them as a priority either, they're just better at spinning that they are.

 

In one of my college classes, I remember one of my teachers describing her family with a term synonymous with "white trash" and saying it was "their word" we couldn't use (mostly as a joke). She was far left and often got into arguments with her family who would actively vote against "liberal policies" they would benefit from because they were pushed from the democrats and not the republicans. 

 

Let's use one example. Who is most likely to benefit from the legalization of abortions? Working class women, white or otherwise. Anyone higher class than that can afford access to birth control regularly or be able to find somewhere they can get an abortion, illegally or abroad. The republicans, to my limited and biased knowledge, are more against abortion and forms of birth control than democrats. 

 

There's also medical insurance. Who's more likely to go into crippling medical debt because of our screwed up system: upper, middle, or working class people? Who's more likely to benefit from unions? Who's more likely to be killed because their rich CEOs cut corners and decide to give themselves a bonus instead of have proper safety features? (Yes, rich CEOs can be liberal, I'm mostly mad at Trump and the coal industry here so forgive me for painting with a wide brush.)

 

No, democrats don't advertise themselves well. I hate them too (extreme left for America, here). But I wouldn't say "abandon." To me, that's like asking why people are "against women's rights" when they're anti-abortion. It's intentionally inflammatory and only somewhat accurate. 

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My beef is with the actual body of the Democrats Party. When we talk about abandoning, that is the body - the group that thinks Biden or Clinton is progressive. They are hardly "leftist" in any meaningful sense, other than moderately more socially liberal, and then they have a burning desire to cater to moderates rather than push any actual policy.

 

I'm not a Democrat and I'm tired of relying on them in this two party, anti-choice electoral college system. I also recognize that I'm in a minority, but that won't shut me up.

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AspieAlly613

Here's my guess:

 

We (the Democrats) abandoned certain types of working-class people not because they were working class, but because of their personalities/lifestyles.

 

This came in two forms:

  1. Degrading their lifestyles
  2. Accepting and embracing lifestyles that they found repulsive.

Recall that people's socioeconomic class is not purely determined by their income.  It's more determined by social class than by money.  I would guess that of the working-class Republicans whose parents were working-class Democrats, most live in rural (or maybe suburban) areas, that most are Christian, and that most entered the workforce directly after high school instead of getting a college degree.  I believe that these three qualities were the source of their abandonment by the Democratic Party.

 

The supposedly inclusive, tolerant Democrats don't seem to mind (and actively participate in) making fun of "rednecks".  The gun control debate is clearly not about gun safety (the center left and center right believe in banning the most dangerous people from owning guns and that only the government should ave access to the most dangerous guns; despite the agreement on both sides of the aisle, this is still highly polarizing,) but is instead about gun culture, prevalent in rural communities.

 

Democrats have grown to support many policies that oppose Christian moral law and impede Christian religious upbringing.  For example, we have grown to support same-sex marriage, support availability of abortion rather than having pregnancy be a deterrent to prevent pre-marital sex, oppose health classes advocating abstinence and discouraging pre-marital sex on the grounds that pre-marital sex itself isn't a problem but spread of disease is the problem, oppose the use of the Ten Commandments as symbols in government buildings, oppose homeschooling and charter schools, and support laws more lenient to drug-users.

 

Finally, there's the matter of the difference between entering the workforce directly or going to college first.  As far as I can tell, a common mindset in rural communities is that entering the workforce shows good character and work ethic while that is less certain about going to college.  If a student takes 20+ credits per term studying complicated math and science classes, that's almost as good as getting a job right away.  However, the stereotypical college student who gets drunk frequently and studies a perceived low-effort, perceived low-utility major such as gender studies or literature, that's just laziness.  The Democrats have come to embrace going to college regardless of one's course of study, demonstrating a disregard for the importance of character and work ethic.

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InDefenseOfPOMO

If work ethic and lifestyle are the variables, I see no variation.

 

Some people have more money and live in newer subdivisions/developments, but nearly everybody I encounter in the U.S. lives to be a capitalist consumer and maximize leisure while minimizing work.

 

Almost nobody has a spiritual or intellectual life. The home, as some observers have pointed out, is now almost nothing more than a place for entertainment and consumption.

 

Some may only go fishing at the lake down the interstate every weekend while others fly to Europe or the Bahamas every month, but to me it is all the same. Comfort and self-gratification through capitalist consumption is the purpose of life, and the purpose of work is nothing more than to pay for that lifestyle. Education is nothing more than training for that work.

 

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" is now "Life is short, so consume all that you can in your limited time of existing".

 

I guess if I had to pick a label I would say that I am a working class intellectual. Wendell Berry living in the suburbs rather than on a farm.

 

Nearly everybody (except me, Wendell Berry, etc.) has bought into neoliberalism, but some have gained from it while others have greatly suffered from it. It is the latter who Democrats have neglected.

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26 minutes ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

Nearly everybody (except me, Wendell Berry, etc.) has bought into neoliberalism, but some have gained from it while others have greatly suffered from it.

Can you clarify by who you are intending to say hasn't "bought into" neoliberalism? Because I think neoliberalism fucking sucks. I think the problem with it lies in capitalism and the idea that people and things are comodities. I was taught that as well in my college classes and only one person in one class was in favor of it (at least enough to raise his hand in a class full of us against it, brave dude. We didn't give him shit.)  Basically, it's not just me but a large number of people I've talked to in college (acknowledging that I was in a major that tended to attract left-wing people) and online. 

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The Dems didn't abandon the working class.

 

There is no working class anymore, since American corporations stopped making actual physical items like steel and cars and started simply providing services, like hamburgers and software.   Hamburgers = low-wage workers, software = high-wage workers; no more union jobs.  

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InDefenseOfPOMO
1 hour ago, sithgirlix said:

Can you clarify by who you are intending to say hasn't "bought into" neoliberalism?

 

There are some influential dissenters in academia and government, and maybe even in the business world. Among those in the general population who are informed and politically and economically conscious, dissenters can probably reliably be found.

 

But, it seems to me, the overwhelming majority of people either acquiesce to or actively approve of every aspect of their society and their personal lives being commodified; priced; privately owned and exchanged in markets for profit; uprooted and subjected to relocation at any moment due to markets; automated; quantified and manipulated on spreadsheets; etc.

 

I do not hear widespread dissent against the neoliberal university holding humanities departments accountable for specific outcomes and in the process undermining the spirit of and threatening the future of liberal arts education. Instead, I almost invariably hear people groaning about having to take a history class that is delaying them from graduating and getting a lucrative job.

 

I do not hear widespread dissent against iconic sports venues losing their identify as naming rights are sold. Instead, I almost invariably hear people saying that that is the way the market works and if you have a problem with it you need to grow up and get over your nostalgia.

 

If a large portion of the population hates and opposes neoliberalism, they are good actors. Their attitudes, choices, etc. tell me that they are happy to go along with neoliberalism and every aspect of life everywhere on the globe being corporatized and dominated by markets.

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I am SO sick of hearing/reading the word "neoliberalism."   Because it means nothing.  

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InDefenseOfPOMO
6 hours ago, Aebt said:

White working class voters left for of multiple reasons, certainly racism did have some part to motivate the South to switch from a Democratic stronghold to a Republican stronghold, the actions of Barry Goldwater and other Republicans show how they, even if not racism themselves, used language that could be seen as mildly sympathetic to the most powerful racists.

 

I am not saying that that is incorrect.

 

But the Sun Belt--the population in the South growing while the population in other regions declined--might have played a little part. More people means more Electors to whoever wins a state in a presidential election, more representatives in Congress, etc.

 

And at least one book I have encountered concludes, after a close examination of voter registrations and other records, that it was suburban sprawl in the South, not racism, that led to Republican dominance.

 

Just some things to think about.

 

 

6 hours ago, Aebt said:

False consciousness played another major part and continues to this day. It is like Herman Göring said, "the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Make the white middle class voters afraid and you have their votes.

Another part is economic, this is a major component. Fear of economic catastrophe in the late 1960s and 1970s allowed those pushing neoconservative (and neoliberal, which sometimes align economically) economic ideals to find fertile ground in the minds of many workers, despite how those economic ideals were detrimental to those very same workers.

 

The evidence seems clear to me that some Democrats--who eventually took control of the party--made a conscious choice to abandon New Deal / Great Society economic policies.

 

Even if they did not intentionally or unintentionally "abandon" a class of voters (although I vaguely recall reading about one communication that specifically said that that should be part of the strategy), it seems to me that the fact that they forgot about a reliable part of their traditional base cannot be easily dismissed.

 

If you feel like one party is ignoring you and the other is listening to you, you are likely to vote for the latter, even that is not in your best interest.

 

I think that these days everything is poll-driven. That did not work well for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

 

It is about who people trust, who connects with them, etc. Calling a significant portion of voters "deplorables" is probably not a good idea if you need people to trust you and believe in you.

 

It may all be a self-fulfilling prophecy: you decide that you are going to bet everything on the support of certain demographic categories; those demographic categories are to a great extent racial; people outside of those categories look elsewhere for leaders who represent their interests; those leaders play the race card to galvanize their new base; and what really is about economic security for everybody in every demographic category turns into a culture war over race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.

 

Let's end the culture wars and then see what the voting behavior of white working class people is like. My guess is that it would result not in racists voting with their bigotry but, rather, diverse groups finding solidarity between themselves. That is probably one of the last things that the elites in either major party want to see.

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Alawyn-Aebt
15 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

It is about who people trust, who connects with them, etc. Calling a significant portion of voters "deplorables" is probably not a good idea if you need people to trust you and believe in you.

Hillary Clinton had way more major issues that merely that. Simply put she was not very inspiring. I think most people disconnected with her over her seeming lack of inspiration as opposed to saying something offensive. Trump has called people far worse...

 

15 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

If you feel like one party is ignoring you and the other is listening to you, you are likely to vote for the latter, even that is not in your best interest.

The Democrats dumped the New Deal/Great Society because it died at the time. Nixon came then Ford and Cartier (two who were really unlucky and faced huge challenges) then Reagan entered the scene. To those Democrats who clung on to the remnants of the New Deal/Great Society it looked as if they were politically dead. Nixon and Ford were Republicans (fairly moderate by today's standards in some regards, but still Republicans) and Cartier was not really in the same mold as Johnson, Kennedy, Truman, or FDR. Reagan shows up and it looks as if the New Deal/Great Society is unpopular and collapsing. Let us also not forget the impact of stagflation which Keynesian economics (upon which New Deal/Great Society economic theory is built upon) did not have a good answer to. They abandoned the New Deal/Great Society because it loss its popularity and faced issues.

15 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

If you feel like one party is ignoring you and the other is listening to you, you are likely to vote for the latter, even that is not in your best interest.

Really? You would vote with a party that was against your interests just because you felt like the other was not listening to you? I would vote in the way I felt was best for me and others, not merely voting the opposite of whatever party was not paying attention to me.

15 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

Let's end the culture wars and then see what the voting behavior of white working class people is like. My guess is that it would result not in racists voting with their bigotry but, rather, diverse groups finding solidarity between themselves. That is probably one of the last things that the elites in either major party want to see.

I do not know that both parties would suffer from it. Certainly a lot of wealthy people would have a stake in keeping them going, but if we ended the culture wars both major parties would not simply implode.

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16 hours ago, Sally said:

The Dems didn't abandon the working class.

 

There is no working class anymore, since American corporations stopped making actual physical items like steel and cars and started simply providing services, like hamburgers and software.   Hamburgers = low-wage workers, software = high-wage workers; no more union jobs.  

I think some software work *could* become union jobs. Maybe we need to get out of the mind set that union jobs only apply to people who work with their hands. 

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Scottthespy
23 hours ago, sithgirlix said:

Legitimately never heard those stories used by legitimate sources. Where are you getting these? (Not being accusing, just curious cause I've read that shit on Breitbart, for example, or maybe even Fox, but nothing more central than that.)

Though some people are just stupid and use terms wrong (*innocent whistle out of past events of doing just this*). Some people claim the nazis were socialist and it just makes me blink and stare because how do you counter such stupidity? 

 

I've heard more horror stories from the right. Like our president using the univerally known to be racist line "Go back to your country" being brushed off and even people once again claiming he's not racist for assuming people of color aren't (or weren't) Americans. But then, I'm hella fucking left. There's no wonder why I dislike our country's politics. 

These are the stories I hear. As I've never witnessed any of them in person, I can't speak for the validity of any of them. The news likes to make extreme claims, and often will leave out bits and pieces to make a better picture for whatever side the news channel is on. Its always wise to take stories from any side with a grain of salt, listen to it from other sides and, try to piece together the whole truth.

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InDefenseOfPOMO
On 7/18/2019 at 10:01 PM, AspieAlly613 said:

If a student takes 20+ credits per term studying complicated math and science classes, that's almost as good as getting a job right away.  However, the stereotypical college student who gets drunk frequently and studies a perceived low-effort, perceived low-utility major such as gender studies or literature, that's just laziness.  The Democrats have come to embrace going to college regardless of one's course of study, demonstrating a disregard for the importance of character and work ethic.

 

The job conditions of an engineer sound better than those of a cultural anthropologist. Or is there an air conditioned break room with cable TV for a cultural anthropologist doing field work?

 

Anyway, what does the data of the ones with supposedly poor work ethics--social scientists--say? Is there a study showing that those with BA's in Women's Studies work fewer hours than those with BS's in STEM disciplines? Philosophy majors binge drink more than Biology majors, a new study shows? Degree holders in Physics relocate more for employment--and farther away from their hometowns--than degree holders in Psychology, recent research shows?

 

If STEM courses are a lot of work I hope that does not mean that they are more work than the introductory Social Work class I completed many years ago. It was the hardest I have ever worked for 3 credit hours in a 100-level course. On your own having to find a way to do some kind of volunteer work at some social service agency, and then having to write a paper about it and make a presentation in front of the class about it?! I sure hope grade inflation was not a factor, because I worked hard to earn that "A" on my transcript. If that is the choice of lazy students, I hope I never have to take another STEM course!

 

I guess now I know what people mean when they say that pursuing a degree in Philosophy is "a luxury". Not only do us non-STEM people get to do all that work like in that Social Work course, we get to be in the lowest income brackets when we graduate! Who needs yachts and Hawaii vacations when you can have luxuries like pursuing a BA in Philosophy?

 

Speaking of education and work ethic, I have worked in a nice office surrounded by people with BA's or BS's and I have worked in not-so-nice environments like big box stores surrounded by people who mostly have nothing more than a high school diploma. The latter work much harder for lower pay but don't complain much. The former do not know how good they have it and often did dishonest, unethical things to get ahead.

 

We kind of have a mythical meritocracy. Supposedly your income is an accurate measure of how hard you work and how much knowledge and skills you possess. But in reality neither hard work nor honest work are highly valued. It is results that are valued. Being in a position to produce results is mostly about networking, having a credential with the name of the right institution on it, etc. It is about social skills, not merit.

 

If rural Americans believe that their hard work is unfairly undervalued, they are probably correct. But they are correct for the wrong reasons. The hard work of anybody anywhere is undervalued--even degree holders in Women's Studies. If all it took to be appreciated and generously compensated was hard, honest work, there would not be books telling people how to beat the competition by having the perfectly-written resume, knowing how to network, etc.

 

I do not know if there was a time when people were not narcissists who saw education and work as existing to serve them and meet their personal needs. But if we want people to value education as part of a healthy civilization and work as as having intrinsic value, a system that accounts for and emphasizes knowledge, skills and work ethic actually possessed is needed for a change. The timing, path taken, and skill at marketing oneself tell us nothing about the quality of the worker.

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InDefenseOfPOMO
On 7/19/2019 at 5:08 PM, Aebt said:

Hillary Clinton had way more major issues that merely that.

 

Obama recovered from Jeremiah Wright and "cling to guns and religion". He called the latter "boneheaded".

 

Hillary may not have lost because she called a large percentage of the population "deplorables"--she got more votes than her opponent--but it did not help.

 

 

On 7/19/2019 at 5:08 PM, Aebt said:

Simply put she was not very inspiring. I think most people disconnected with her over her seeming lack of inspiration as opposed to saying something offensive. Trump has called people far worse...

 

She got more votes than her opponent.

 

Would as many people have showed up at the polls to vote for her opponent if she did not call them "deplorables"?

 

Her campaign was too focused on her opponent, his supporters, and polls.

 

It worked--I made sure I got out and voted against her opponent who I will say, at the risk of making the understatement of the century, was unfit for the Presidency. It was not a vote for her.

 

What do you think she could have done to be inspiring and win Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc.?

 

Did she ever address the issues of the working class? I do not recall any such effort. Her husband's policies were partly to blame, so she couldn't say anything, maybe?

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Alawyn-Aebt
11 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

She got more votes than her opponent.

Agreed, and she was certainly the best practical option available, what I was saying was that compared to Bernie or even Obama her campaign felt lacking. Even her motto, "I'm with her" was not near as inspiring as Obama's "Yes we can".

11 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

What do you think she could have done to be inspiring and win Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc.?

 

Did she ever address the issues of the working class? I do not recall any such effort. Her husband's policies were partly to blame, so she couldn't say anything, maybe?

There are many places in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc, which are hurting economically with no end in sight. Hillary Clinton seemed to not really state her plans to fix those economic issues, or if she did she had a hard time conveying her plans to the people who lived there. What she stood for could easily be seen as a mere continuation of Obama's presidency, but without the signature achievements of Obamacare, etc. In light of a lack of planned policies (or a lack of information about said policies) those states voted instead with false consciousness, the pull of the idea of "culture wars" was too great. They might have voted Trump anyways regardless if Hillary Clinton had made her planned policies apparent, but her lack of plans and lack of spark in her campaign definitely did not help her.

Trump, even though his plans were nonsense, off-the-walls bizarre, and never fully outlined, did make his plans stated. Tariffs (particularly on non-China nations) in the present economic climate are a horrid idea, and hard to implement without triggering retaliatory tariffs, but to the average worker in an economically-depressed state a plan sounds better than no plan. Americans are also woefully misinformed about economics, so that probably had a part to play too.

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On 7/19/2019 at 2:16 PM, uhtred said:

I think some software work *could* become union jobs. Maybe we need to get out of the mind set that union jobs only apply to people who work with their hands. 

Of course it could.  But I was talking about why the middle class greatly diminished in America, and that was because union jobs in previous decades were factory/trades jobs, and corporations destroyed those unions and stopped actually making stuff.  

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20 hours ago, InDefenseOfPOMO said:

Would as many people showed up at the polls to vote for her opponent if she did not call them "deplorables"?

 

Her campaign was too focused on her opponent, his supporters, and polls.

And that is exactly why Trump can win again.

 

It floors me that professions like retail workers haven't unionized. The DNC should be campaigning for worker's rights. Our industrial production has mostly moved overseas, but there are tons of service industries that are not represented at all, and anti-union propaganda has been depressingly effective. Reagan really killed it all, and the DNC has no backbone.

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