US Politics

Clinton got the majority of poor voters. The poor people who vote republicans are minorities of the country who live in rural areas which the democrats pour practically no resources into. It's hardly a wonder they'll vote for the person who is actually trying to get their support. The core republican demographic is "I'm alright Jack"
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
Poor white people are the easiest to trick in telling them that brown people and immigrants are the root cause of their quality of life. Lyndon Johnson said that if you tell a poor white guy he's better than the best colored man he won't notice you're picking his pocket.
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Well yeah in a country like the US racism is used to divided people but I don't think the poor white class is in anyway easy to trick(There's a long history of poor working class white standing together with people of colour to fight oppression). Let's remember most of Trump base is the small business owning middle class.
 
There clearly are a fecking lot of racists in America though. And it's pretty evident when they send people like Jess Sessions to represent them in Washington. Even if you view Trump as a protest against the corporatisation of America it doesn't explain why there's so many other, corporate friendly, elected racists in public offices.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
They were warned. They were asked to retrain and learn new skills even in the petroleum industry. They followed the lying buffoon. They knew the industry is dying because of stricter environmental laws. I have zero empathy for people who were given a choice then need to face the harsh consequences of making the stupid one instead of the obvious one. I'm an empathetic guy. I'm hardly partisan but these coal miners and workers were given a choice...all of them...during the 8 years of Obama.
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What choice were they given?
 


Economic anxiety on full show here
 
Silva said:
There clearly are a fecking lot of racists in America though. And it's pretty evident when they send people like Jess Sessions to represent them in Washington. Even if you view Trump as a protest against the corporatisation of America it doesn't explain why there's so many other, corporate friendly, elected racists in public offices.
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Of course there is and no one is denying that(Also the evangelical christian base as well)and actual the only thing I agree with Clinton was when she talked about half of trump support being a "basket of deplorables". But to me these deplorables aren't the poor who live in destroyed towns or the poor who are now dying of the Opioid Crisis. The deplorables are the small business owners, the middle class who's bigotry and racism terrifies them that one day they to could be poor, so they vote for a party like the Republican party.

Class solidarity will fix these problems but I don't think the people who are being gleeful over the faith of poor trump voting whites are in anyway interest in that approach.
 
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Eboue said:
What choice were they given?
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Obama energy secretary specifically made attempts to retrain some of these coal miners using the investment from solar. 14 million dollars was invested to retrain a lot of coal miners AND their spouses. A lot of them were going to be trained as electrical linemen and they said no simply because the wages were a bit lower than their coal jobs.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
Obama energy secretary specifically made attempts to retrain some of these coal miners using the investment from solar. 14 million dollars was invested to retrain a lot of coal miners AND their spouses. A lot of them were going to be trained as electrical linemen and they said no simply because the wages were a bit lower than their coal jobs.
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14 million dollars, omg they broke the bank
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
Obama energy secretary specifically made attempts to retrain some of these coal miners using the investment from solar. 14 million dollars was invested to retrain a lot of coal miners AND their spouses. A lot of them were going to be trained as electrical linemen and they said no simply because the wages were a bit lower than their coal jobs.
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Don't have any of the info on hand so could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure Clinton's manifesto had plans regarding this, in order to retrain coal miners etc for newer sectors. Could be wrong but if so it was certainly a better offer than Trump offering to prop up a dying sector.
 
Silva said:
14 million dollars, omg they broke the bank
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No need to be flippant about it. It was a start. More than anyone was willing to invest in their own future. That was tax payer money used to retrain private workers. It may not have been a lot of money but at least Obama was being honest to these workers about the fate of their coal jobs.
 
Cheesy said:
Don't have any of the info on hand so could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure Clinton's manifesto had plans regarding this, in order to retrain coal miners etc for newer sectors. Could be wrong but if so it was certainly a better offer than Trump offering to prop up a dying sector.
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There was a massive $30bn plan involving guaranteeing pensions for coal workers and whatnot, not sure how much was dedicated to retraining though.
 
Ubik said:
There was a massive $30bn plan involving guaranteeing pensions for coal workers and whatnot, not sure how much was dedicated to retraining though.
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Still...was at least something I guess, and certainly a better plan than what Trump was offering.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
No need to be flippant about it. It was a start. More than anyone was willing to invest in their own future. That was tax payer money used to retrain private workers. It may not have been a lot of money but at least Obama was being honest to these workers about the fate of their coal jobs.
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Where do you think "taxpayer money" comes from?

Retraining is a farce. It has never provided near the same quality of life. Employers are hesitant to hire older workers. Jobs often require moving far away from their communities.
 
Cheesy said:
Don't have any of the info on hand so could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure Clinton's manifesto had plans regarding this, in order to retrain coal miners etc for newer sectors. Could be wrong but if so it was certainly a better offer than Trump offering to prop up a dying sector.
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It's the same shit we heard when the other Clinton was pushing through NAFTA. Democrats burned these people and these communities already, they laugh when they hear about retraining because it's the same old lies and empty promises.
 
Eboue said:
It's the same shit we heard when the other Clinton was pushing through NAFTA. Democrats burned these people and these communities already, they laugh when they hear about retraining because it's the same old lies and empty promises.
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So in cases like this where an older industry was clearly dying out what would your solution be? It's clear coal is unsustainable and that a new approach of some sort is needed.
 
Eboue said:
Where do you think "taxpayer money" comes from?

Retraining is a farce. It has never provided near the same quality of life. Employers are hesitant to hire older workers. Jobs often require moving far away from their communities.
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These are all choices you don't need the government or anyone to make for you. If the government is willing to retrain you because an industry you work in is dying then I would say that's a good start. And besides the jobs they were being retrained for were actually jobs that were needed immediately. I'm not saying it's a perfect scenario but it sure beats staying in a coal mine for the next 10 years, getting sick then paying exorbitant healthcare costs in an industry that's about to die in the near future.
 
Eboue said:
Universal basic income. Free higher education.
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I agree that the former is going to need to be increasingly introduced, and that the latter should be a basic human right. Meant more in reference to helping people out of work find work etc. Retraining might not be perfect and I appreciate that a lot of older people are often passed over for jobs (have seen it happen here plenty of times) but if people are still within working age then a plan to get them working again surely isn't a bad thing. Certainly better than nothing.
 
Cheesy said:
I agree that the former is going to need to be increasingly introduced, and that the latter should be a basic human right. Meant more in reference to helping people out of work find work etc. Retraining might not be perfect and I appreciate that a lot of older people are often passed over for jobs (have seen it happen here plenty of times) but if people are still within working age then a plan to get them working again surely isn't a bad thing. Certainly better than nothing.
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A 50 year old with 30 years in the coal mines of west Virginia will never find a job that pays comparable standard of living. Never. It's worth considering as a society whether we want these people to be able to live a decent life or feck off and die. We are the richest country in the world. We can afford to give these people an income that allows them to live a decent life. All we have to do is start taxing anyone with more than say...50 million in wealth.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
These are all choices you don't need the government or anyone to make for you. If the government is willing to retrain you because an industry you work in is dying then I would say that's a good start. And besides the jobs they were being retrained for were actually jobs that were needed immediately. I'm not saying it's a perfect scenario but it sure beats staying in a coal mine for the next 10 years, getting sick then paying exorbitant healthcare costs in an industry that's about to die in the near future.
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Those aren't the options as they see them. They see The democrats are offering job training that will require them to move away from their friends and family and not pay the same wages. The republicans are offering continued employment in the towns they've built lives and raised kids in. Of course they vote Republican.

Now obviously they were duped, the republicans can't actually deliver on their promises. But the glee with which so called left wing people react to these people losing their livelihoods and seeing their communities destroyed is disgusting.
 
@Ubik
@Il Prete Rosso

These are from a guy who worked for the Dem party in the South/Midwest, especially coal-mining areas in 2008-2012, and what he thinks went wrong there (the 2nd is a thread replying to the post):



 
Eboue said:
A 50 year old with 30 years in the coal mines of west Virginia will never find a job that pays comparable standard of living. Never. It's worth considering as a society whether we want these people to be able to live a decent life or feck off and die. We are the richest country in the world. We can afford to give these people an income that allows them to live a decent life. All we have to do is start taxing anyone with more than say...50 million in wealth.
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Did you run some math on this... or I'm just supposed to believe your intuition?
 
berbatrick said:
@Ubik
@Il Prete Rosso

These are from a guy who worked for the Dem party in the South/Midwest, especially coal-mining areas in 2008-2012, and what he thinks went wrong there (the 2nd is a thread replying to the post):



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Yup there's a lot of good stuff in that. I don't echo the no empathy comment.

I just also think it's a denial of the blatantly obvious to say there isn't a profound cultural element to WV's direction, and Trump's support in general, that has its mirror in the trending of other states towards the Dems. In Appalachia (which is where the GOP gains really correlate to, and which WV happens to be almost entirely comprised of), I think it's going to be doubly hard to sell a convincing message when you're also pushing for action on climate change (which I know you agree trumps many other concerns in importance).

I think Bernie's 50 state strategy is a good thing, particularly from the perspective of winning back state governments, but it's also worth acknowledging there will always be some places that are like talking to a brick wall.
 
How to Turn a Red State Purple (Democrats Not Required)

A tiny group of political renegades is transforming one of the reddest states in the country through a surprising strategy: ignoring their own party. Could it work elsewhere?


State Democrats watched with gnawed-down fingernails and high bar tabs. If Kreiss-Tomkins lost, the Alaska House Democrats would have just nine members, below the one-fourth of the assembly that is required to be considered an official caucus—at which point, according to the Legislature’s rules, they could be excluded from committees and even denied funds for hiring staff.
On December 3, 2012, Kreiss-Tomkins was declared the victor by 32 votes. And although he had no way to know it at the time, it was the beginning of something very unexpected.

In the five years since Kreiss-Tomkins’s upset victory, a most unusual thing has happened: Alaska—which elected Sarah Palin governor and has not supported a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson—has turned from red to a bluish hue of purple. Throughout the state, unknown progressives, like the kind Kreiss-Tomkins once was, have been winning. Before the elections of 2012, conservatives controlled all the major seats of power in Alaska: the governorship, both houses of the Legislature, and the mayoralty and city assembly of Anchorage, where 40 percent of the state’s 740,000 residents live; now, progressives and moderates control all of those offices but the state Senate, which has been gerrymandered beyond their control. More than half of the 40-member Alaska House of Representatives has been newly elected since 2012, most of them Democrats or independents, and they have remade the Democratic-independent caucus into a 22-18 majority.

Alaska remains a gun-loving and tax-averse state, defined by its military bases and love of hunting. It has two Republican senators and a Republican congressman. But the state is changing. In the past four years, Alaska has raised its minimum wage, legalized recreational marijuana and passed the strongest universal voter registration bill in the country. Governor Bill Walker—an ex-Republican who has the support of organized labor and most liberals—and the House majority coalition are publicly advocating the introduction of a statewide income tax, a move long thought impossible in Alaska’s notoriously libertarian political climate.

To be sure, this tectonic political shift would have been impossible without traditional Democratic players, like unions. But what’s been less noticed, even in Alaska, is the role played by millennials who, rather than spending years working their way up on the team, instead reinvented the playbook. Three men in particular—Kreiss-Tomkins, Forrest Dunbar and John-Henry Heckendorn—have pointed the way to reviving progressivism in the state by recruiting new, outsider candidates, teaching them how to win, and connecting them with fellow travelers. In bypassing traditional channels—which in Alaska, as everywhere else, tend to elevate predictable, uninspiring pols who have paid their dues—they’ve propelled a wave of untested candidates with little experience and even less party identity, but who believe in the economic populist agenda shared by a coalition of labor, environmentalists and the state’s large, politically engaged Alaska Native population.
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I had no idea.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/s...state-blue-purple-alaska-politics-2018-216304
 
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