The real bubble is in the heartland

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

Washington is yours , midterms are next year . You're in charge now

+1. But you mean for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

Telling people what they want to hear won't necessarily make their lives better. Most of my family were tool and die makers, gas fitters, and in construction. They all lived very modestly and sent my generation off to college. But a lot of their friends didn't, and those kids are looking for someone to blame for the fact that the big auto plant jobs have gone away. Several decades ago, they lived in a city with no fewer than five auto plants. So to be an auto worker, you thought no matter what there was always some place you could get a job. So what happened? Was it foreigners? Trade deals?

The Ford plant closed in 2006 because people didn't buy SUV's when gas prices shot up.

The Corvette manufacturing went to Bowling Green Ky some time in the 80s, not because of unions or wages but because Kentucky cut a bigger tax deal. Thankfully a great many of those workers moved to Bowling Green, but the locals were pissed off because they were led to believe by politicians and the company that they would get jobs there.

The rest of Chevy went not to Mexico but Janesville Wisconsin. I believe the SUV crunch during the Iraq war gas hike killed those jobs in Janesville, too.

Chrysler had two plants where I grew up. Chrysler said they were going to upgrade those plants. But one plant that made minivans was closed. It went not to Mexico but Canada. I guess you could blame NAFTA (maybe?) but we probably gain more from free trade and certainly Canada is not beating us on regulations and labor practices. The second plant was closed, not due to Mexico but because of the 2009 bankruptcy.

What's left is one GM plant in the outer suburbs which may get more production now that gas prices are down and SUVs and pickups are coming back.

Nothing Trump has said would ever explain how 35,000 people in my hometown lost jobs over those decades. And nothing that he has proposed will bring those jobs back. Ironically the most meaningful improvement in their job situation comes from the drop in gas prices that caused by: increased production in the US, return of Iraqi production levels, re-introduction of Iranian oil, an increased numbers of people driving fuel efficient vehicles, and slowing growth in big economies like China. This will probably cause an increase in shifts at the remaining GM plant. As long as we don't do something stupid that causes oil prices to go up again, people will resume buying SUVs and trucks which are still profitable to make here. They will never be able to make economy sedans because the wages in those economy car plants are about as low as a burger flipping job, and they don't want that kind of job. If Trump cajoles those jobs to come back to America, it won't matter because no one is going to pay $30K for a Ford Focus. They just won't.

So if Trump's diagnosis of the problem is wrong, then his solution will be wrong. Barring luck, these disgruntled workers will still be disgruntled in 4 years. They will have a Republican House Senate and White House to hold accountable.

If you are from Detroit, believe you are talking about the Lake Orion GM plant. A lot of the jobs also left the area because of the 35 year decline of GM. Did politicians decide to have cars with rattles and engines that blew up at 90,000 miles? Did not enough tax cuts result in cars with terrible gas mileage while the Japanese ones were more efficient?

It was craptastic, insular, GM management that created a lot of these problems. So is Trump going to take GM back to the days of 50% market share.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming from the midwest, I thought this was very true:

Republicans have mastered wielding the struggles of poor white Americans as a cudgel against blacks, against Latinos, against women, against Jews and Muslims and LGBTQ folks. See them? They’re to blame for your struggle. You’re hurting because of them! I am tired of wealthy conservatives who have never set foot among us “white trash”—and sure as hell wouldn’t want their children marrying us—filming campaign commercials of themselves wading through star-spangled cornfields and ranting about the so-called “liberal bubble” and every buzzword that goes with it: Hollywood, communists, “college educated,” etc

Democrats have used the struggles of poor minorities as a cudgel against whites etc. as if they alone are the solution to change their station in life. Yet when in power, little to nothing changes.

Can you translate this meaningless babble?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Republicans have mastered wielding the struggles of poor white Americans as a cudgel against blacks, against Latinos, against women, against Jews and Muslims and LGBTQ folks. See them? They’re to blame for your struggle. You’re hurting because of them! I am tired of wealthy conservatives who have never set foot among us “white trash”—and sure as hell wouldn’t want their children marrying us—filming campaign commercials of themselves wading through star-spangled cornfields and ranting about the so-called “liberal bubble” and every buzzword that goes with it: Hollywood, communists, “college educated,” etc

No. They are hurting because of job killing policies. They are not racist (sure a few are--but there are racists here, as well). This is a campaign to make them look like idiots. They are not.

They voted for a man who has never been the mayor of a town of two people , several bankruptcies under his belt , severely limited intelligence . You're right they're not idiots , they're deplorables. Your response ? This is why he won blah blah blah , good ! We're waiting for results .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

+1. The libs have learned nothing from the election. It's amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

+1. The libs have learned nothing from the election. It's amazing.

Considering the fact that your orange hero garnered about 3 million less votes , I wouldn't be enthusiastic about telling anyone to learn anything

[Anonymous]

Amen. Like the author, I come from a small rural community that voted 90+ percent for Trump. Since then I've lived in six states, several of those also heavily GOP.

Having done so, I know where I want to live and it isn't the place that's hemorrhaging population so fast, and voted their own taxes so low, that they consolidated the middle and high schools and shut down the public library.

[Anonymous]

OP, couldn't agree more. The GOP has masterfully convinced their constituents that the "liberal elite" and those on the coasts live in a bubble of opulence and privilege. In reality, Those on the coasts are exposed to far more demographic, social, and economic diversity than those in middle America - we actually live next to, work with, go to school with people of a broader spectrum of race, classes, gender identities, and ethnicity. We actually know Muslims or live near a mosque or have friends of different backgrounds. We can also connect the dots - the ACA being repealed hurts middle class and working class families, for example. Bigotry against LGBTQ people is a real issue in some communities.

Moreover, I hear Trump voters rail against "identity politics". But the "identity politics" platform has largely been wielded by the GoP under the guise of "family values" and the Christian right - and this has been the case for several decades - really since Nixon.

But again, the GOP is a master communications and manipulation machine. If Dems are going to come back - and I believe they will - they have to go hard to fight the misinformation and really connect the dots for people. They play too "nice"; that doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

+1. The libs have learned nothing from the election. It's amazing.

Considering the fact that your orange hero garnered about 3 million less votes , I wouldn't be enthusiastic about telling anyone to learn anything

Oh, PP, dontchaknow, these 3 million of us don't count because we live on the coast. Not in the middle American bubble. Only those votes - 80,000 of them (not even enough to fill some stadiums) count.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

+1. The libs have learned nothing from the election. It's amazing.

Considering the fact that your orange hero garnered about 3 million less votes , I wouldn't be enthusiastic about telling anyone to learn anything

Considering that we figured out how the electoral college works and you didn't, you mean. I'll take those sorts of election victories in perpetuity, that's just fine with me. Enjoy our millions of bubble votes.

[Anonymous]

This is the part that rang most true to me:

You know what I call a bigoted, moronic white person in a “blue collar” job? I call them a bigoted moron. Because they are. And as someone who is from this world, we sure as hell don’t need pundits and politicians placating that bigotry. If the Meghan McCains and Tomi Lehrens and Donald Trumps of the world cared about this segment of America, they’d expect more of us; the rural wouldn’t be antonymous with an interest in the academic. There are so many honest, hardworking folks in these communities. I know them. They deserve honesty and good faith and leaders who genuinely care about their well being. Instead, these leaders talk to us like children. We're reduced to stereotypes that become self-fulfilling, imprisoned in a cycle of low expectations, and exploited by conservative politicians who bang the same drum and walk away reaping the benefits.

And if I'm totally honest, it's what I felt about Clinton as well.

What's failed is not merely the government or its people, it's the expectation we have of each other and the accountability we used to hold each other to. Trade unions did a lot of this. They maintained standards of work - learn skills, show up on time, etc., and they forced business and government to also maintain standards - decent wage, job security, health coverage, etc.

When all that broke down, accountability went out the window. The thing of "picking winners and losers" started with Reagan in the 80s. If you're a winner, you're celebrated even if it's at the expense of someone else (like the workforce). If you aren't a winner the only thing left is to be defined as a loser and it's your own fault. You're accountable to no one but yourself.

Business is accountable to shareholders and government...well, they're only accountable to the people who vote for them. But not really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

+1. The libs have learned nothing from the election. It's amazing.

Considering the fact that your orange hero garnered about 3 million less votes , I wouldn't be enthusiastic about telling anyone to learn anything

Considering that we figured out how the electoral college works and you didn't, you mean. I'll take those sorts of election victories in perpetuity, that's just fine with me. Enjoy our millions of bubble votes.

Would you feel differently if a dem had won by 80,000 votes in the EC, but 3 million more Republicans voted for the other candidate? I don't think so. You're letting your tribalism talk instead of common sense and patriotism.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to see both sides admit that the election was a statistical tie. For whatever reasons, Trump won where it counted. Personally, I think Comey was the biggest factor, but that can't be proved, and does not affect my main point, that each side should accept that about half the voters were for their opponent.

For me, as a liberal, I see my biggest task to be understanding what caused half my country to vote for a man who still seems to me to be e a boorish, thin-skinned, totalitarian bully. Obviously they see things I don't, and I sincerely hope they're right and I'm wrong!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a great strategy for feeling superior and Losing more elections.

+1. The libs have learned nothing from the election. It's amazing.

Considering the fact that your orange hero garnered about 3 million less votes , I wouldn't be enthusiastic about telling anyone to learn anything

Considering that we figured out how the electoral college works and you didn't, you mean. I'll take those sorts of election victories in perpetuity, that's just fine with me. Enjoy our millions of bubble votes.

Would you feel differently if a dem had won by 80,000 votes in the EC, but 3 million more Republicans voted for the other candidate? I don't think so. You're letting your tribalism talk instead of common sense and patriotism.

the funny thing is that trump's team wasn't actually expecting to win. This was actually just dumb luck (emphasis on DUMB) There wasn't an actual strategy, but now they claim there was.