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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Sadly, they may very learn the hard way that there is always something to lose. Like maybe the ACA and Medicare.
HRC should have tried to reach out more to the Rust Belt. But, as people like Trae Crowder the "Liberal Redneck" pointed out, her chances of success probably would have been slim (though still better than zero) anyway. Being honest with those people about the reality of coal's decline was not going to score points with most of them.
edited 23rd Nov '16 8:13:40 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedWest Virginia is the absolute best example I've ever seen of people repeatedly voting against their best interests. West Virginia is obsessed with coal, to the point that the coal companies do everything in their power to prevent anything else from setting up shop in the state.
You know what else West Virginia could have switched to? Logging. Paper. Lumber. Unfortunately, the coal companies use the single most insane mining method I've ever seen (they literally blow the tops off of mountains, letting the debris just rot in the valleys) which is ruining WV's ecosystem, poisoning the rivers and destroying any chance the state has at ever diversifying. If West Virginia had used logging as it's main industry, it would probably be a lot more like Washington State or Oregon right now. (I've noticed the logging states tend to go blue while the coal states tend to go red. Interesting, isn't it?) Instead the natural beauty of the state is literally dying, other industries have given up on trying to get in, and the people keep voting against their own futures. When the coal runs out, West Virginia is going to have absolutely nothing left.
What happens in places like North Carolina is infuriating. In West Virginia, it's a Shakespearean Tragedy.
edited 23rd Nov '16 8:13:28 AM by Zendervai
The idea that all GOP voting groups can't be convinced to serve their own interest and vote Democrat is probably false. Sure the Religious Right and the Racist KKK crowd won't vote blue but we know that the Rust Belt can vote blue as it's has done for a long time, it's not about winning over hardcore Republicans, it's about winning back dissatisfied democrats.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThen talk to them. Not from the perspective as an enlightened liberal here to save the poor downtrodden blue collar workers like you're a freaking evangelical minister preaching to impoverished African tribes, from the perspective of someone that genuinely understands (or, in Trump's case, is good at acting like he genuinely understands) these issues and genuinely wants to help these people. Or, in other words, if you want to reach someone, you have to speak their language, and not complain that they don't speak yours.
Straight up a lot of liberals don't care about blue-collar workers. They feel bad for how shitty their lives are, but they don't care about their lives, their communities, their culture, and as such don't really see why they all don't just pack their bags and move into the big cities like "civilized people".
It's kind of like how people are surprised that after losing their biggest industry (and thus their livelihoods, homes, and communities) and being more or less torched to the ground during the deadliest war in American history the southerners of the late 1800s weren't absolutely ready to move into the big cities and get in line with the horrors of the second industrial revolution. These groups, they don't break when they are beat down. They bunch up, and solidify.
Don't say "coal's fucked, your jobs are fucked, your lives are fucked", say "we're gonna bring jobs back, the best jobs", and just don't mention what type of jobs they will be. Say "we're going to make these places great again", because at the end of the day what these people want isn't coal, they have no particular attachment to coal, they just want to return to a time when their towns and schools and jobs and communities weren't slowly dying off.
edited 23rd Nov '16 8:23:51 AM by InAnOdderWay
So, about Keith Ellison's candidacy to DNC chair. I see he was a Sanders supporter, a minority member and a Muslim. Given that the Democratic Party has to rely on an alliance between minorities and a sufficient amount of white people, the first two may be a good combination. The last is certainly a good contrast to the evil dog.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynmanhttp://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-coal-industry-is-dying-and-it-isnt-coming-back/
From an unabashedly liberal site. It is rather pessimistic about coal's future and Trump's promise to save it. The comments are pretty amusing, although some of them are rather harsher towards the Rust Belt voters than this thread so far.
edited 23rd Nov '16 8:45:07 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedThis is all making that revival Futurama episode where Nixon's head in the jar, upon winning the Earthican Presidential election (i.e., president of all Earth), due to some time paradoxes rewriting the fact that a decent, hard-working liberal candidate from the future (trust me, Makes Sense In Context) winning the election and preventing Nixon's election and his future from happening (a future that is essentially what the worst future with Trump is predicted to be), thus erasing his own existence, builds a giant force-field fence to prevent literal illegal alien immigrants coming to Earth extremely Harsher in Hindsight. And that episode aired in ''2012', when Romney was neck-and-neck with Obama and Trump was spewing birther conspiracies, a plot point brought up in the episode.
Even if coal and automobile industries come back booming - which would have to be through a lot of federal subsidies - they're increasingly automated, which means those factories and mines will operate with way less workers and most of the current ones aren't able to be retrained effectively.
So technically, when Trump said he'd bring back industry and jobs, he wasn't lying, he just didn't mention that the old workers wouldn't see any benefits from it.
Guess who now likes Obama? Trump that's who.
President Barack Obama has a new fan: Donald Trump.
Well, they don't. So what's your point? The exaltation of the brainless is what got us into this mess.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."![]()
Same guy who talked about jailing Hillary during the election, then later said she was super gracious in defeat and said the Clintons were a great family and that prosecuting her would be very divisive for the country.
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he turned on Putin too just because he said something mildly insulting to him during negotiations.
Haley seems like she could be a Token Minority and person for the administration to blame, but is there anything against her besides lack of experience? Her bio paragraph could be taken for that of a reasonably left wing politician.
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So much for not believing himself to be qualified for the administration. Also, to steal a Colbert Joke: it's like he drained the swamp and decided to build the cabinet with the stuff he found at the bottom.
edited 23rd Nov '16 10:23:46 AM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV![]()
In fairness, Carson said that in response to an offer of several cabinet positions that were far more consequential. Not that he has even the beginnings of a background for any appointment other than maybe Health and Human Services or Surgeon General.
edited 23rd Nov '16 10:28:26 AM by CaptainCapsase
Plans in the works to gut the bureaucracy, is likely to be led by Bannon
Edit: Excerpts.
These changes were once unthinkable to federal employees, their unions and their supporters in Congress. But Trump’s election as an outsider promising to shake up a system he told voters is awash in “waste, fraud and abuse” has conservatives optimistic that they could do now what Republicans have been unable to do in the 133 years since the modern civil service was created.
The project aligns with Bannon’s long-stated warnings about the corrupting influence of government and a capital city rampant with “crony capitalism.”
Breitbart headlines also provide a possible insight into his views, with federal employees described as overpaid, too numerous and a “privileged class.”
“Number of Government Employees Now Surpasses Manufacturing Jobs by 9,977,000,” the website proclaimed in November. There are 2.1 million federal civilian employees.
However, there is some grain of truth in that the civil service needs reforming.
Federal workers are seldom fired for poor performance — and it can take years for managers to make a successful case for dismissal for misconduct. About 0.5 percent of the civil service gets fired every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The civil service system fails at almost everything it was designed to do,” said Paul Light, a civil service expert at New York University. “It’s very slow at hiring, negligent in disciplining, permissive in promoting.”
“There’s a private awareness among Democrats and Republicans alike that we need to do something about this,” he said.
edited 23rd Nov '16 10:39:37 AM by Elle

That was more or less the point I was making.
It's intellectually dishonest to pretend those communities aren't largely anti-intellectual, fundamentalist, and at best "race apathetic" if not outright racist, but at the same time that's merely a diagnosis. It doesn't actually help fix the situation.
As Capsase noted though, this is less about rural America and moreso the Midwest.
edited 23rd Nov '16 8:08:25 AM by Draghinazzo