Line6 HXFX wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 11:31 am
Lovely opinion piece in the Gaurdian about Trump Voters I read earlier.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... air-leader
Living in a rust belt, zero opportunity poverty and despair riven shithole myself, where nothing ever changes unless it is into even more poverty, despair and shite'ness...and where the democratic parties you elect to fix things or just improve things a tiny but says shit like "well the rest of the UK is doing brilliantly" (Peter Hains constant reply as Welsh secretary when continuously asked about all the endemic child poverty in the valleys over his ten years) you can really understand why everyone voted for Brexit, and thinks, "you know what fuck it".
Middle class morality tales and finger jabbing can only keep the poor in check for so long.
Thanks for sharing that!
Something that's been missing from the speeches I've seen from Biden, Harris, et al over the last few weeks is talk of "working class". It might have been there, but "fix the middle class" seemed to be said more often and louder. AOC and her sort seem to be focused on minorities and urban poor, which is necessary too, but again I felt like the rural working class people were ignored just as they were in Hilary's campaign. At the very least, I've not heard about solutions to their problems.
I come from a similar area in Canada... lots of rural land, not a even a lot of agriculture (like where I am now, massive farms that sell for several million when they do), lots of people on wages that allow them to get by. Funnily enough, where my parents moved is the rich person's playground, but when you move away from the lakes where all the cottages are, the quality of homes can be as bad as anywhere in poverty-stricken US (getting images of my cousin's and uncle's places, which could be condemned if inspected).
I don't know what the solutions are, but I think the reason why 'socialism' scares a lot of these people is that they know they'll be taxed higher and when you don't have a lot, having to fork out a bit more each month is a threat to your livelihood. I'm not even sure of the math, or if it's true, but most wouldn't be able to work out whether or not a bit more in taxes for healthcare is cheaper than what they're paying for private insurance / hospital visits. Things like this loom when you're teetering on the edge.
The perception of 'taking our jobs' is here as well and I suspect, aside from racism/xenophobia (which is all too common in Canada as well), they hear about immigration and wonder how those people can come (and sometimes thrive) when life for them is so mediocre (if not shit). There are shortages in a lot of areas - skilled trades and services - here, and our government brings in a lot of immigrants to fill those roles. I suspect, though, that a lot of the need is in areas where the downtrodden can't simply pack up and move to. Even if they could, why should they leave their 'heartland'? Again, no economist/number cruncher, but I wonder how feasible it'd be for governments to help businesses relocate? Maybe having one company towns is what set places up for failure when those things eventually close? I used to work at a school in a small town/mostly rural community that was built in the 1950s to hold some 1500 students 9-12 and into the early 90s was over-filled to about 1800 with a few 'portable' classrooms built for the overflow. Cut to 2018, the school now houses Grs 7-12 and has just over 600 students. Part of the reason is that farms are bigger and more automated, fewer families, fewer kids, but there were also several big industries that shut down/moved away... funnily enough, the town is smack dab on the major highway network between Toronto and Montreal, a few hours between both. So if that kind of town, on the main route, is shrinking, you can imagine how the more isolated ones are doing. A lot of the kids I worked with don't see a bright future unless they're smart enough to go to university/college and get out, but a lot like living in the country and the education won't help them in their home towns because there's no outlet to use it.
