Actually, I think it does matter.
About half of America are self-righteous welfare leeches. Mostly they live in rural America, because they don’t have what it takes to make it in real life.
Too many people here have had it too good for too long. That is about to change, I infuriates me that they will take the rest of us with them.
Rural America needs to wake up and discover what it means to work for a living. Instead of living on government handouts.
This is my point. Real “city mice” weren’t thinking about rural people at all when they donated money to environmental groups that shut down logging operations and killed many small towns. Now the forests are burning up, but the same groups are making it so you can’t even salvage dead trees.
Real “city mice” aren’t thinking of rural people at all when they push for no coal exports, or no coal on the railways that pass through town.
The Mom and Pop trucking company that can’t operate in California because their trucks are a little to old.
The back hoe operator that now needs a million dollar bond to get a contract with the county. He loses out to the big city operator, who can come in take all the profit and leave. The big city guy doesn’t do day-to-day small jobs everybody needs but aren’t as profitable. The whole community loses with no one to blame.
It’s little things but they add up.
I personally know a small automotive salvage yard that had to spend 80k to buy a parking lot cleaner. The State would send in a guy to test the dust in the parking lot and they kept failing for heavy metals. Never mind the public roads next to the parking lot with 10,000 times more traffic.
There is an incredible amount of frustration with bureaucracy and government. They see one side wanting more rules and one side wanting less. They also feel that hard physical work should be rewarded and that is increasingly not the case.
If they think it’s “city people” who are changing the rules to favor big business then they need to look into which city people it is. It’s the Republicans they keep voting for.
This is all kinds of wrong. Rural America puts food on our tables. They deserve our appreciation for their hard work. We can question their politics but not their work ethic. You should take this back or at least never say this again.
It really doesn’t have anything to do with racism or sexism or any type of discrimination. That’s what those on the left spew when they want to degrade and don’t want to understand. There is a small minority of racists on both the right and left. On the left this is usually more benign; like using simpler words when talking with a person of color, etc but it does exist and it is racism.
What unites the right is hatred for the policies of the left. Trump is seen as a lesser evil.
Policies such as?..
IMHO, a lot of liberals do not grasp that people don’t just want to be policy-represented, they want to be viewpoint-represented.
Many Democrats say things like, “Rural Americans vote against their own interest by voting for the GOP which cuts Social Security and benefits, deports illegal immigrants, limits women’s access to abortion, etc.”…not realizing that for voters, such things are only a small slice of the bigger picture. People want someone who they feel airs their views and makes them feel good and respected. And they won’t vote for someone who demeans them (“rural folk are ignorant hillbillies who need to submit to their educated superiors”) no matter how much that person’s policy stance may help them.
Abortion is a good example. Most of them are pro-birth control but vehemently anti-abortion. They believe babies are dying every day and it really pisses them off. The motivation isn’t to hurt women or to control anyone; just to stop the babies from dying.
They find it very difficult to understand the other side of the argument and, like their left-wing counterparts, are quick to dismiss and label those who disagree with them.
With all due respect, we are living with the consequences of the 2016 election when their views were respected and they were made to feel good.
It’s a well traveled road, the abortion topic. Each side knows quite well what the other is going to say with respect to when life begins and where pro-life interests end. We don’t need another guided tour.
I’ll just add that it is possible to feel passionately about a position and yet be completely wrong. For Pro-Life, this is one of those times.
Alas, that is what the Pro-Slavery party thought as well. I see a great deal of similarity between the fight over slavery and the fight over abortion.
Today we look back and wonder how anyone could think having dark skin would make someone less human. I personally think in 200 years those in 2220 will look back and wonder why anyone would think very young humans weren’t human.
I must remind you, it was the most conservative who held pro-slavery views well past the time that the rest of the world moved on. It is again the conservatives who want to put limits women’s reproductive rights. So you’re right, there are similarities to be sure.
That is demonstrably not where science, medicine and society is headed.
I get really tired of this shit. Food growers are every much a replaceable resource as I am to my employer.
Rural people either need to shut up and take it like the rest of us, or quit shitting all over the people who are trying to make things better for the rest of us. They can either quit sucking off the federal teat, or give some gratitude to the people who feed them.
The precepts of the sainted Thomas Jefferson notwithstanding, rural people are any more privileged than the rest of us who are trying to make a living. The “yeoman farmer” is about equivalent to the “noble savage” as a concept that deserves any respect.
They’re equivalent in a lot of ways actually.
If you want to see what they see in the Orange Toddler in Chief, just look at your Facebook feed. The MAGAbots are hateful, fearful, bigoted, and xenophobic. DJT plays on their fears. Here are some samples from my Facebook feed:
They’re STILL posting shit like this with Obama gone for 3+ years. This post has been around since Obama took office and still circulates today, spreading its hate for those who aren’t straight white male Christian Americans.
This gem has been around for a long long time with various attribution. They’re STILL pissed that they can’t FORCE children to say THEIR prayers in school. They’re STILL pissed at Benjamin Spock as if everybody in the US was bound to follow his advice. They want the good old days where everybody had to praise Jesus in church and parents could beat the shit out of their kids and brag about it.
Wouldn’t it be nicer if we didn’t have a president who boasted about committing extortion and didn’t have to be impeached?
Nothing but fear and hatred wrapped up in lies. People have learned to exploit them by getting them all riled up about stuff that isn’t true. If you read Facebook news feeds, you learn that:
[ul]
[li]Congressmen can retire with full pay after one term[/li][li]Congress voted against raises in Social Security and gave themselves a big raise[/li][li]Congress stole trillions from the Social Security Trust Fund[/li][li]“Illegals” get health care and Social Security benefits for free[/li][li]The H1N1 virus was much worse than Corona and was entirely Obama’s fault[/li][li]Obama gave $150 billion of taxpayer money to Iran[/li][/ul]
You have a bunch of people all pissed off about stuff that isn’t even true, hate anyone who doesn’t look like them and pray like them. It is no surprise that they support a guy who gets all pissed off about stuff that isn’t even true and hates anyone that doesn’t look like him?
It’s a class of people – white, straight, Christian, etc. – who are desperate to preserve their privileged status but desperate to deny that they have any privilege.
All this stuff about “the people who make our food” is irrelevant. Being a farmer doesn’t require you to cling to privilege based on bigotry and inequality.
I believe he’s popular with his base because he’s not a professional, life-long politician. Face it, most Americans are average people and don’t feel a connection to the elites in DC. An outsider with rough edges is appealing to rural America. He likely reminds them of someone they know, or at least someone they can understand. The profession politicians are masters of obsfuscation and Trump is blunt and doesn’t mince words. We like that.
A big component is he doesn’t cast aspersions on them like the left does
If it comes down to picking between the side that calls you the best people on earth, and another side that calls you racist, sexist, xenophobic homophobes (and all the other stuff listed above), they’ll pick the former. Every time. It doesn’t matter if they are true or not.
Democratic pols may not personally say these things, but he represents the people that do. Trump is a pulsating middle finger against those people.
You like the fact that he is lying whenever his lips are moving? Unless of course he’s shifting blame, insulting minorities, undermining federal agencies, and repeating incoherent babble. Is this the kind of “blunt” talk that you value?
I grew up in northern Idaho, but I never knew(let alone were friends with) any ignorant, bigoted con-men. Please explain why I should identify and/or support Trump.
Not to mention that the people who actually work hard, hands in the soil, to put food on the table, look to the migrant worker from south of the border. But that doesn’t fit the narrative.