Friday, August 10, 2018

Some thoughts...It's been awhile, I know

It's been awhile, and I've got some thoughts I want to jot down:

I cannot square with how people are calling Trump's election a vote against the establishment, when so many Republican incumbents were re-elected. That is a false notion. Clinton and Democrats lost because they didn't speak to middle class economics. People are freaking out about losing their jobs. That hasn't changed. If you worry about being able to support yourself and your family every day all day and no matter what you do, it still feels like you are losing that, you are going to be looking for someone to blame. The old jobs aren't going to come back in the way that they were here 20-30 years ago. They are gone. This is not because Obama or liberals wished them away. Corporations made these decisions. You can't blame them from a business standpoint: Why pay someone who will work 5 days a week for 8 hours a day at $15 an hour when you can spend money building a factory on the other side of the world and pay many someones who will work 7 days a week for 12-16 hours a day at $3 an hour? As a publicly held company, you are beholden to your shareholders to make the most money while spending the least. Another wrinkle is you as a shareholder in your 401(k) or if you are lucky enough to still have a pension DEMAND this kind of behavior from businesses, because then you make a better return on your investment dollars. The irony here is that these kinds of corporate behaviors are championed by establishment Republicans. Yet as a whole the party still holds a ton of sway. 

Enough with the Clintons. Enough with the Bushes.

I believe in Bernie. I believe in Warren. They actually have solutions that speak to all Americans. 

I hoped Clinton would win, because she was not Trump, or Stein, or Johnson. But she was not a good candidate. It was not because she is a woman. It is because she is a Clinton.She has too much history and baggage, fair or unfair as that is. There's a lot of misogyny out there, but that's not why she lost. She lost because people in key areas wanted change, and Clinton was more of the same. 

John Stewart spoke with David Axelrod after the debate, and he NAILED it at the 17:18 mark. This is the reason why I won't vote Republican. We have a political party in this country whose public platform is "Government doesn't work." They get into office, and either DO NOTHING or SMASH the institutions and rules and gum up everything, then they turn around and say "See, Government doesn't work." Half this country agrees with this approach. I hope people vote for them because they think that "I agree that government doesn't work, so I'm going to vote for you to fix it." But Republicans NEVER fix it. This is why compromise is such an anathema to them. Compromise means solving problems, and the only problem they want to solve is staying in office. Democrats are at least TRYING to solve problems. It's like a marriage where one person wants it to work, and trys and trys and makes mistakes doing so, while the other one does nothing except yell and tell the other person that they suck, then this person turns around and says that they don't believe in the institution of marriage and that it's a sham. Come on!

This article sums up a lot of good stuff, and also contradicts some of what I just said above. 
Canaries in the Coal Mine: Some people have watched their fellow Americans on the coasts ride a tech, finance and real estate rocketship, while their mortgages are underwater, their jobs have gone overseas or been automated, and the awareness of their critical value to the country has been systematically diminished. Consider a coal miner from Wyoming or West Virginia. For generations, his family has been powering America; literally providing the fuel that drove ecomomic revolutions. And now, not only is his business shrinking, he’s being told by all the environmentalists, billionaires, and Hollywood types that his industry has been poisoning the world. That his sacrifices, hard work, and health risks (and those of his father and his father) are all part of some historic wrongdoing. You’re worried about climate change? He’s worried about dinner. Does that mean alternative energy is bad. No, it’s the future. But you don’t have to be a complete dick about it.
From the Trickle Downers site:

Tax Cuts for the rich. Deregulation for the powerful. Wage suppression for everyone else. These are the tenets of trickle-down economics, the conservatives’ age-old strategy for advantaging the interests of the rich and powerful over those of the middle class and poor. The articles in Trickle-Downers are devoted, first, to exposing and refuting these lies, but equally, to reminding Americans that these claims aren’t made because they are true. Rather, they are made because they are the most effective way elites have found to bully, confuse and intimidate middle- and working-class voters. Trickle-down claims are not real economics. They are negotiating strategies. Here at the Prospect, we hope to help you win that negotiation. 

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