Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've got relatives in West Virginia coal country. The county went 80% for Trump in 2016 because he promised that the jobs would come back. Visited there last month. Jobs didn't come back but they are still supporting Trump and believing the jobs will return. Kind of sad, but hope is all they have. The poverty in the area is disheartening.
And, what exactly, have democrats done about this^^^^issue? Answer: Nothing.
At one time democrats truly cared about the poor, working and middle classes. They would have been horrified to learn that their constituents were either seeing their wages depressed or were being displaced in the workforce due to illegal immigration. And they would have done something about it, too---and I don't mean amnesty. Today's democrats put illegal aliens ahead of the millions of suffering underemployed and unemployed Americans.
Neither party is looking out for Americans but at one time I expected much, much better from the democrats. Anyone who thinks democrats still care about Americans isn't paying attention. The dems hope that it stays that way, too.
Really OP? I think you could replace the word Republican with Democrat and you would be on the right track.
The Left and their media outlets have been spreading fear since Trump started his campaign. They told us that if he was elected that he would start a war with Russia, North Korea, Iran and he would crash the stock market. They told us he would nuke the world in a rage. They told us how he is a fascist dictator wanna be Hitler that hates everyone and it goes on and on.
I agree that the Republicans have drifted to the far Right with many of their ideas but the Democrats have shifted to the extreme Left and some of their ideas are downright scary and dangerous.
Both parties need to do something, come together and stop dividing the country but the way I see it the Left is more to blame for starting it and the Right is merely responding to them while America suffers.
I’m stepping away from the partisan bickering for just a minute and looking at the Republican party, it’s platform and policy positions. I will provide examples:
1) I remember a time when the party genuinely cared about pollution and environmental protection (the EPA was created during the Nixon years). Now the party seems to be striving for the complete opposite under the guise of being business-friendly.
2) I remember the Bush administration being BFF with Mexico and its president Vicente Fox and being on the verge of passing comprehensive immigration reform....then 9/11 happened and the whole thing got tabled.
3) I remember when improving foreign relations and expanding the free world was a top priority. Globalization and free trade were considered econmically efficient and the future. Now they are dirty words. Bring on the isolationism, trade wars and tariffs
4) When did the party of Lincoln decide that voter suppression was a good thing? The party that abolished slavery is now focused on passing voter ID laws, stripping voting rights away from people with criminal records, putting people in jail and keeping them there, gerrymandering congressional districts, etc.
5) And now this talk about ending birthright citizenship despite it being protected by the 14th amendment....
6) when did the party decide to get in bed with the Evangelicals? I know that wasn’t always the case. I try not to get too focused on social issues but it’s unfortunate that the Republicans chose to focus so heavily on polarizng topics that all seem to be on the wrong side of history...gay marriage, gays in the military, trans rights, anti-abortion, etc. etc. To me these are not things the party should be fighting.
7) The war on drugs is over...we lost. The fact that most GOP are still fighting against marijuana legalization is absolutely baffling to me...especially for a party that is supposedly pro-business.
And, what exactly, have democrats done about this^^^^issue? Answer: Nothing.
At one time democrats truly cared about the poor, working and middle classes. They would have been horrified to learn that their constituents were either seeing their wages depressed or were being displaced in the workforce due to illegal immigration. And they would have done something about it, too---and I don't mean amnesty. Today's democrats put illegal aliens ahead of the millions of suffering underemployed and unemployed Americans.
Neither party is looking out for Americans but at one time I expected much, much better from the democrats. Anyone who thinks democrats still care about Americans isn't paying attention. The dems hope that it stays that way, too.
What does illegal immigration have to do with the coal mining jobs going away and Trump promising that they would be coming back? It isn't like the mines are all humming along, nicely producing with illegal labor. The jobs are gone and won't be coming back
Really OP? I think you could replace the word Republican with Democrat and you would be on the right track.
Really? Since when has the Republican Party been fiscally responsible? Certainly not within the past 15 years. And the poster is spot on. Building walls and advocating for more protectionism/tariffs are left-wing ideas and certainly not by those who truly favor free markets.
What does illegal immigration have to do with the coal mining jobs going away and Trump promising that they would be coming back? It isn't like the mines are all humming along, nicely producing with illegal labor. The jobs are gone and won't be coming back
And what are the democrats doing about this? Do tell.
Coal will continue to be used until a reliable alternative source comes along that makes coal obsolete. Until them, coal will still be needed.
And what are the democrats doing about this? Do tell.
Coal will continue to be used until a reliable alternative source comes along that makes coal obsolete. Until them, coal will still be needed.
Not very much that anyone, Democrats or Republicans, can do about getting the jobs back. Natural gas and renewables are taking a bigger share of the market each year.
People in coal country pretty much have three choices. Keep doing nothing except waiting for the jobs to come back. Or accept the inevitable and leave for where there are jobs (which is what any young person with ambition has been doing for years). Or figure out how to bring other sources of jobs to the area.
So far, sitting and waiting has not produced much of anything. My problem with Trump was giving them hope in return for votes, and then pretty much forgetting them.
What I mean by the topic name is that it has now become abundantly clear to me that the Republican party’s central platform and campaign strategy is fear and resentment, and frankly it depresses me.
I’ve voted for republican candidates in the past, and as recently as 5 years ago...however, I’m not sure I ever will again. The fear, hatred and resentment that drives the party’s agenda and energizes it’s base is now in dangerous territory and it’s difficult for me to envision a way out of this hole.
It wasn’t always this way. I remember not too far back when the party had a positive message supported by conservative values and fiscal responsibility. That has been replaced with tribalism, nationalism and protectionism, fear-mongering, building walls, etc. etc. It’s gotten very dark.
Anyway, I’m wondering if anyone here agrees and also has a problem with the direction the party is heading.
While I think a "crime syndicate" is a little harsh, I 100% agree that all of the poor working class people who voted for Trump because they felt left behind and thought he would do something to change that are deluding themselves.
If anyone is not doing well in today's economy, there is one simple reason for that. They have failed to evolve their skillset for a changing economy to meet the market demands for today's in demand workers. Anyone is capable of doing that in the information age.
Does that also include the "non-working" poor people--the Democrat base?
You know. The ones who voted for Shrillery.
Last edited by Delahanty; 11-16-2018 at 05:37 PM..
The central values of the Republican Party were rooted in lower-level entrepreneurship; smaller communities populated by merchants, skilled tradesmen, and the farmers who supported them. It was a place with a strong work ethic, and the individual participants were usually able to recognize that there was a connection between lack of a work ethic, and not being able to live too well. This was reinforced by the network of established, reasonably-successful individuals who populated both the religious and societal structures of those communities in that day.
Via a number of passages -- mostly the growth of impersonal cities and suburbs, large enterprises, and the development of both mass communication and the bureaucratic state and its somewhat over-upholstered "safety net", a large portion of the population, perhaps 20-30%, has been led to expect far too much. Many of the worst examples are fouling the streets of our cities, particularly on the West Coast, and too many of our milquetoast politicians, including the vast majority of Democrats, lack the resolve to lay down the law.
Sooner or later, the bill is going to come due. I don't expect too much of a problem in rural areas, where the handful of true ne'er-do-wells can be easily identified and weeded out; ditto for established urban neighborhoods of any ethnic background. But the lure of "the soft life" has created a "new Woodstock Nation" -- the central characteristic among which is arrested development,
and a clique of over-sensitized politicians ready to pander to them.
I don't know what's going to happen when the nation finally has to face up to this. If there is a financial meltdown, it could probably be resolved fairly quickly; the Wall Street crash of 1929 took two years to morph into the Main Street collapse of 1931, precisely because the political hacks couldn't agree on a course of action. And this point is virtually never recognized by the biased "mainstream" media and their allies in the "educational" system and public employee unions.
And I'd remind everyone that despite the caterwauling, the Clinton vote in 2016, even when the Stein vote is added to it, was slightly less than the combined Trump/Johnson/McMullen vote, and the McMullen vote comes largely from Mormons, who have a strong tradition of domestic stability and self-reliance.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side, you have the usual mixture of weak work ethic, and single-issue oversensitivity,
dangerously leavened by a mixture of ANTIFA and the hard-core gang/drug underclass. Some of the most militant might preach armed resistance, but I doubt there would be much followership among the largely unmotivated (and unmotivatable) majority within that coalition.
In reality, I don't expect things to escalate that far; but it bears mentioning that Donald Trump was elected largely by a core clientele of "deplorables' who viewed themselves as completely overlooked and forgotten..
And the real danger here is that nearly 250 years of the largely peaceful transfer and re-orientation of power and civil authority might be discarded in the name of expediency and faux security.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 11-16-2018 at 07:13 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Does that also include the "non-working" poor people--the Democrat base? 
