Damn....a whole lot to unpack in this. First, I would tell the author to bail on the democrats. They are addicted to elitism and big money. Their core constituency, at least as they seem to see it, consists of black women, trans activists, college professors, the Martha's Vineyard and Hamptons crowd, and big Silicon Valley and big Pharma…
First, I would tell the author to bail on the democrats. They are addicted to elitism and big money. Their core constituency, at least as they seem to see it, consists of black women, trans activists, college professors, the Martha's Vineyard and Hamptons crowd, and big Silicon Valley and big Pharma money. They are not interested in the white working class or any working class really. If your white, male and working class, you are about as far from their interests as your gonna get. If you believe in God more than in the Metaverse or Tik Tok, you are not one of them, in fact you are the enemy. If you drive a truck and have a dirty job, you are to be used until you are no longer useful. If you work at Walmart or the local grocery store, you are to be unseen and when you are too old or too sick to support yourself they will give you just enough to keep you unseen. They have no interest in bettering your condition and like the Walmart worker they would prefer the kind of jobs you do not be seen and be exported to places where they do not have to witness it, smell it or have it interfere with their green spaces. They certainly do not want you to have the kind of economic stability that translates into political power. Stay in your place, be useful as long as you can and then fade away and be quiet.
Are the republicans any better? Depends on which republicans you are talking about and what you mean by better. If you mean the Mitch McConnel's of the world who envy the democrats ties to Wall Street and Silicon Valley then the answer is very likely not. If you mean the more populist types who are averse to unfettered free trade, who question green orthodoxy, who actually think that the country is bigger then the Boston to DC corridor or San Francisco, who think that best way to help people is to provide an environment that creates and maintains good paying working class jobs, who think that excessive immigration creates too much competition for jobs at the lower end, well then maybe that is a group for you. Are the republicans cynically taking an opening to the white working class? Probably. But then the democrats have taken what used to their constituency and they need the working class to win. Is that perfect? No. But it beats being used by the democrats to serve their primary constituency while enduring mocking and being humiliated by them as the price. And, at least, because they need you, these new, populist republicans are going to make some effort to address your concerns. At least with them you have some leverage.
You may have missed it, but there has been a major political realignment happening for 30 yrs and it started with Bill Clinton, NAFTA, globalization, the democrats moving closer to big money with banking deregulation. It carried on under Bush Jr. and China entering the WTO and it really revealed itself under Obama and the bank bailouts. Trump, for all his flaws, saw this and called it out and took advantage of it. Its one of the reasons that the democrats and the old school republicans like Romney and McConnel hate him so much, he exposed that the game was rigged and worse, he showed the working class that they do still have power enough to create havoc for those who have ignored them when not outright trying to make their lives harder while treating them with contempt, mocking their values as they cling to God and guns while showing up at Veteran's Day parades in trucks with American flags on them. From the perspective of the old school republicans and the democrats, the best thing the working class can do is be useful to them or serve in the army and then disappear.
BTW professor, when is the last time you came out of the classroom or the faculty lounge and went and had coffee with the janitorial staff at the university? Have you ever invited one of the campus cops to a cookout? When is the last time you stopped to have a conversation of any length with the lady who cleans the dishes in the cafeteria? When your plumber comes to the house do you make any effort to try and appreciate what he does and ask questions or even the kid who changes the brakes on your car? I can tell you that this republican does precisely those things. The democrats need more Mike Rowe's and fewer AOCs.
Did you know that it is easier to find a Java programmer or a Business Analyst than a good plumber or machinist? I cannot walk the streets of Boston or DC without tripping over a Phd looking for a job engaged in mental masturbation that will pay for their Starbucks habit, but I'll be damned if I can find a guy to do good tile work for under $600 a day and needs less than 3 weeks to get to me.
Not everyone is cut out to be a financial analyst or a doctor or a VP of sales. Some people lack the intellect. Some people lack the drive. Some people are just not temperamentally cut out for that kind of work. Some people are cut out to work with their hands. That is not to say they are stupid, a lot of trades and manufacturing jobs are physically tough but also require a good brain. Ever tried to do the calculations for the cuts to install trusses? Ever tried to figure out how much load a new AC unit will put on an electrical system in a house or whether a booster is needed to run an internet cable?
I do not disagree with you about minimizing the role of luck, but two points. First, the government is not going to fix family dysfunction and the impact on kids by handing out money. It is going to HELP fix it by creating an environment that allows people to have the dignity and purpose of a good paying job. The government cannot make parents better people or better parents period. What it can do is to try and create an environment where people have an opportunity to mitigate the dysfunction by having less financial stress and fear and have the pride and dignity that come from meaningful work. Second, to a certain degree we create our own luck. We just do. But even then, we are never going to eliminate the impact of chance.
Finally, we need to restore RESPECT for people who do all those kinds of blue collar jobs. We need a culture that treats the people who do that work with respect. We need a culture that values these people not one that ignores and denigrates them. The farmer on the tractor or the dental hygienist are as human and important and valuable as any dentist or professor of Women's Studies. Now go convince your democratic friends, your faculty peers, of this. Tell your students that they are free to drop out and go to trade school and still have your respect.
"Finally, we need to restore RESPECT for people who do all those kinds of blue collar jobs. "
100% spot on. Most decent people, in fact, did these jobs to finance their degrees. Are we now so much better because we're doctors or lawyers or - perish the thought - consultants???
Work is work. And everyone who works hard at a job and does it well is worthy of respect. If you think you're better than they are, you're just a shitty person. Full stop. No equivocation You are and you need to own that. And if you treat waiters, waitresses and servers poorly, there's a special place in Hell awaiting you.
Great post. But the wounds run very deep. I have a brother in law that runs a union carpenter shop. They are begging for young folks to enter into an apprenticeships. The benefits accrued during an apprenticeship on your way to journeyman are significant. Same for all the other trades. When they do get someone to enter the system more often than not they quit or get caught drunk or drugged on the job. His work force has aged significantly over the last decade. Years ago, when teaching at a university, I use to ask why my freshman students were in college. Too many of them had no answer or were there because their parents insisted. Many of them were never going to graduate because they just didn't have the intellect, while other with the intellect just weren't interested in being there. We need to stop insisting that college is the only way to the "good life" outside of the military. We need to recognize where we are now as a economic/social system.
Damn....a whole lot to unpack in this.
First, I would tell the author to bail on the democrats. They are addicted to elitism and big money. Their core constituency, at least as they seem to see it, consists of black women, trans activists, college professors, the Martha's Vineyard and Hamptons crowd, and big Silicon Valley and big Pharma money. They are not interested in the white working class or any working class really. If your white, male and working class, you are about as far from their interests as your gonna get. If you believe in God more than in the Metaverse or Tik Tok, you are not one of them, in fact you are the enemy. If you drive a truck and have a dirty job, you are to be used until you are no longer useful. If you work at Walmart or the local grocery store, you are to be unseen and when you are too old or too sick to support yourself they will give you just enough to keep you unseen. They have no interest in bettering your condition and like the Walmart worker they would prefer the kind of jobs you do not be seen and be exported to places where they do not have to witness it, smell it or have it interfere with their green spaces. They certainly do not want you to have the kind of economic stability that translates into political power. Stay in your place, be useful as long as you can and then fade away and be quiet.
Are the republicans any better? Depends on which republicans you are talking about and what you mean by better. If you mean the Mitch McConnel's of the world who envy the democrats ties to Wall Street and Silicon Valley then the answer is very likely not. If you mean the more populist types who are averse to unfettered free trade, who question green orthodoxy, who actually think that the country is bigger then the Boston to DC corridor or San Francisco, who think that best way to help people is to provide an environment that creates and maintains good paying working class jobs, who think that excessive immigration creates too much competition for jobs at the lower end, well then maybe that is a group for you. Are the republicans cynically taking an opening to the white working class? Probably. But then the democrats have taken what used to their constituency and they need the working class to win. Is that perfect? No. But it beats being used by the democrats to serve their primary constituency while enduring mocking and being humiliated by them as the price. And, at least, because they need you, these new, populist republicans are going to make some effort to address your concerns. At least with them you have some leverage.
You may have missed it, but there has been a major political realignment happening for 30 yrs and it started with Bill Clinton, NAFTA, globalization, the democrats moving closer to big money with banking deregulation. It carried on under Bush Jr. and China entering the WTO and it really revealed itself under Obama and the bank bailouts. Trump, for all his flaws, saw this and called it out and took advantage of it. Its one of the reasons that the democrats and the old school republicans like Romney and McConnel hate him so much, he exposed that the game was rigged and worse, he showed the working class that they do still have power enough to create havoc for those who have ignored them when not outright trying to make their lives harder while treating them with contempt, mocking their values as they cling to God and guns while showing up at Veteran's Day parades in trucks with American flags on them. From the perspective of the old school republicans and the democrats, the best thing the working class can do is be useful to them or serve in the army and then disappear.
BTW professor, when is the last time you came out of the classroom or the faculty lounge and went and had coffee with the janitorial staff at the university? Have you ever invited one of the campus cops to a cookout? When is the last time you stopped to have a conversation of any length with the lady who cleans the dishes in the cafeteria? When your plumber comes to the house do you make any effort to try and appreciate what he does and ask questions or even the kid who changes the brakes on your car? I can tell you that this republican does precisely those things. The democrats need more Mike Rowe's and fewer AOCs.
Did you know that it is easier to find a Java programmer or a Business Analyst than a good plumber or machinist? I cannot walk the streets of Boston or DC without tripping over a Phd looking for a job engaged in mental masturbation that will pay for their Starbucks habit, but I'll be damned if I can find a guy to do good tile work for under $600 a day and needs less than 3 weeks to get to me.
Not everyone is cut out to be a financial analyst or a doctor or a VP of sales. Some people lack the intellect. Some people lack the drive. Some people are just not temperamentally cut out for that kind of work. Some people are cut out to work with their hands. That is not to say they are stupid, a lot of trades and manufacturing jobs are physically tough but also require a good brain. Ever tried to do the calculations for the cuts to install trusses? Ever tried to figure out how much load a new AC unit will put on an electrical system in a house or whether a booster is needed to run an internet cable?
I do not disagree with you about minimizing the role of luck, but two points. First, the government is not going to fix family dysfunction and the impact on kids by handing out money. It is going to HELP fix it by creating an environment that allows people to have the dignity and purpose of a good paying job. The government cannot make parents better people or better parents period. What it can do is to try and create an environment where people have an opportunity to mitigate the dysfunction by having less financial stress and fear and have the pride and dignity that come from meaningful work. Second, to a certain degree we create our own luck. We just do. But even then, we are never going to eliminate the impact of chance.
Finally, we need to restore RESPECT for people who do all those kinds of blue collar jobs. We need a culture that treats the people who do that work with respect. We need a culture that values these people not one that ignores and denigrates them. The farmer on the tractor or the dental hygienist are as human and important and valuable as any dentist or professor of Women's Studies. Now go convince your democratic friends, your faculty peers, of this. Tell your students that they are free to drop out and go to trade school and still have your respect.
Dang I need to go get my flag, unfurl it, and wave it around. Seriously. You describe the America I love.
"Finally, we need to restore RESPECT for people who do all those kinds of blue collar jobs. "
100% spot on. Most decent people, in fact, did these jobs to finance their degrees. Are we now so much better because we're doctors or lawyers or - perish the thought - consultants???
Work is work. And everyone who works hard at a job and does it well is worthy of respect. If you think you're better than they are, you're just a shitty person. Full stop. No equivocation You are and you need to own that. And if you treat waiters, waitresses and servers poorly, there's a special place in Hell awaiting you.
So nicely summarized Lemon
Great post. But the wounds run very deep. I have a brother in law that runs a union carpenter shop. They are begging for young folks to enter into an apprenticeships. The benefits accrued during an apprenticeship on your way to journeyman are significant. Same for all the other trades. When they do get someone to enter the system more often than not they quit or get caught drunk or drugged on the job. His work force has aged significantly over the last decade. Years ago, when teaching at a university, I use to ask why my freshman students were in college. Too many of them had no answer or were there because their parents insisted. Many of them were never going to graduate because they just didn't have the intellect, while other with the intellect just weren't interested in being there. We need to stop insisting that college is the only way to the "good life" outside of the military. We need to recognize where we are now as a economic/social system.
How true. My plumber can't keep the people he hires and it's not because of the pay. Everyone wants to be a millionaire without putting in the work.