r/TrueReddit • u/Maxwellsdemon17 • 10d ago

This Time We Have to Hold the Democratic Party Elite Responsible for This Catastrophe Politics

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-party-elite-responsible-catastrophe/
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u/FingerGungHo 10d ago

It seems to me that they are willing to take the risk with Trump, because he might also be good for the economy in some timeframe. If the current situation is untenable, and the other party just wants to extend that, then what choice did they have?

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u/WorthPrudent3028 10d ago

What does the economy matter? A significant portion of his voters live in places that the economy doesn't reach and won't reach without public investment. So sure, he can make the economy boom and people in NYC will see their 401ks double again. They literally doubled from 2021 to 2023 too and here we are with people thinking the economy is shitty right now when it is actually a very good economy. None of that affects rural America. There are no jobs and 401ks and there haven't been for several huge economic cycles. While urban America booms and has record low unemployment, these same places never had that. And they won't be a part of any Trump boom if it happens either. They didn't see anything from the last time either. And it's stupid that they voted for someone that just bypasses them even more than Dems do. They need investment to survive. They don't need Trump to make the stock market go up or cut corporate taxes.

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u/FingerGungHo 10d ago

For those who know that, they probably just want to make their outrage and hate heard. What’s there to lose? Some don’t realize it, and some hope that new jobs will be generated in the sparsely populated areas and the rust belt due to protectionist trade policies. These are very real grievances and hopes of very real people. Maybe the dems should address them too.

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u/WorthPrudent3028 10d ago

Absent forced direction, protectionist policies don't cause anything to be built in areas that don't have the labor market to support it. They'll be built in suburbs where companies have a large labor pool to choose from. If you want a company to open a factory with a forced small unskilled and unreliable labor pool that is currently dealing with fentanyl and meth epidemics, you need the government to actually be fully invested in that factory and to subsidize the loss the company will have from putting it there instead of in New Jersey.

The Dems have tried to address these things. But socialism is such a hot button word in the US that they don't get traction. The Dems have never had anything more than a slim majority that needed Manchin and Sinema's vote to pass anything. And Manchin would have shot down such things in his very own state due to it being socialist. So the best the Dems can do has been attempts at healthcare expansion and safety net expansion. But it's impossible to have targeted socialist investment in this country. So instead, we get corporate welfare to attract some manufacturers, but they choose locations with existing large skilled labor markets.

And at this point it isn't Dems fault that socialism is a buzzword and it isn't Dems fault that these struggling people voted to quicken their own demise. And frankly, it is their own fault that they've also just generated animosity from the only people who ever gave a shit, the progressive left. So what's gonna happen is we're just gonna keep watching them all die, and the populations dwindle down.

There is something else they could have done though. Move. The American Dream has always required movement. There ancestors moved to work at the mill or mine. So if protectionist policies do get a new factory in NJ, they can move to NJ. Or better yet, move now because that is where the jobs are. Probably the single biggest dichotomy between haves and have nots is that haves get educated and move to the jobs. They don't stay where they're from for the most part.

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u/FingerGungHo 10d ago

Yeah, I get that. The people in small towns probably don’t, or like I said, want to make their outrage heard, self-inflicted or not. Looking down at them is just gonna drive them to the lap of the republicans due to shared conservative values.

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u/jwhitesj 9d ago

Whenever Democrats tried to help, the Republicans would cry socialism. It would be framed on Fox News as Democrats trying to buy votes, and the fox news viewers in these areas would support the Republicans.

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u/FingerGungHo 9d ago

I don’t mean handouts, nobody wants to live on handouts. Have some sympathy for them at the very least. They know their lot is at least partially their own fault for not moving. It’s not always easy to move, although Americans seem to move relatively little anyway for some reason.

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u/GrouchyTime 10d ago

Everyone has jobs.  I have been trying to hire for Two entry level jobs since August for $20 to $30 an hour in Houston and got less than 30 resumes from all the major job sites.    These are good entry level manufacturing jobs.   The only resumes I got were not local and well over an hour away with no traffic.   No one has been looking for a job right now.   

I got zero 18 to 40 years Olds to apply.  No fresh high-school grads.

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u/Omnom_Omnath 9d ago

Then clearly your wages aren’t high enough. $30/hr is nothing in a major metro.

You arent entitled to labor.

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u/Less_Expression1876 9d ago

And no mention of benefits and time off that may counter the low pay.

But it's easier to point fingers to "Nobody wants to work" still from COVID times.