Trump Courts Working Class White Citizens, Who Democrats Abandoned

[From article]
An interesting feature of this year’s presidential election is Hillary Clinton’s heavy dependence on blacks and, to a slightly lesser degree, Hispanics voters. Bernie Sanders has also been trolling for their votes.
If the 2016 Democrat candidate for the presidency has to depend on massive support in the black and Hispanic communities to carry the election, this would continue Democrats’ shift away from heavy dependence on white working-class voters. This historic transition was admitted by Obama’s advisor David Axelrod early in 2008, and was a feature of Obama’s quest for re-election in 2012. Only 36% of working-class whites voted for him in 2012.
That is a far smaller percentage than Franklin D. Roosevelt reaped in four presidential elections between 1932 and 1944. Indeed, the white working-class constituted the backbone of the New Deal coalition, which made the Democrat Party the majority party in America from the 1930s to the mid-1960s.Today’s alienation between the Democratic Party and working-class whites is not the first occasion on which large percentages of the group voted for a Republican presidential candidate. In the 1980s, for example, we heard much about the “Reagan Democrats,” who were mostly white blue collar workers outside the South who labored in so-called “rust belt” industries, jobs that would soon be gone with the wind. Those Reagan Democrats contributed to the Gipper’s landslide victories in 1980 and 1984, and enabled George H. W. Bush (#41) to win the presidency in 1988.
[. . .]
To a certain degree in 2000 and 2004, which became much more pronounced under Obama in 2008 and 2012, the Democratic Party visibly aligned itself with blacks and other minorities, in the process leaving working-class whites feeling deserted.
There are two odd, and initially, difficult to fathom, features of today’s political parties. One focuses on the Democrats, the other, on the GOP[. . .]
First, it is puzzling that a political party whose elites have harped on the issue of increased income inequality in America, and repeatedly promised to rein in Wall Street fat cats in particular and the one-percenters in general as well as advocating soak-the-rich tax policies, would be so dismissive of the white working-class that was once a major part of that party’s base. After all, are not white blue-collar workers also part of the ninety-nine percent whom Democrat elites claim to represent?
Yet Democrat elites have deserted working-class whites, and seek votes elsewhere.
The second puzzle surrounding the white working class is the -- so far -- apparent failure of the GOP to court their votes on a systematic basis. Although some demographers claim the white working-class is “a dying breed” -- largely because the kinds of jobs they’ve typically held are disappearing -- they still comprise between 30 and 35 percent of the country’s population. [. . .]
Decades later, even though Democrat elites seem willing -- eager, some would say -- to turn their backs on a sizable segment of the electorate that once had been key to the party’s majority status, the Republican establishment seems to be doing little, if anything, to attract those people’s votes.
[. . .]
The Republican Party has long been known as the party of business. Even at the height of the Great Depression, which had seriously tarnished businessmen’s reputation, the GOP clung to their (financial and ideological) coattails, and lost its majority party standing as one consequence.
By 2016, big business has long since abandoned the GOP. As big business learned how to work with, and even benefit from, big government, business types increasingly aligned with the party of big government, i.e., the Democrats. [. . .] Unlike labor unions, who donate almost entirely to Democrats’ campaigns, large corporations split their donations between the two major parties.
[. . .]
the GOP elites’ panting after the so-called donor class, [. . .] don’t seem to have heard that the Sanders campaign relies mostly on small money donations, or that lavishly-funded campaigns don’t always succeed. (Ask Jeb Bush.)
Harvesting millions of new votes from a previously untapped bloc of citizens will win more elections than soliciting a few big contributions that may be equaled, or even topped, by donations to the other party. In addition, don’t assume that big bucks are always spent wisely in a campaign. (Ask Jeb Bush.)
The Democrats are forfeiting millions of working-class whites’ votes. The Republican Party should appeal to them, reap the votes, and laugh all the way to the inauguration.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/the_gop_forgot_working_class_whites_votes_but_trump_didnt_.html

March 3, 2016
The GOP Forgot Working Class Whites’ Votes (But Trump Didn’t)
By Richard Winchester

Abused White Workers Support Trump

[From article]
The doing with the Negro was the worst, and still is, but the doing with the worker has come a close second. First the worker had to be exempted from the law against combinations, then protected from the exploitation of long work days. Then the worker had to be protected from want with government social insurance instead of his own mutual-aid society. The result was inevitable. The working class came to expect that the ruling class would look after it with good jobs and good wages forever.
But the labor unions exempted from laws against combination turned into parasites that killed their host manufacturing corporations and their good jobs at good wages, and government social insurance is not social and not insurance, but a way for the ruling class to pay off its supporters.
Then the ruling class tired of its working class supporters, decided they were racists and sexists, and went back to its old game of playing mischief with the Negro.
[. . .]
It planned to lead minorities, women, the educated, and young people to a new Promised Land of Hope and Change in which the white working class would only be a long withdrawing roar. Only Charles Murray, reviled for writing badthink about IQ in The Bell Curve, had the wit to write about the mess of the white lower class in his Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010.
[. . .]
Life is good for the global educated elite, in the world designed, implemented, and ruled by the educated elite, even if you affect a rebellious conservatism like me.
But what about the rest of America?
The rest of America is looking right at the Gates of Hell. All because it believed the government when it promised good jobs at good wages.
[. . .]
The arc of history does not bend towards justice, as President Obama believes; it bends towards extinction for the defeated males, whether you are talking about the Rape of the Sabine Women by Rome, the Vikings sailing up the rivers of England in 1000 (men slaughtered, women and children enslaved), or the demoralized remnant of the Plains Indians with the highest male suicide rate in the U.S.
And the same goes for the farmers pushed off the land by the agricultural revolution, and the hand-loom workers by power looms, and the semi-skilled manufacturing workers buffeted by automation and low-wage Asians.
Life, the Universe, and Everything is about bucking the system and surviving to fight another round, and like the Jews, never, never give up. If you sell your birthright to the ruling class for a mess of pottage you will pretty soon be left without pottage.
There is only one sensible answer to the question of what the Trump voters want. If they want anything other than to demand that the government “do nothing with us,” then they are taking a fateful step towards oblivion.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/what_do_the_trump_voters_want.html

February 23, 2016
What Do the Trump Voters Want?
By Christopher Chantrill

High Tech California Workers Taking LSD

[From article]
It seems unlikely, but that’s apparently what some Silicon Valley professionals have been doing - and reporting great results.
According to Rolling Stone, a growing number of people are experimenting with "microdoses" of psychedelics to help them work.
A microdose of LSD is around 10-15 micrograms, approximately a tenth of a “normal” dose.
[. . .]
Psychedelics researcher Dr James Fadiman discussed microdosing withVice, saying: ‘People do it and they’re eating better, sleeping better, they’re often returning to exercise or yoga or meditation. It’s as if messages are passing through their body more easily.”
“But what many people are reporting is, at the end of the day, they say, ‘That was a really good day.’ You know, that kind of day when things kind of work.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12019140/Silicon-Valley-professionals-are-taking-LSD-at-work-to-increase-productivity.html

Silicon Valley professionals are taking LSD at work to increase productivity
An increasing number of twenty-somethings are reportedly 'micro-dosing' on psychedelic drugs - and they say it's making them better workers
By Adam Boult
3:35PM GMT 26 Nov 2015

Cambridge MA Taxi Drivers Stage One Day Strike Over Unregulated Car Sharing Companies

A taxi driver on strike in Harvard Square Monday. 

(Photo credit: Carl Stevens-WBZ NewsRadio 1030)



[From article]
"They allow people to take their private car, all day, all night and we, (with our) legitimate vehicle, we can’t find no work,” one driver told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.
“The amount of money I take home to my family has been eliminated,” another driver told WBZ-TV.
The drivers want Cambridge lawmakers to level the playing field so they can make a living.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/08/03/cambridge-taxi-drivers-on-strike-to-protest-uber-lyft/

Cambridge Taxi Drivers On Strike To Protest Uber, Lyft
August 3, 2015 12:20 PM
CBS News Boston MA

* * *

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20150803/NEWS/150809348

Social media reacts to Cambridge taxi strike
Cambridge taxi drivers staged a 1-day strike today, protesting app-based ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, which they think need more regulation. People reacted on social media.
Cambridge Chronicle Staff report
August 3, 2015

Young Often Lack Job Skills

[From article]
“I’ve had countless experiences with kids who are just not ready,” he says.
“They haven’t picked up the skills that you learn by working and that’s often because they haven’t had to.
“They come in late, they don’t realise that they might have to do things they don’t want to, and they don’t appreciate the job. They think if they don’t like it here they can just pack up and get another job around the corner, keep chasing that almighty dollar without building their skills.”
[. . .]
She says while on paper young employees are more qualified than ever before, 20-somethings are showing up to work with degrees from universities that are “disconnected with the workforce”, and a lack of workplace experience.
“A number of our members consistently tell us they’re seeing students come out of university or training programs and they might have the academic or theoretical skills, but no skills to work at all. It makes them really hard to employ,” she says.
“General issues are not understanding that a job is about turning up on time every day, not just when you feel like, that it’s about taking direction, and basic things like you’ve got to be well presented and you’ve got to be pleasant.
[. . .]
“It’s not that the universities are teaching the wrong thing, but more that young people are encouraged to get an education, follow that to a job they believe they want to do, and the assumption that it’s going to be an automatic match with what’s required in the labour market,” Professor Wyn says.
“It would be fabulous if young people were gaining really strong skills that they should be learning, but it’s really hard for educators to catch up. Instead of turning it around and blaming schools, we should look at other path ways.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/generation-unprepared-the-school-and-university-leavers-with-no-skills-to-work-at-all/story-fnkgbb6w-1227440993477

Generation unprepared: The school and university leavers with ‘no skills to work at all’JULY 14, 2015 11:44AM

Mother Of New York City's WABC-TV News Anchor Confronts News Director

[From article]
Another source said Lisa, along with other Channel 7 reporters, was put under a “tremendous amount” of pressure. She would commute into Manhattan daily as early as 2 a.m., complete her last shoot around lunchtime, and then be in the office working more stories in the afternoon. The source said, “Camille is a bully and will target people she doesn’t like, most often women. Lisa’s colleagues applaud Lisa’s mom for standing up to Camille.”



Page Six reported last week that WABC veteran Sarah Wallace is preparing for a legal battle after she was abruptly ousted by Edwards — who has been nicknamed “Camevil” in the newsroom — after 30 years at the station.

http://pagesix.com/2015/04/05/grieving-mother-says-abc-boss-worked-daughter-to-death/?_ga=1.96423647.212440808.1402078759

Grieving mom confronted WABC boss who ‘worked daughter to death’
By Emily Smith
New York Post
April 5, 2015 | 1:27am

Less Men Working

Does this explain why women are being hired before men?

[From article]
Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list.
[. . .]
Many men, in particular, have decided that low-wage work will not improve their lives, in part because deep changes in American society have made it easier for them to live without working. These changes include the availability of federal disability benefits; the decline of marriage, which means fewer men provide for children; and the rise of the Internet, which has reduced the isolation of unemployment.
[. . .]
Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, argues that the Internet allows men to entertain themselves and find friends and sexual partners at a much lower cost than did previous generations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-vanishing-male-worker-how-america-fell-behind.html?abt=0002&abg=0

The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind
DEC. 11, 2014
Binyamin Appelbaum

No Justice No Work; W.E.B. DuBois' Solution

[From article]

The final problem for all political and religious movements is what to do after you get to the Promised Land. You've defeated the enemy, you've conquered the land flowing with milk and honey. What next?
What's next is that the soldiers of the revolution should get a job, get married, and start a family. And forget all about millennial hope.
But usually they don't. Instead they get angry.
That's why blacks rioted in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Finally, they'd got to the Promised Land, and nothing had changed.
Fast forward to 2012 in Florida and 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. We've elected the First Black President and nothing has changed.
Wouldn't you be just a teeny bit upset?

http://americanthinker.com/2014/08/ferguson_life_in_the_promised_land.html

August 26, 2014
Ferguson: Life in the Promised Land
By Christopher Chantrill

* * *

[From article]
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools–intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it–this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.
[. . .]
If this be true–and who can deny it–three tasks lay before me; first to show from the past that the Talented Tenth as they have risen among American Negroes have been worthy of leadership; secondly to show how these men may be educated and developed; and thirdly to show their relation to the Negro problem.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-talented-tenth/

The Talented Tenth
W.E.B. DuBois
September 1903

You Can't Handle The Truth, How About Some Misguided Policies

[From article]
Since the 1960s and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, Washington has spent some $22trillion on 80 programsattempting to uplift the bottom rungs of American society.
[. . .]
The reasons for the lack of progress are many, but let me suggest one impediment that has drawn scant attention: a clear-eyed scientific analysis of the problem is off-limits lest inquiry somehow “offend” powerful political interests. Imagine if modern medicine functioned this way -- doctors would be outlawed from explaining one’s illness by criticizing personal habits or hygiene.
[. . .]
A perfect illustration of this stifling recently occurred when Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) in a town hall meeting opined that inner-city poverty might have something to do with men there not valuing the culture of work (a similar ruckus occurred in 2012 when Newt Gingrich criticized the work habits of young blacks). Ryan’s claim is certainly plausible given the mixed result of federal programs to build job skills among the poor.
[. . .]
The congressman then did what every public figure does when caught violating a taboo -- he tried to weasel out.
[. . .]
Congressman Ryan’s tribulations also convey an indisputable message to others -- avoid frankness on racial matters if being forthright can be judged offensive to anyone who owns a public soapbox. And being well-intentioned is no defense. If asked why blacks academically lag behind whites and Asians, just reaffirm the orthodoxy -- the legacy of slavery, bad teachers, dilapidated schools,  and, most of all, white racism. Hard to imagine any public figure getting into trouble for making this flimsy, unscientific argument.

http://americanthinker.com/2014/07/when_it_comes_to_race_why_worry_about_facts.html

July 14, 2014
When it Comes to Race, Why Worry About Facts?
 By Robert Weissberg

Celebrating Low Information Voters

[From article]
these citizens perform their civic duty on election day. But they have no real clue for whom or what they are voting. Yes, when it comes to their occupational callings, investment, or sport picks, they may be highly rational. It's just politics and public affairs that hold no interest for them. It has long been hoped that the silent majority would one day wake and grow politically engaged. In 2010, the Tea Party Movement did just that. But it yet speaks as no more than a marginal voice. The majority remains politically asleep. And this silence understandably draws the ire of those who can see the fiscal calamities to come and care deeply about the country's future. But perhaps the community of the concerned should reconsider its position. The "know-nothings" may yet hold the key to "taking our country back."
[. . .]
First, there is cynicism. Americans have little use for their elected leaders and disdain for the political process, as such. Politicians plead for their votes but rarely keep their word. Any position or solemn campaign "promise" can be "recalibrated" two weeks or two campaign miles down the road. "They are all only in it for themselves." Sadly, that's all true. But apathy is also fueled by skepticism. If the cynic believes there's nothing we can do about the hopelessly corrupt system, the skeptic believes that there's no way of knowing what to do.
[. . .]
public apathy is the simple desire to live and be left alone. It is a penchant to care most about the things that matter most: making a living, managing expenses, handling emergencies, and raising the kids.
[. . .]
When will the average American wake up and reach for her ballot? When the agent from the National Institutes of Health is standing in her kitchen demanding to know precisely what she is feeding her family?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/lets_hear_it_for_the_low_information_voter.html

February 1, 2014
Let's Hear It for The Low Information Voter
By Jerome Huyler

US Men Don't Work

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will102712.php3#.UJkdn900i6Z


Jewish World Review
The Gimme Society: The entitlement state mugs our descendants
By George Will
October 27, 2012

Disappearing Work, Responsible Parent Ethic

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316484/lost-ethic-fraser-robinson-rich-lowry


SEPTEMBER 11, 2012 12:00 A.M.
The Lost Ethic of Fraser Robinson
Michelle Obama’s father is a virtuous relic of a bygone era.
By Rich Lowry

Europe vs USA, Working Conditions

http://www.steynonline.com/section/33/seasons-of-steyn

Seasons of Steyn
HAPPY CHRISTMAS BANK HOLIDAY THURSDAY!
from The Irish Times,
December 27th 2004

Working, Government, Rewards

Words of Wisdom:

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill

Five observations.

1.You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

One Thing At A Time?

Publilius Syrus (85 BC - 43 BC) "To do two things at once is to do neither." Today many people do neither but they call it multitasking. Modern people are so much more knowledgeable than the ancients.

Socialism and Equal Outcomes for Unequal Effort

[This pattern is true in another context. It involves working for the police, and the government. They punish people who help them and reward criminals. This same pattern extends to the FBI. I know this from personal experience and from a memoir by Robert Peroff, called "Peroff." After doing the government a favor, US agents destroyed his life. On the other side of the coin, a Massachusetts hit man who admitted to 19 homicides spent about 7 months for each murder in prison. When he was released the US Department of Justice gave him $20,000.]

This teacher is truly a genius!

The late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

This man is truly a genius!

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A...

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Work is a Four-Letter Word

Work is a Four-Letter Word

This essay honoring Labor sounds like the phrase over the entrance to
Auschwitz concentration Camp, "Work makes you free." (James Carroll, "The joy of
working," Boston Globe, September 4, 2006) Carroll does use the qualifier "work
freely chosen."
But he leaves no room for dissent on the effects of one's labor. In whose
eyes is the work of Donald Rumsfeld his "small part in the human effort to make
things better?" Does the work of the suicide bombers in the Middle East have
that same inspiration?
What about the manufacturers of those gas guzzling SUVs made in Japan? What
contribution to making things better do the child and sex slave masters in
Eastern Europe and Africa contribute? Carroll's one-sided view of work is
lacking.

--
Roy Bercaw, Editor
ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA

The joy of working
Boston Globe
By James Carroll
September 4, 2006

LABOR DAY is a marker in time, the end of a season and the beginning of one. As
agrarian societies defined their calendars by events of the farm, the school
gives shape to the year in contemporary America. Today's holiday originated as a
labor movement observance intended to honor the worker with a break from work,
yet it has evolved into the signal that the time of leisure, or simply the
slacking off of August, is over. Pencils sharp, shoes shined, show up: September
is here. Back-to-school is in the air, and everyone breathes it.

I am often struck by how hard everyone is working. Harder than before, it seems.
To be stuck in rush-hour traffic in the early morning is to be surrounded by
people who are dutifully making their ways to desks and benches and counters and
nursing stations and keyboards and cement mixers and cash registers and stools.
At the wheels of their vehicles, they may be blank-eyed or dazed; they may be
nodding to the music of the radio; they may be dreamily watching nothing but the
bumper of the car ahead. But what diligence they display! What patience! Workers
of all kinds -- pick up trucks and limos in the same daily snarl -- are exactly
alike in this. The whole population is driven by the discipline of work, with
everyone taking the clock's demand for granted.

To notice this most mundane fact of life is to be amazed by it. The morning
commute puts on full display what makes this nation so productive.

How did human beings come to this ingenious mode of organization? The myth is
that life ``by the sweat of the brow" was a consequence of the Fall, the wages
of sin, in which case work is defined by obligation and necessity. Work is
burdensome, a defiance of how we're meant to be. If we could just keep August
going forever, that's what we would do, no? But why, then, is September so
universally marked by the burst of energy with which tasks are resumed? The
thrill of the fresh start. Disclaimers aside, not even schoolchildren regret the
return to class.

Work is by definition arduous, and when working conditions are unfair, work can
be a kind of despised bondage. The labor movement, after all, was born in
resistance to conditions of work that were crippling, exploitative, demeaning.
Perhaps such misery is what the author of Genesis had in mind, and perhaps for
the vast majority of humans down through history, work has had exactly that
dehumanizing character. Perhaps for the majority alive today, it still does. Is
America different in this, as in so much else? A privileged meaning of work? In
honoring the American labor movement with a holiday, aren't we honoring the
liberation of labor from just such a past? Unions, after all, as the bumper
sticker says, invented the weekend. And August, too, for that matter.

The readiness with which Americans embrace September each year, and return to
the job each morning, suggests that work freely chosen, and freely accomplished,
is essential to the good life. The real meaning of the weekend, it turns out, is
in how it changes the experience of the weekday. Can it be that liberated work
is better than play? Is this what we mean by happiness? The poet Donald Hall
locates that sensation in ``absorbedness," the being taken up in -- or taken
over by -- the task at hand, whether a writer's task or a bank teller's. Hall
associates the experience with looking up from one's work and finding that the
hours have flown by. Why is there joy in that?

Everyone reads the newspaper over coffee and, confronted with evidence of
relentless misery in the world, wishes for a way to make things better. But the
wish is vague, and apparently pointless. Then we leave the house, plunging into
the morning traffic, never thinking that by going off to work, we are doing
exactly that -- our small part in the human effort to make things better.

The economy is organized to enable us each to live a decent life, while
simultaneously contributing to an overall creation of the common future.
Injustices continue to mar this picture, and the economy obviously sets winners
against losers -- which is why the task of the labor movement is not finished.
But work, considered individually (absorbedness) and socially (productivity), is
a marvel of adaptation to the contingent and, yes, dangerous condition of life
on the glorious earth.

Happy Labor Day.

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.