Those people in the upper midwest

[Skabungus]

X_4AD_84 Wrote:

Skabungus Wrote:Michigan.............where men are men and sheep are nervous.

My town was featured on local and national news in the two days following the election.....because it is the model for what happened in "small towns across America."  We are white, working class (according to U.S. Census data I am part of the 1% in my county educationally: I have a graduate degree) rural and definitely "post industrial".  We are in the nether world between the Rust Belt and agricultural America.  Ted Nugent is considered a hometown hero.  Amway is considered an example of good Christian business practices and a stalwart employer through thick and thin.

What do these people even do to survive?  

- Auto suppliers have gone away, reduced the work force and in all cases reduced their paid wages, so, people fight for these fewer jobs, at lower wages, with mandatory over time, and no union protection.  All the appliance manufacturers have left for Sweden, Mexico or the far east, and will not likely return as they are owned overseas as well.  Factory jobs are now few and far between, and not likely to return.  I know a fellow who is an engineer for a local plant that makes plastic interior parts for the Big Three.  He complains thusly, "They shipped these jobs to Mexico, where they can employ two Mexicans for $10/hr. each and the quality is poor.  Many of the parts are rejected.  Here at our plant, we can employ one guy for $20/hr. and his production is flawless! Trump will help bring those jobs back here and we will not have to worry about shitty parts from Mexico, and we can employ more Americans to make better products."  While I would love to swallow his simplistic reasoning whole and believe more factory jobs will come about due to said logic, I cant buy it.  The waste he is talking about is not really a factor.  Those low skilled jobs will stay in Mexico, or, go elsewhere before they come back here.  Even if they did come back here, they will only be at most 50%  of what was originally exported.

- Agricultural work is still available, if you want to make $10/hr. with no benefits moving apples from storage to shipping.  Really, we have a large migrant (mostly Mexican and Honduran) population that does the seasonal fruit and vegetable harvest.  Grains are grown and harvested by increasingly fewer and fewer hands.  Beef in Michigan is reduced to a hobby farming scale.  Yea, some work in farming...if you want part time, seasonal, dangerous work.

- Self-employment.  Fire wood; handy man; house cleaning; pet sitting; large animal pet sitting (farm sitting); Ebay; work from home rackets; licensed day cares; scrapping metals and a variety of other hand-to-mouth work occupies a lot of time and may help you make the bills, maybe.  I know and use a lot of these types of services and when I talk to these people, they are quite proud of the fact that they are "small business"  truly believing that they are part of that "backbone of the American economy"  Whether this is just a mantra they tell themselves to keep from feeling like White Trash, or something they truly believe I am not sure.  In most instances, at some point in the discussion they talk about finding steady work some day.  Clearly what they are doing is a needs-based survival strategy rather than the fulfillment of some romantic dream.

- Crime.  Poaching, drug trafficking, petty theft, food stamp fraud, public assistance fraud, disability fraud, etc.  Yep.  You want to find some professional welfare queens and fraudsters dwell?  Don't think it is exclusive to the inner city.  It is out in the country man.  Out where everyone considered it a righteous strike against the big bad government.  You got that right.

- The Government.  County road commissions; the village; the city; the township; the state and even the federal government!  Yep, with factory jobs and agricultural jobs stripped away, and little opportunity elsewhere in the economy, a goodly number of people in these communities work for the man!  In my area we have five (5) prisons that employ corrections officers, clerks, etc. which amounts to a good number of jobs.  Add in school bus drivers, and all local units of government and you have easily 1/3 of the workforce.  

I'm from Ohio, and aside from the larger share of agricultural activity here in Michigan, Ohio's situation is much the same.

Interestingly your descriptions would also apply to what some refer to as "rural" California, but more properly, I would call it, Inland California. Similar downscaling has been going on for the past 30 years. It's been especially bad the past 15 years. One of the reasons why California shows up such a deep blue is we have two mega cities and two decent sized cities, plus several medium sized ones, all pretty deep blue.

Yep I'll bet.  Around Labor Day I took the train out to Glacier National Park.  Along the way I had the opportunity to talk with a great number of people from all walks of life.  Anger.  Anger. Anger.

Mostly though I will say that much of the rural vote in my area is comprised of :

(A) Red to the core repuglicans who believe in the three G's (God, Guns and Guts) and ascribe to the romantic conservative image of America.  Most of these folks are 60 or older, are not up to speed with what is going on globally or even nation-wide with trends, tech, etc.  They often use Viet Nam examples when they try to explain how they feel.  Think Norman Rockwell.  They are convinced that all those labor jobs (think unskilled but high paid mill helper jobs, or semi-skilled assembly line jobs) are desirable, competitive and needed here in the heart land.  They are convinced that a couple quick changes in the trade policies will bring them flooding back.  They roll their eyes when confronted ideas like a "tech revolution" making the face of employment landscape quite different.  A pat answer is "you have to make things!  You cant be a great country if you don't make anything."

(B) Angry X and Millenials who frankly think the whole system stinks.  What comes through clear when they speak is they really don't give a shit where the answers come from, if the answers are real.  At the store I talk to a young man who goes on about the election, hoping we can get some of America fixed.  As he talks and I listen, I hear come out of his mouth what in any other context would be a solid left/labor position on job creation coupled with a left/libertarian position on weed, immigration and religion.  At a Boy Scout meeting I talk to a 40's something mother that worries about how to pay for her son's college and her fears about future wars taking him away.  Again, what she verbalizes is her fear, and what she seeks is the support network that, if it were written down and read would appear to be a set of centrist Democrat planks.  They are hard core Trump supporters.  They don't believe all that racist stuff, or the stuff about deporting the whole of Islam. "That's just talk to get elected" ..........Right?  Some may harbor bigoted ideas, and some may not, but it isn't really at the front of their thinking.  Instead, they are willing to ignore it or live with it, if it gets them better pay, no wars, and a stable slower changing world.

© The mobilized forces of ignorance and bigotry.  Yep.  Cant avoid it.  I have run into SCORES of rambling fools who are proud that they voted for the very first time ever! ............and they are shocked that you don't congratulate them.  Really, really undereducated people.  Really poorly informed people, many of which get their news from one or two very specific sources like say, their minister and ESPN, or Fox News and maybe Uncle Cletus!  Really, I don't want to be disparaging but for the love of the country, a shit-ton of people that are dangerously stupid registered and turned out to vote in this election.  They did it for two reasons really.  Fear they were being overrun by a changing world, and hope that Trump would make America the 1950's again.  Wait, I forgot there was a third reason.  Hillary Clinton is the Whore of the book of Revelations.  Can't forget that.

In any case, I do believe things will sort themselves out:

Group A will eventually "age out" of the electorate.  A couple good flu seasons will help that along, but they have no choice but to dwindle in impact over time, flu shots or not.

Group B really doesn't have patience or strong ties to leaders.  They don't even really like leaders.  Either the factory doors fly open, they get great health care after Obamacare is repealed and we stay out of wars altogether, or they will be ripe for different approach.  They'll dump Trump, and go with whomever can blend traditionally left labor concerns with middle of the road foreign policy positions.  They'll flip.

Group C.  God help us.  I'm hoping they go back to watching their coon dogs fuck and lose interest.