05-11-2017, 07:10 AM
(05-10-2017, 11:17 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(05-09-2017, 11:56 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: After listening to the story I can connect to a basic reality: that rural people think that city dwellers exploit them because they have the well-paying jobs generally unavailable in rural areas. What rural people often forget is that with those high-paying jobs comes exorbitant rents and high taxes. A couple might be able to live on three near-minimum wage jobs in rural Illinois, but definitely not in Greater Chicago. But live in Chicago, and real estate is costly (if it is in a place where one doesn't live in fear of violent crimes such as rape and muggings) , commutes are long and expensive, and taxes are high. Want good schooling? Not only will you pay to keep up the bad public schools, you might have to send your kids to a private school if they are to do reasonably well in life.
But rural folk in some northern states (among them most blatantly Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan) see evidence of the urban middle class coming to their communities with their expensive boats (conspicuous consumption) and have a love-hate relationship with them. Yes, they may get jobs in convenience stores that sell motor fuels, snacks, beer, and fishing bait to such people, but those customers are spending more on boat fuel than these rural people are making in a day. Some may have bought cottages at the lake, having bid up the prices of the only desirable real estate -- the places in which many of the rural folk used to go for summer swims and go out on a canoe. So along comes Donald Trump with the message: hurt the educated middle class that exploits you and looks down upon you.
Some people have done very well in the pre-Trump America, and most have done badly. Never mind that Donald Trump will bring about the sort of inequality that existed in the old Jim Crow South... people that you don't like will feel the pain. Never mind that you will, too.
The Right has learned to pit the middle class, the working poor, and the welfare recipients -- a war from which only the Master Class can profit. The Master Class will get tax cuts; the rest of us will find ourselves having to pay more taxes just for wars for profit and show projects that enrich contractors tied to the Trump Administration. Wages will likely plummet as unions are destroyed. Public education will disintegrate as the Christian fundamentalists get control of it. Resources wi9ll be plundered. The public sector will be privatized to profiteering monopolists connected to you-know-who.
Highlighted text was a very interesting thing, 20 - 25 years ago. All the relatively good paying jobs making flex circuits, cable assemblies, crystal oscillators, metal parts, ASICs, high density controlled impedance backplane connectors, etc, etc, were the ticket to a great life in the "American Outback." Heck, seeing it as much as I did back then, I was seriously tempted to make the move myself. I'm now glad I didn't. But back then, one could be a proud member of the "Country Squire" or "Big Fish in a Small Pond" market segments, with relative ease, working at such a firm, living in a smaller rural or small town setting.
Fargo seems mostly to have escaped this fate because it's transitioned into being a large enough city.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain