My parents, the Trump voters: a Sanders-supporting son attempts to understand

[babylonsister]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/02/donald-trump-supporters-parents-bernie-sanders-supporter-son-political-differences?CMP=fb_us#link_time=1470143063

My parents, the Trump voters: a Sanders-supporting son attempts to understand

James Lantz

Tuesday 2 August 2016 08.00 EDT
Last modified on Tuesday 2 August 2016 12.37 EDT
Video at link~

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Since 2000, nearly five million American manufacturing jobs have disappeared– a third of the entire manufacturing workforce.Using government statistics, one group estimated that over 60,000 US factories have closed in the last 15 years.

One of those factories belonged to my mom and dad.


snip//

“I always took pride in Made in America,” Dad tells me, “and I told you, manufacturing is it – you need to get into manufacturing. Well, as it turns out, all the work is going to China, and all the work is going to Mexico and it fell apart.”

snip//

To my folks and many people across the country, what’s been happening to them is not only “heartbreaking” – it’s humiliating. And like a love affair gone bad, it’s messy and ugly. Nobody knows where it might lead.

Talking to my father is like talking to somebody who’s been jilted: anger mixed with regret and a deep romantic hope, that maybe – just maybe – things can go back the way they were.

Meanwhile, my dad’s homemade “Trump 4 President” sign still stands in front of my parents’ house in Virginia. He checks on it twice a day, every day.

“I’m checking for vandalism,” he says. “I’m afraid somebody’ll take spray paint and paint over it or vandalize it. That’s my fear.”

As he says this, I think about that somebody who ran over his sign and all the emotions it dredged up in my dad. What the sign really is, I think, is my father’s half of a tense conversation with that somebody that continues to this day.

Which makes me think of the lyrics to a Patsy Cline song.

“Strange how you stopped loving me, how you stopped needing me … oh, how strange.”

[True Dough]

1. That's far worse

than when you found out that your parents were making up Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!

There are some transgressions that just can't be forgiven!!!

[renate]

2. k&r

Very interesting and poignant... I say poignant both because of what happened to his mom and dad and because it really is sad that they think Trump gives one single damn about people like them, yet they are so loyal.

[Snotcicles]

3. That song reminds me of this Antonio Porchia quote.

They have stopped deceiving you, not loving you. And it seems to you that they have stopped loving you.

[whatthehey]

4. Bit of a non sequitur tho'

Yep manufacturing employment is down in 15 years (mfg output has risen greatly http://www.nam.org/Data-and-Reports/State-Manufacturing-Data/2014-State-Manufacturing-Data/Manufacturing-Facts--United-States/) but what do they imagine Trump, an outsourcer via his companies, will do to help? He certainly won't invest in infrastructure renewal that could employ people. He might, if you are naive enough to believe him, apply punitive tariffs on imports which will inevitably face backlash in both trade wars and international organizational findings, and raise prices for consumer goods without a concomitant increase in wages (it's not magic that kept mfg output high with falling employment. What would higher output, even if feasible economically, do to change that ratio?)

What has happened to us happens to all wealthy market economies, yes including Germany and even starting ever so slightly in China, in that the Services sector becomes a greater and greater part of the economy as GDP per capita PPP increases. It does so because we have the money to pay for them and because cet par most (note that individual anecdotes do not refure this) people would prefer to sit in an air conditioned office 8 hrs a day than sweat their asses off at risk of life and limb in a foundry. Britain used to rule manufacturing. The US did too. They both did it by limiting better job opportunities to specific demographics and leveraging an underclass with few options. China is doing the same. North Africa and Central Asia will probably be doing it a generation hence, as the wealthier nations before them transition to service economies as we did.

[bklyncowgirl]

5. This is why economic populism is such a potent force.

By economic populism I mean doing what's in the best interests of the majority of Americans not the wealthy elite. It helped propel Bernie Sanders and it is the primary force behind Donald Trump. These peoples situation is not the result of some force of nature. It is a deliberate choice made by our governing class from both parties.

The Democratic Party used to represent these people's interests. Now it does not. The Dems have found their salvation in the growing numbers of POC and it's money on Wall Street. The Republicans never represented their interests but have played their grievances like a violin using race, guns, God and gays to get them to vote for politicians who threaten to take away what little they have.

I hope that people in leadership in the Democratic Party read this article and others like it. Dismissing white working class people as irrelevant throwbacks or as racists could turn out to be a very bad decision.

[Vinca]

6. Dad should be gifted with some items from the Trump clothing line.

Make sure he checks the labels for the country of origin.

[Lucinda]

7. +1

[glennward]

8. Trump is not going to bring back manufacturing jobs that replace robots or automation.

Your dad needs to know that Trump is lying to him. I just wish he had heard the President's presser today. Someone really needs to educate or explain to voters the world they are living in but not understanding. Lots of voters have never ventured 50 miles away from their hometown and they don't even know what is going on in the world except for what FOX and Rush tell them.