Opinions: ‘Real America’ is its own bubble

[GMDino]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/real-america-is-its-own-bubble/2016/12/12/e8ba60c2-c09f-11e6-b527-949c5893595e_story.html?utm_term=.af3da4687ed4&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1#comments

Quote:This column is for Bernard Gibson, a good man from the state of Indiana. Late last month, NPR went out to Vigo County there to explain why it flipped from voting for Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016. Gibson was one of those interviewed, and here is what he said: “These are real people here. These are not New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles. You know, these are real people that live every day from hand to hand, just have to work to make a living and everything else.”


Oh.

There are some things you ought to know, Mr. Gibson. I served in the Army. I worked at blue-collar jobs. I washed dishes and bused tables. I went to college at night and worked during the day for an insurance company (as the legendary “Cohen of Claims”). My father was raised in an orphanage, and my mother was an immigrant from Poland whose first childhood memory was of hunger. Somehow, despite all of that, I am called a member of the “elite.” If so, I damned well earned it.

[Trump voters — it’s not me, it’s you]

I do not mean to pick on Gibson, a real person after all, but I am tired of being told by him and others that I am not quite a genuine American because I did not vote for Trump or because I live on one of the coasts. I want to point out to Gibson that there are more of us than there are of him. At least 2.8 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Trump.
That does not mean Clinton won the election — she lost the electoral college, and that’s what counts — but it is nevertheless true that Clinton was the candidate not just of the limousine set, but of most voters.


Trump continues his post-election ‘thank-you’ tour

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The president-elect has gone to Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio, and saluted workers at an Indiana plant where he says he saved more than 1,000 jobs.

After the election, I was repeatedly told that I live in something called a “bubble” and, because of that, I know nothing about my fellow Americans. Well, in the first place, my bubble is bigger than theirs — size ought to matter in this instance — and in the second place, I know plenty. Among the things I know is that Trump voters were played for suckers. After lambasting Clinton as a tool of Wall Street, Trump has so far named four Wall Street figures to his administration — three from Goldman Sachs alone — and an oilman is under consideration. And for the Labor Department, Trump has chosen Andrew Puzder, a fast-food magnate (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.) who is opposed to a decent minimum wage. This is fast shaping up as a Cabinet of billionaires and, just for leveling, the occasional millionaire. So far, ain’t no one who works with his hands.

Ever since the days of Jefferson and Madison and their veneration of “yeoman farmers” (some of whom owned slaves), we have been a bit gaga over our rural cousins, associating acreage with wisdom. Whatever the case, Americans have so totally fled the farm that now only 2 percent of us till the legendary fields. The country has not had a rural majority since 1920.
Nevertheless, our electoral system favors the country mouse. The city mouse can vote or not vote — it often amounts to the same thing.

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[New York should seize Trump Tower]

As it happens, Mr. Gibson, I have plenty of sympathy for typical Trump voters. (I exclude the alt-right and other menaces to the public good, such as Rudy Giuliani.) I have written about cultural dislocation and I understand the corrosive effect of diminished expectations. Clinton talked about the glass ceiling, but too many American workers — or former workers — had to contend with a cement one: jobs that were gone and not coming back. We in the bubble understand. Truly, we do.

But I will not concede that a greater wisdom exists in what is known as “flyover country.” It has voted for a charlatan, a blinged ignoramus who has promised the past as the future. Trump, who lives in a gilded bubble of his own, cannot reverse automation, replace robots with people or blunt American businesses’ compulsive search for the cheapest workforce.

Gibson is one thing. I understand. What I cannot understand is fellow bubble dwellers who tell me, with an air of impeccable condescension, that a vote for Trump was such proof of their own superior wisdom that it eclipsed all doubts about his qualifications, his temperament, his honesty in business and his veracity in speech. These people live in a bubble of their own. It is one that excludes the lesson of history and the demands of common sense. It will burst.

[Mike M (the other one)]

Is this from the HuffPuff? Ah Washington Post, close enough.

[BmorePat87]

(12-14-2016, 03:00 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Is this from the HuffPuff? Ah Washington Post, close enough.

[BmorePat87]

(12-14-2016, 02:21 PM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/real-america-is-its-own-bubble/2016/12/12/e8ba60c2-c09f-11e6-b527-949c5893595e_story.html?utm_term=.af3da4687ed4&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1#comments

There's truth to this op-ed that is hidden behind its at-times juvenile approach, which following this election only hurts any intelligent discussion. The bubble does not exist in these large centers of population. The majority of Americans cannot live in the bubble, it's the minority that does. The minority holds onto a vision of an America that is a manufacturing nation that does not need to protect the rights of the LGBT community. An America where the population of their state may be anywhere from a quarter to half the population of LA, but where LA, with its extreme diversity in nearly every single metric, does not represent America. An America that cannot understand what's  racist about someone calling Michelle Obama an "ape in heels" on facebook, but like a facebook post where Ted Nugent uses the n word. 

[Griever]

(12-14-2016, 03:00 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Is this from the HuffPuff? Ah Washington Post, close enough.

so what exactly is your point?
what exactly did the guy say that you disagree with?

[GMDino]

(12-14-2016, 03:00 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Is this from the HuffPuff? Ah Washington Post, close enough.

(12-14-2016, 03:40 PM)Griever Wrote: so what exactly is your point?
what exactly did the guy say that you disagree with?

Which is why I make a point of saying if something is an opinion piece when I can/remember.

We know some will disagree with the opinion, but where the piece comes from should not matter if they are not trying to pass it off as factual news.

[Griever]

(12-14-2016, 05:26 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: He starts off lambasting stereo types, then like ****, goes on to tell you how special he is compared to others. Then back to lambasting and makes predictions of knowing how the future will unfold. Then tells you how stupid you are for voting for Trump again and again and again.

What this guy doesn't understand is that once a manufacturing plant shuts down in one of these rural areas, the whole area shuts down as well. It's not like in the big cities where a plant shuts down and you can get another job at the next plant a couple blocks down the road.

Hillary's fair economic plan had more Americans losing their jobs and wages suffering. Trump's plan calls for re-investment in America. Re-investment means job opportunities, not just for me, but for my fellow American's that need jobs too.

I don't give a flip about most of what Trump says, it's what he does that I am concerned about. So far, with getting that $50 Billion investment from Son, that's what I want to see. The rest is just a wait and see, he's not in his Official Position yet, so he's very limited as to what he can do atm.

despite the fact that trump and everyone he is involved with believe in a low minimum wage...wages won't go anywhere while trump is in office

[SunsetBengal]

(12-14-2016, 05:56 PM)Griever Wrote: despite the fact that trump and everyone he is involved with believe in a low minimum wage...wages won't go anywhere while trump is in office

Because you cannot create a consumer class by artificially raising the minimum wage, across the board.  Sure, in metro areas, where the cost of living is much higher, they need to raise the income of their lowest earners to afford them to be able to live there.  Otherwise, who would be there to serve them?

But, in regions where the mean income is lower, it has a much different effect.  All that raising the minimum wage to an arbitrary number does, is put more businesses out of operation, and more people on the take from the Government.  Each State is able to set it's own minimum wage, as it should be.  The Federal minimum wage should be set to equate the purchasing power that a person working minimum wage in a rural area to the same purchasing power as a minimum earner in a more affluent place.

Let the market decide what a business pays their employees.  The ones who's jobs don't require a lot of skill, yet want to maintain a competent and steady workforce, already pay above the minimum.  Businesses that don't care about things like quality and having a high turnover, do not pay more than they need to.

[*bfine32*]

Did the OP suggest he was a victim of condescension, while constantly spewing condescension?

It is amazing what passes for journalism these days; unfortunately, these folks have a following and supporters.

[*bfine32*]

(12-14-2016, 03:00 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Is this from the HuffPuff? Ah Washington Post, close enough.

These opinion pieces serve a purpose. I'm guessing the purpose of the one is: I lost, but I really won; plus I'm smarter than you. Many will read it and become a little moist. 

[SunsetBengal]

..

[Mike M (the other one)]

(12-14-2016, 05:56 PM)Griever Wrote: despite the fact that trump and everyone he is involved with believe in a low minimum wage...wages won't go anywhere while trump is in office

Do they need to?
Why is someone trying to feed a family and make a career out of working in the Fast Food Business?

Ok so raising the MW will push more people out of the current poverty levels and they will lose Government help, but once the poverty levels are re-evaluated in a few years, they will be right back where they started. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[BmorePat87]

(12-14-2016, 05:26 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: What this guy doesn't understand is that once a manufacturing plant shuts down in one of these rural areas, the whole area shuts down as well. It's not like in the big cities where a plant shuts down and you can get another job at the next plant a couple blocks down the road.

You seem to confirm his claim that rural America is a bubble, not urban America, you're just ok with that bubble.

[Dill]

(12-14-2016, 03:32 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: There's truth to this op-ed that is hidden behind its at-times juvenile approach, which following this election only hurts any intelligent discussion. The bubble does not exist in these large centers of population. The majority of Americans cannot live in the bubble, it's the minority that does. The minority holds onto a vision of an America that is a manufacturing nation that does not need to protect the rights of the LGBT community. An America where the population of their state may be anywhere from a quarter to half the population of LA, but where LA, with its extreme diversity in nearly every single metric, does not represent America. An America that cannot understand what's  racist about someone calling Michelle Obama an "ape in heels" on facebook, but like a facebook post where Ted Nugent uses the n word. 

Eloquent and spot on.

[Dill]

(12-14-2016, 07:24 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Let the market decide what a business pays their employees.  The ones who's jobs don't require a lot of skill, yet want to maintain a competent and steady workforce, already pay above the minimum.  Businesses that don't care about things like quality and having a high turnover, do not pay more than they need to.

So you are for NAFTA, the TPP and no tariffs?

[Dill]

(12-14-2016, 08:09 PM)bfine32 Wrote: These opinion pieces serve a purpose. I'm guessing the purpose of the one is: I lost, but I really won; plus I'm smarter than you. Many will read it and become a little moist. 

Instead of "guessing," why not read it closely. Try to hold back all the anger and confusion until you have figured out what the argument is about.

[Dill]

(12-14-2016, 08:27 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: ..

So the wage gap has been growing over the last 40 years because college students have been majoring in programs that don't exist?

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(12-14-2016, 08:27 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: ..

STEM smack talk from a former philosophy professor?  LMAO

[*bfine32*]

(12-14-2016, 11:50 PM)Dill Wrote: Instead of "guessing," why not read it closely. Try to hold back all the anger and confusion until you have figured out what the argument is about.

I read it closer than a biased opinion piece from WaPo deserves. I could cliff note it in 4 words: "I'm rubber, you're glue". Anyone that sees an original thought in the whole piece is quite sheltered.

[Dill]

(12-15-2016, 02:38 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I read it closer than a biased opinion piece from WaPo deserves. I could cliff note it in 4 words: "I'm rubber, you're glue". Anyone that sees an original thought in the whole piece is quite sheltered.

I never found Cliff Notes very useful.

What appeared biased to you? Can you refer me to some news sources you deem unbiased?  Just curious.