The world of good-paying, skilled, but not highly educated lifetime jobs is gone and that's a serious problem that's only going to get worse and that we're really not grappling with.
Well, that's largely dependent upon how you define "good-paying", and where you live. While I definitely agree that it's going to get worse, I would disagree that that world is entirely gone. There are a TON of trade jobs still available in the US, as well as jobs for skills generally received through formal education, but not necessarily so (lots of tech-related jobs are still that way, though not nearly as much as they were 20-30 years ago).
The thing is job retraining is something they are not interested in. They want there way of life back. Straight out telling them "Sorry your communities are going to get worse and the jobs you and your ancestors have done for generations are gone" is a pretty surefire way to alienate the people you are speaking to. Graphs and hard logic always loses out to emotional appeals, especially on complex issues that people are not knowledgeable about. I have seen some strain of this kind of thinking in all walks of life, so it's not like its epidemic only amongst coal miners and auto workers.It is unbelievable that people in coal country still believe this nonsense and well past time they grow up and learn to live in the really real world. If the only way to win elections is to tell people lies they want to hear and pursue 'solutions' which will not work then our country will be joining coal power in the graveyard. Clinton offered coal workers real hope with the possibility of job retraining towards wind and solar power. Instead they chose to continue embracing the GOP lies which have been slowly strangling their communities for decades.
As for auto-workers... they should probably be warned that their days are numbered. Autonomous vehicles will greatly reduce the number of new cars needed each year... and correspondingly the number of auto workers needed. Ergo, auto factory communities should be looking to transition to new options over the next half century or so.
And honestly "job retraining" isn't the panacea it's made out to be. Sure, there's some work in wind & solar they could move into. Some other fields.
Still, the fundamental problem isn't as simple as "these jobs are going away and there are these other jobs that we don't have workers trained for." Job retraining helps you compete for the jobs there are, but that's likely to only mean you beat someone else out for the job and they still need one.
The world of good-paying, skilled, but...
There are plenty of high-skill, high-pay (compared to national median), low-education jobs out there. (Mechanic, welder, electrician, plumber, hvac install/repair, computer network admin, machinist, etc)
The difference is that you don't have an entire town where 70%+ of breadwinners work for a single company doing the same job.
There are plenty of high-skill, high-pay (compared to national median), low-education jobs out there. (Mechanic, welder, electrician, plumber, hvac install/repair, computer network admin, machinist, etc)
The difference is that you don't have an entire town where 70%+ of breadwinners work for a single company doing the same job.
Thing is, those towns had people doing most of that work already. Even while the Widget factory was open, people still needed mechanics, welders, electricians, etc.
Closing the factory doesn't suddenly boost that demand.
Right. And that is the real difference. There is a need for those professions all over the country. But it would mean moving away from the dead mining town.
So, you can't say that high-pay, low-education jobs are gone. They aren't. You could find an apprenticeship within a week for at least half of the ones I listed. With a 12 month certification you could get any of the others.
You just can't expect to walk off the high school graduation stage and show up with an able-body and a will to work and expect to be the sole-bread winner for a family of 5. That reality is over.
Well if your vote was all that was needed, then yeah, the Dems wouldn't need to change.
What is anyone, that isn't a corporation, voting republican for that isn't a complete lie or at the very least come with seven asterixes? (asteri?)
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While I definitely agree that it's going to get worse, I would disagree that that world is entirely gone. There are a TON of trade jobs still available in the US, as well as jobs for skills generally received through formal education, but not necessarily so (lots of tech-related jobs are still that way, though not nearly as much as they were 20-30 years ago).
Starting up carpentry at 40 really isn't much of an option for people.
While I definitely agree that it's going to get worse, I would disagree that that world is entirely gone. There are a TON of trade jobs still available in the US, as well as jobs for skills generally received through formal education, but not necessarily so (lots of tech-related jobs are still that way, though not nearly as much as they were 20-30 years ago).Starting up carpentry at 40 really isn't much of an option for people.
I didn't say it was. The argument was that the world of "good-paying", skilled jobs that don't require high levels of education is gone. I disagreed.
Well if your vote was all that was needed, then yeah, the Dems wouldn't need to change.What is anyone, that isn't a corporation, voting republican for that isn't a complete lie or at the very least come with seven asterixes? (asteri?)
Not being a Republican voter, I can't say with absolute certainty. But that's also why I'm not a political adviser. My best guess is that they're doing it because they're ignorant to reality. It's an easy guess because that applies to most people in one way or another.
I didn't say it was. The argument was that the world of "good-paying", skilled jobs that don't require high levels of education is gone. I disagreed.
No. The argument was that the world of good paying skilled jobs for displaced factory workers to take up doesn't exist. Big difference.
For those of you who don't know, Mr. Brock's main claim to fame (aside from being born into massive wealth) has been serving as an especially vicious attack dog for the Clintons. He's served them against both Bernie Sanders and Anita Hill (he wrote a book vilifying both Hill's mental state and her "promiscuity").???
How did Brock's attacks on Hill have anything to do with the Clintons?
Sorry, that was a combination of two sentences gone awry. It doesn't have anything to do with them. He's just an ass who follows where the money's good.
Unless you think the democracy isn't living up to your democratic ideals. Plus, we all know "democracy" is a blanket term. When used in its truest sense, it does not apply to the U.S. Government -- you know, being a republic and all :P.
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More and more of the job market is low-skill, low-wage work. This is a big, long-term problem and it's not one that can simply be pushed off onto workers not wanting to retrain and/or move.
It's no surprise that retraining isn't a popular option. Basically you're telling workers who've built up decades of seniority, that they have to go to remedial skill and then compete for jobs where they are starting at the bottom again.
Try to sell them that and they'll say... "Hell no, we need to dig more coal!"
Ultimately we need to take the rising mountain of automated productivity, and we need to use it fund a fundamental change in society to one that's not built on full time work. Instead we have to remove the ugly stigma of welfare, and instead introduce a Mimimum Living Allowance and institute a system of part time work which is done for bonus money.
That and universal single payer healthcare. Obamacare should never have been seen as anything more than a transition to this.
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Yeah I always thought it made zero sense that your job was responsible for your health care.
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Yeah I always thought it made zero sense that your job was responsible for your health care.
It made perfect sense when you turned 18 you got one job and worked till you died at 60: your employer has money and a vested interest in not polluting your work environment.
With people hopping jobs, if not careers, not so much.
It doesn't help that the current tax scheme taxes WORK, not income.
Social security contribution, payroll tax, and employee healthcare (which is effectively a regressive tax for both employer and employee) .. if you use americans to make your product you are bleeding money. If on the other hand you invest your money in a company and they make stuff overseas and make your money that way you pay far less in taxes with far less risk. Why would anyone open a factory that can burn down when they can just use stock investments which are de facto insured by the government AND pay half the taxes on them?
Yeah I always thought it made zero sense that your job was responsible for your health care.It made perfect sense when you turned 18 you got one job and worked till you died at 60: your employer has money and a vested interest in not polluting your work environment.
With people hopping jobs, if not careers, not so much.
It doesn't help that the current tax scheme taxes WORK, not income.
Social security contribution, payroll tax, and employee healthcare (which is effectively a regressive tax for both employer and employee) .. if you use americans to make your product you are bleeding money. If on the other hand you invest your money in a company and they make stuff overseas and make your money that way you pay far less in taxes with far less risk. Why would anyone open a factory that can burn down when they can just use stock investments which are de facto insured by the government AND pay half the taxes on them?
Thanks for info!
Don't know if these folks have been mentioned yet. They seem to believe that they are the future of the Democratic party.
In an interview Mr. Kulinski lays out their platform, and assures people that the "justice" part of the name certainly doesn't imply social justice while declaring the movement will be free from leftist authoritarianism, so long as candidates agree to the Justice Democrats demands for unbreakable vows.
He explains how the completely non-negotiable part is that candidates must agree not to accept any corporate money, or wealthy donor money... Then goes on to explain that the movement is only focused on congressional and presidential candidates because getting active at a local and state level is really expensive. He imagines that if only they can win, they can get money out of politics completely.
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When used in its truest sense, it does not apply to the U.S. Government -- you know, being a republic and all :P.
I assume that last bit is some kind of joke (e.g. riffing on conservatives who say such things), but of course the US is a democratic republic. There is nothing mutually exclusive about the two.
I used it yesterday as a Daily Musical Interlude on Facebook, but should have put it here as well.
How could anyone vote for a douchebag when they clearly had a turd sandwich to vote for?
Unfortunately, many of the party elites and various allies in the liberal media decided they knew better than the excited voters. They need to learn to trust their base. Which means even if you could swing things towards a candidate you believe is actually the best choice, that you ethically do not do so. And yes, this requires people to accept that there is going to be collateral damage when your side loses. As long as they feel they must win at any cost, then they will continue to try to manipulate the results behinds the scenes.
Politics around the world faces a similar problem....
Far too many "career politicians" around who ultimately have very little appetite or understanding of risk and reward and very little grasp on the rapidly changing realities of modern life.
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How could anyone vote for a douchebag when they clearly had a turd sandwich to vote for?
Unfortunately, many of the party elites and various allies in the liberal media decided they knew better than the excited voters. They need to learn to trust their base. Which means even if you could swing things towards a candidate you believe is actually the best choice, that you ethically do not do so. And yes, this requires people to accept that there is going to be collateral damage when your side loses. As long as they feel they must win at any cost, then they will continue to try to manipulate the results behinds the scenes.
How did they manipulate the results behind the scenes? Be specific please.
When used in its truest sense, it does not apply to the U.S. Government -- you know, being a republic and all :P.I assume that last bit is some kind of joke (e.g. riffing on conservatives who say such things), but of course the US is a democratic republic. There is nothing mutually exclusive about the two.
Yeah, not my best work. I was trying to point out that the US isn't a direct democracy so the fact that we tend to refer to it as a democracy rather than a republic always seemed strange to me -- especially when folks, like you said, use the fact that "democrats" don't live up to the political system they're named after. Considering republicans are also named after the system, they don't get this same treatment because no one throws around the term "republic" when talking about the country.
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The problem of not needing human beings is about to kick into overdrive as watson does for white color workers what automation did for blue collars.
How did they manipulate the results behind the scenes? Be specific please.How could anyone vote for a douchebag when they clearly had a turd sandwich to vote for?
Unfortunately, many of the party elites and various allies in the liberal media decided they knew better than the excited voters. They need to learn to trust their base. Which means even if you could swing things towards a candidate you believe is actually the best choice, that you ethically do not do so. And yes, this requires people to accept that there is going to be collateral damage when your side loses. As long as they feel they must win at any cost, then they will continue to try to manipulate the results behinds the scenes.
I presume pres man is referring to the number of actions taken by the Democratic Party to nudge the primaries in favor of the leaders preferred candidate. Things like scheduling of debates, use of party databases, and DWS's underground smear campaign against Sanders. Not to mention the fact that super-delegates were allowed to pledge before the field was fully announced.
But that's just the stuff on the top, that we KNOW happened. There were huge amounts of reported voting anomalies that were in the news and then never followed up on. I'll see if I can find the exact piece I'm thinking of, but I remember one specific case where a guy went to vote for Sanders and didn't vote for any of the other races on the ballot. His ballot was rejected by the automated reader as blank. The election official present destroyed the ballot and had him try again, same result. 4 times. The machine was clearly not registering votes for Sanders, but presumably other Sanders voters that day voted for other races and didn't get kicked. There were a bunch of stories like that a throughout the primary season.
Then, you know, the whole closed primary thing.
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How could anyone vote for a douchebag when they clearly had a turd sandwich to vote for?
No. The candidates are not the same. The parties are not the same. They are not both equally bad. Its pseudo insightful nonsense
Unfortunately, many of the party elites and various allies in the liberal media decided they knew better than the excited voters.
a minority of whom voted for trump.
Which means even if you could swing things towards a candidate you believe is actually the best choice, that you ethically do not do so.
Absolutely not.
Republicans do not merely have a problem with ought. They have a problem with is. While every politician cowflops a little, republicans have a small skeleton of truth with a cowflop exterior (see "the party of..." post above). Trump is cowflops all the way through. Nothing he says is real.
It is the media's job to report the truth, not just act as a mouthpiece for two people talking as if they were equal and opposite sides. The problem isn't that they picked a side, right and wrong, it's that for too long they haven't picked a side between correct and incorrect.
And yes, this requires people to accept that there is going to be collateral damage when your side loses. As long as they feel they must win at any cost, then they will continue to try to manipulate the results behinds the scenes.
If you mean the primary, they're a political party. Their job is to churn out a candidate that represents the party and not let in either someone that's a republican sabotaging the election or some nutjob that's going to tarnish the party name forever.
When you are called "Democratic Party" and go "F*** the democracy!", there is one Hell of a problem.Exactly what are these "foundations" you speak of?That rebuilding will have to take the form of adjustments over the next few years. Primaries. Chair elections. Our only hope is if the people stand up and take the Democratic Party back.Then it won't work. Temporary adjustments might help, but the fact would remain that its foundations need to be replaced, or more accurately, changed back to what they are supposed to be.
Again, what are the foundations? Because you say we require "drastic change", but all I see a need to do is elect some different people.
That's not an answer.
Indeed.
I presume pres man is referring to the number of actions taken by the Democratic Party to nudge the primaries in favor of the leaders preferred candidate. Things like scheduling of debates, use of party databases, and DWS's underground smear campaign against Sanders. Not to mention the fact that super-delegates were allowed to pledge before the field was fully announced.
I could add to this, but we shouldn't be re-fighting the primary. Suffice to say that the idea that the primary was balanced and fair does not ring true with Bernie supporters. And while Hillary supporters are fond of reminding us that we are fewer in number than, say, Clinton supporters in 2008, there's still quite a lot of us. It's not worth arguing over, though.
I will also note, however, that it appears that even BNW agrees that the primary was not fair and balanced—he just doesn't think it needed to be because "that's how parties work". That's an attitude that is worth discussing, since changing how primaries are run might or might not be part of the party's future direction.
or some nutjob that's going to tarnish the party name forever.
While I wouldn't use a word like "nutjob" to describe anything other than a profession at a walnut farm, it seems to me that Clinton might have accomplished this by reinforcing the common appearance of Democrats as being out-of-touch wealthy bureaucrats who rely more on push-and-pull within their party than populist approval. Boy, that was a run-on sentence.
will also note, however, that it appears that even BNW agrees that the primary was not fair and balanced—he just doesn't think it needed to be because "that's how parties work". That's an attitude that is worth discussing, since changing how primaries are run might or might not be part of the party's future direction.
How do you select for something without having people to do the selecting? How do you have a group identity without having someone watching the door? (or in this case at least making it a little harder to get in the door)
Or to put it another way, what system would the democratic party use to stop say, Trump from running as a democrat?
I would have been ecstatic to have president sanders. I think it's overblown to say that he WOULD have won, and not proven that he would have had a better chance (we'll never know i suppose), but I don't think it should surprise anyone that the democratic party pushed the democratic candidate and not the socialist that hopped into the party the week before the election.
You're mistaking my acceptance of political reality as an enorsement of it. It's not: it simply is what it is. Its like walking into a sausage factory and going "oh my god there's blood and guts everywhere!" well. Yes. Sausage factory.
it seems to me that Clinton might have accomplished this by reinforcing the common appearance of Democrats as being out-of-touch wealthy bureaucrats who rely more on push-and-pull within their party than populist approval.]
People didn't remember how bad bush was 8 years later and they certainly won't remember how bland clinton was 4 years later.
Both the super-delegates & closed primaries are long standing things, not implemented to protect Clinton. As by the way are the caucuses, which favored Sanders.
I didn't say they were enacted to support Clinton, I said they are tools are the party leadership to put their favored candidate on the top of the ticket. Clinton just happened to be that person this time.
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How did they manipulate the results behind the scenes? Be specific please.How could anyone vote for a douchebag when they clearly had a turd sandwich to vote for?
Unfortunately, many of the party elites and various allies in the liberal media decided they knew better than the excited voters. They need to learn to trust their base. Which means even if you could swing things towards a candidate you believe is actually the best choice, that you ethically do not do so. And yes, this requires people to accept that there is going to be collateral damage when your side loses. As long as they feel they must win at any cost, then they will continue to try to manipulate the results behinds the scenes.
I presume pres man is referring to the number of actions taken by the Democratic Party to nudge the primaries in favor of the leaders preferred candidate. Things like scheduling of debates, use of party databases, and DWS's underground smear campaign against Sanders. Not to mention the fact that super-delegates were allowed to pledge before the field was fully announced.
But that's just the stuff on the top, that we KNOW happened. There were huge amounts of reported voting anomalies that were in the news and then never followed up on. I'll see if I can find the exact piece I'm thinking of, but I remember one specific case where a guy went to vote for Sanders and didn't vote for any of the other races on the ballot. His ballot was rejected by the automated reader as blank. The election official present destroyed the ballot and had him try again, same result. 4 times. The machine was clearly not registering votes for Sanders, but presumably other Sanders voters that day voted for other races and didn't get kicked. There were a bunch of stories like that a throughout the primary season.
Then, you know, the whole closed primary thing.
First reaction, I decided to look up the voter database issue. I read a few articles, from what I can see there wasn't an issue. Can you provide specific details about how the Clinton campaign misued the DNC database?
Everything I'm reading is about how the Sanders campaign improperly used the database.
Bolded a sentence, cause I'm not sure we "know" everything your'e claiming we know.
Well, theres closed and there's new york closed. If you're not a first time voter you had to re register as a democrat something like a year and a half in advance.
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I could add to this, but we shouldn't be re-fighting the primary. Suffice to say that the idea that the primary was balanced and fair does not ring true with Bernie supporters. And while Hillary supporters are fond of reminding us that we are fewer in number than, say, Clinton supporters in 2008, there's still quite a lot of us. It's not worth arguing over, though.
I will also note, however, that it appears that even BNW agrees that the primary was not fair and balanced—he just doesn't think it needed to be because "that's how parties work". That's an attitude that is worth discussing, since changing how primaries are run might or might not be part of the party's future direction.
But that is how parties work. It amuses me to hear complaints about not listening to the base along with complaints about closed primaries. Registered party members are the base. Independents aren't the party base.
More generally, if you want to change the party rules, this isn't how to do it. You don't do it with an Independent changing his affiliation for a presidential run, largely supported by non-party voters. You don't do it by complaining about the party rules afterwards. You don't do it by not voting for the winner of the primary. You don't do it top down.
And this is where I come off like a broken record: You do it bottom up. You want to change the Democratic party? Become the Democratic party. Get people into local offices. Win state and congressional races. Take over the machinery. Use that to change the rules.
I just have a fundamentally different idea of what a political party should be. I think the party should simply be a platform of ideas. You shouldn't need to register to support an idea.
I understand what the rules were/are, I simply believe them to be at odds with a political party participating in a representative government.
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Most whites voted for a racist.
Most men voted for a misogynist.
Most Christians voted for a religious bigot.
Whites, males, and Christians are all declining portions of the voting population. By supporting a candidate so openly hostile to other groups, they have driven those growing portions of the electorate even further from the GOP.
Republicans have also lost the young and college educated... again both of which represent growing percentages of voters. Basically, every demographic Trump won, except males, currently represents a majority of the voting population... but they are all shrinking.
THAT is the future of the Democratic party. The GOP needs to win larger and larger percentages of these shrinking voter demographics... which they can only do by appealing more and more to the most biased members of those groups. That alienates all of the growing groups, and will eventually hit a tipping point where even most members of the supported majorities recoil in disgust (as can already be seen with the young).
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I think that the party will have to respond more to its voters. I think that the DNC too heavily favored Hillary Clinton, in particular with debates at odd hours.
Also, on another thread in this forum, I mentioned that I was going to a local protest. Several hundred people in Munster, Indiana on Monday gathered to protest the immigration order. .
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I honestly thought we'd reached that point. If anything, I think we may be moving in the other direction now. Backlash. Again.
Of course, the GOP's answer to that is to keep more and more of those minorities from voting. To change the rules. Even to keep them out.
We'll see.
Personally, I suspect that Trump is the last gasp of a dying ideology (or a whole host of dying ideologies). He won by a hair under extraordinary circumstances.
Sure, members of those ideologies were motivated to vote while others were complacent and/or demotivated by a poor candidate... but now the shoe is on the other foot. Trump is out there making one outrageous move after another. That will spark a similar backlash from all the groups sickened by his positions.
Demographic superiority + Motivation is a difficult combination to beat... even with voter suppression.
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Most whites voted for a racist.
Most men voted for a misogynist.
Most Christians voted for a religious bigot.Whites, males, and Christians are all declining portions of the voting population. By supporting a candidate so openly hostile to other groups, they have driven those growing portions of the electorate even further from the GOP.
Every Republican going back to at least Nixon has been called a racist, misogynistic, bigot. Every four years it's said the Republicans will never win again because the youth are pro-Democrat and the country just needs a few more old people to die off, or a few more immigrants, ect. (And every Democrat is a socialist, and once peple see how bad it is when Americans start standing in ration lines the Democratic party is over.)
But this time it's different! *Sigh*
The Democatic bench is hurt to a nearly 100 year low, but hardly gone. They have every chance of winning the presidency in 2020 with a likable candidate, who has a personality, isn't under investigation for careless handling of classified material, and doesn't take the month of August off to recharge (exasperated by losing a week in September to pneumonia).
Conversely, as young people try to buy houses, have children, get jobs and pay taxes, and as immigrants see themselves as American first, the Republicans are going to have plenty of votes for decades to come.