I don't understand what has the folks of my childhood so pissed off at the government, the Democratic party, and the whole damn world it seems.
Many of these voters do not have any higher education so their jobs bring menial wages. This was a path choice. Many shop at Walmart. where they claim employee abuse of social welfare handouts is rampant. But they still shop there. That's a choice. They're fed up with government interfering in their lives and yet they count on social security for retirement, they take government subsidies for their crops. They drive on county roads built and maintained by the government. They place their money in the trust of banks where their deposits are secured by the government. Their lives are surrounded by programs and laws and incentives produced and maintained by the VERY government they seem to hate so vehemently. Are they starving? Are they being persecuted? Is the government knocking on their doors and taking away their firearms? Are they being denied opportunities that are due them? The answer to all these question is undeniably NO.
What am I missing here? A fellow rural dweller is puzzled.
I can understand a resentment toward the one percent that controls all the wealth. Then why elect a man who is part of that one percent? A man who has taken advantage of tax breaks for the wealthy and multiple bankruptcies for unsuccessful adventures? That's a government program, by the way. Do they abhor lobbyists and deep pocket donors that are looking for givebacks from their elected officials? Do they believe this man who has run riot on the commercial real estate industry, who has stiffed hundreds of workers on his projects, who has threatened to bully and sue anyone who says or does anything that doesn't suit his mood - do these kind, hardworking rural white folks really believe this billionaire who has deliberately insulted every minority group in the world, is going to get out of his Mercedes, listen to their woes of poor me, poor me, and then with the empathy of Mother Theresa, pull a magic rabbit out of his hat and fix all their problems?
HELLO? HELLO? Is there any common sense out there in the cornfields of the Midwest? This man couldn't care less whether you have a job, or food on the table, or the possibility of going to school to better yourself. He has never lived like you. He has never seen it, felt it, and certainly has no idea how to better it. He has proved he can better only one thing. Himself. That's the ONLY person he has ever thought of and that's not likely to change, folks.
If you are a woman, or a mother, or a proclaimed Christian, or someone who tries not to be prejudiced against everyone who is different than yourself - if you are one of these and you cast a vote for Trump - you voted for hate. He incited it. He encouraged it. He participated in it. The sadness and disappointment that has descended upon our country is not about politics or party. The sorrow is about selling out on our country's values. The principles the country was founded on and the ones that have made us a leader among nations and one of the most admired populations in the world. We've sold those values and we sold them at Walmart prices to a con man.
Rural and white doesn't mean you have to be ignorant and narrow-sighted. Those are not Midwest values. At least not the ones I grew up with in rural, white America.
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