True. However, I disagree that Republicans have been any better other than offering false promises.
We are at the ending of the age of industrialization. All those jobs are going away or will be automated. Ones based on nonrenewable resources will also end sooner or later because those resources will run out. Nobody likes having their intelligence questioned. Yet there’s an incongruity of thought about supporting industries that will end soon anyway or have no real chance to survive long term. The answer there is 40+ years of neglect and failure to plant the seeds for tomorrow. Always putting off tomorrow. Tomorrow is here, today and now there’s no harvest. We reap what we sow.
It’s false to think that the devastation has hit only middle America. Cities have been struggling too, in some cases for a lot longer. Gig economies and the like have allowed people to limp along economically, but no one can say that Detroit is what it was during the heyday of the auto industry or Birmingham during the height of the steel industry. Some cities have lost half their residents with the collapse of the industries that support them, in some cases, half a million people (St. Louis).
Yet, for middle America, Republicans consistently block policy and programs that would create jobs in sustainability. They depress wages and income potential for artisans and people who work in the social sector of life. They never seem to find enough money for infrastructure projects which would also create jobs. They always have enough money for bombs and military actions though.
My point is, it’s not like there hasn’t been plenty of possible avenues to shift jobs for people who are losing theirs and revitalize those communities. But politicians on the whole are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry and Wall Street. False promises don’t change that.
I’m college educated but have worked blue collar jobs mostly. I’ve lived in large metropolitan cities and small towns. I made a choice to live a more or less nomadic life in part to follow work. So I truly get both perspectives.
Middle America is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Their livelihoods are tied to industries that either need to shift or to end as it makes no sense to not wind them down. And yet, I feel for their plight as much as I do for the city dwellers being crushed between gig economy and runaway rent.
Nothing will change until political pressure is brought to bear against big money and politicians.
I see some hope in the green deals currently being refined. They’re not perfect, but they’re steps in the right direction. Both political parties need to start acting more for our future and not our past.
