Beautiful, poignant article. I grew up in a very small, impoverished town in Minnesota. It was built around mining but by the time I was born, the mines had mostly closed and nothing replaced it. Fathers worked away from the community, only home on weekends or even less frequently. Homes were shoddy, yards unkempt. The schools were under…
Beautiful, poignant article. I grew up in a very small, impoverished town in Minnesota. It was built around mining but by the time I was born, the mines had mostly closed and nothing replaced it. Fathers worked away from the community, only home on weekends or even less frequently. Homes were shoddy, yards unkempt. The schools were underfunded. But, the sense of community was tight. There was lots of pride in our school athletes and solidarity in the struggle. And as you’ve said, even though many, nearly all families, had members that served in the military, no one believed that the government had anything to offer them. To accept assistance from “ The government” is to admit defeat. It’s a terrible trick of the GOP to keep people poor by playing on their pride. These people continually vote against they’re own interests in the name of personal pride and so they can look down their noses at people who do except something for their own tax dollars. This is the task of the Democratic Party, in my mind. It’s to convince low wage workers, urban and rural, that They can and should benefit from the wealth of the Country they contribute to, both through their labor and through their blood in War.
Very well said, thanks! And thanks for the compliment. I don’t expect anything to change in terms of her policy positions, but maybe we will now have a foot in the door with her in office. The state of American politics doesn’t let politicians offer a view into their intent. If they veer away from the centrist, status quo message, they get hammered, so they just avoid it. (I know, Trump, but he doesn’t count because he isn’t policy-driven, he’s grievance driven, so it truly doesn’t matter what he says to his followers). Thanks again!
Beautiful, poignant article. I grew up in a very small, impoverished town in Minnesota. It was built around mining but by the time I was born, the mines had mostly closed and nothing replaced it. Fathers worked away from the community, only home on weekends or even less frequently. Homes were shoddy, yards unkempt. The schools were underfunded. But, the sense of community was tight. There was lots of pride in our school athletes and solidarity in the struggle. And as you’ve said, even though many, nearly all families, had members that served in the military, no one believed that the government had anything to offer them. To accept assistance from “ The government” is to admit defeat. It’s a terrible trick of the GOP to keep people poor by playing on their pride. These people continually vote against they’re own interests in the name of personal pride and so they can look down their noses at people who do except something for their own tax dollars. This is the task of the Democratic Party, in my mind. It’s to convince low wage workers, urban and rural, that They can and should benefit from the wealth of the Country they contribute to, both through their labor and through their blood in War.
Very well said, thanks! And thanks for the compliment. I don’t expect anything to change in terms of her policy positions, but maybe we will now have a foot in the door with her in office. The state of American politics doesn’t let politicians offer a view into their intent. If they veer away from the centrist, status quo message, they get hammered, so they just avoid it. (I know, Trump, but he doesn’t count because he isn’t policy-driven, he’s grievance driven, so it truly doesn’t matter what he says to his followers). Thanks again!