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Donald Trump 2019

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Post Oak

Post Oak 20213

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These guys are the ones who need to be pulling hardest for GND.  The one's with a lick of sense anyway.

The GND could put all of these people to work.  Not in the holler but with someplace else with a future.  

They need to get their "belly full of beer and a possum in a sack" ass pointed in the right direction and realize Trump Moscow Mitch and Paul don't give one single Mountain Dew about their ass.

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GHOSTUSER
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I fucking love this President. My 2 faves during my lifetime are Trump and Nixon. They share a lot of similarities and were besieged by the same groups of assholes. No I’m not trolling. Y’all, the lef

Francisco 2.0
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Brisketexan
Brisketexan

This.....is magnificent. The "younger generation" is going to have to work double-time to fund YOUR Social Security, which YOUR generation of elected officials raided the fuck out of.  And which,

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28779

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18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I’m really not sure why we don’t have a modern Grapes of wrath with coal miners fleeing an area with no future.
I said this in the months after Harvey: if I was president, I’d tel the coal miners that I found their coal mining jobs! They’re called “construction jobs in Houston.” They should go get one.

Yeah, but remember that in The Grapes of Wrath there were a lot more people traveling for jobs than there were jobs available. It depressed wages and violence ensued. 'They should all just move to where the jobs are' sounds like a simple solution but it's a lot more complicated than that. Apart from the above, not everyone knows where to go, not everyone has the means to go, a lot of people are connected to family and friends and the only home they've ever known and can't imagine leaving. You have to figure there are also some people who would rather die than live in Houston. 

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atomheartbevo

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1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

These people are just plain evil.

But they're the Republican Party's wet dream when it comes to the war they've been waging against science and the environment for decades. They're going scorched earth while all the racism and corruption and other insanities hog the headlines so it goes unnoticed.

The only good thing, is that this is uniting and motivating a lot of groups in the middle and on the left.  Trump mocks Asians at a dinner?  There's a group of people with a few more motivated to vote against Trump.  Trump tries to completely fuck over the environment, unraveling decades of work?  There's a group of people with a lot more motivation to get out and vote against Trump.  And many of these groups are scattered across the country, which will help boost local candidates.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89659

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1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Read an article over the weekend about the accelerating implosion of the coal industry and how they were all pinning their hats on Trump.  Of course the story was sprinkled with stories about distressed coal workers who have lived in Appalachia for decades and have nowhere to go.

It's easy to make fun of these people but what about these guys makes them hitch their wagon to an already dead horse.  I, like most people here, grew up in the oil patch and I don't know any oil guys that say "I know it's tough but I just can't leave Odessa."  They all know it's a boom and bust business and that's why a lot of them left the industry over the years.  Why is it hard for these coal guys to quit coal?  Oil guys seem to have none of the romanticism.  

 I was a Texaco brat, and we moved around 10 times before I got to high school (doodlebuggers gotta keep moving).  Nobody works at the oilfield that their pappy or grandpappy worked at, unlike coal miners who grow up in a very insular environment, where they might work for the same company (or a related company) that their ancestors did.

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Mojo Hand

Mojo Hand 4580

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29 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Looks like miners are starting to get on board with the Green New Deal

'Coal is over': the miners rooting for the Green New Deal

I thought the bolded part was kinda funny 

While I'm not resting my position on the statements of these few guys, this exemplifies exactly why I think leftist Dems like Sanders and Warren have the best chance at defeating both Trump and Trumpism.   The working class (all races thereof) is not scared to vote for soaking the rich and big government programs that help them.  They want that shit if it is the real deal.   Plenty in the middle class do too. The problem is that Dems got scared by the Reagan messaging machine and gave up this mantle starting in the 80s and 90s.   The Dems became R lite with a socially liberal frosting.   R policy after R policy got enacted — often by Dems themselves!  As income inequality, health care costs, and other similar problems skyrocketed, nobody was making a real difference for lower income folks. 

Trumpism (starting well before Trump himself) came along into that vacuum and said, what have Dems actually done for the working class or middle class?  What have they done about all of the problems you're actually facing right now?  And without any good answer to hold it together, it was easy as pie to wedge the working class apart by race.

There needs to be a cohesive ideology on the left to counter the racist message of the right.  The only ones I see offering that are Warren and Sanders:   the problem is that the corrupt government works for the rich and nobody else, and the solution is to tax the rich to fund big beautiful government programs. 

Centrist Ds and Rs will recoil in horror, just as they recoil in shock every time they hear things like "actually, plenty of union folks would rather have government insurance than their bargained-for private plan," or "actually, the Green New Deal isn't a joke, and can even appeal to coal workers."    But that's what will win.   More importantly, that's what will actually help people who are in need, and make the wins last past just one or two elections. 

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atomheartbevo

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1 hour ago, suddenly shaggy said:

Appalachia is incredibly insular. A lot of the people there don't really leave their county unless they have a very specific reason. The communities revolve around shift changes at the local plant/mine. 

Texans think nothing of hopping in the car/truck and driving 5 hours. That mentality is nearly non-existent in Appalachia. 

You can drive 5 hours in Texas and still be in the sticks.  Drive 3 hours east or west in Appalachia and you're in a fancy city with diverse jobs.

I had a buddy in the Army whose whole family relied on the coal mines (males all worked in the mine or maintenance/mechanicas, mom was a bookkeeper at the company, sister was a teacher in a town full of coal miners, etc.).  A couple of us stopped off and stayed with his family for a couple of days while on a road trip.   I had multiple members of the family ask me if there was something wrong with him, and they didn't know why he felt like joining the Army when there hadn't been a draft in decades, etc.  They thought it weird that he left.

I started thinking about it later - my family was oilfield (dad, uncle) or farming (grandparents, other uncles, etc.), but my generation and my dad's generation definitely moved around to where we wanted to be, or where the work was.   A lot of farm kids were drafted during WWI, WWII, and Korea/Vietnam, and so they quickly got used to the idea of uprooting and going elsewhere.   Not to mention the Great Depression forced a lot of farm families to uproot and go elsewhere.  A lot of kids in coal country got deferments because the coal mines (and related industries) were deemed critical to the war effort or whatever, or during lean times like the Great Depression they could still support themselves and their families, so they never had to leave, and never had that experience of moving elsewhere.

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45679

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1 hour ago, Post Oak said:

These guys are the ones who need to be pulling hardest for GND.  The one's with a lick of sense anyway.

The GND could put all of these people to work.  Not in the holler but with someplace else with a future.  

They need to get their "belly full of beer and a possum in a sack" ass pointed in the right direction and realize Trump Moscow Mitch and Paul don't give one single Mountain Dew about their ass.

From the article.  This needs to be made into a Dem campaign ad and blasted non stop in Appalachia.

Quote

“McConnell came in, never did sit down and said ‘I thank you for being here. I know you’re concerned about your taxes on black lung, I just want you to know we’re going to take care of it,’ and out the door. I said: ‘no he didn’t!’ We drove ten hours to sit with our representatives and talk to them and that’s all we get,” said George Massey, who worked as a coal miner in Benham, Kentucky for 23 years and has served on the town’s council for 19 years.

“They look at us like we’re something under their shoes. They couldn’t care less about coal miners in south-east Kentucky,” Massey added.

 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105122

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1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Yeah, but remember that in The Grapes of Wrath there were a lot more people traveling for jobs than there were jobs available. It depressed wages and violence ensued. 'They should all just move to where the jobs are' sounds like a simple solution but it's a lot more complicated than that. Apart from the above, not everyone knows where to go, not everyone has the means to go, a lot of people are connected to family and friends and the only home they've ever known and can't imagine leaving. You have to figure there are also some people who would rather die than live in Houston. 

I don't disagree that this is a current state of affairs.  Which is why we need leadership to help these folks see the damned light.  And today, there actually ARE (effectively) jobs available.  Right now (let's see how long it lasts, but for now....) the jobs are there.  As to not knowing where to go, and not having a concept of leaving, give them direction and a vision.  Show them a damned nice apartment in Houston, an hour from a free public beach, that sort of thing.  And show that they can afford that and more at a $75k a year construction job.  Things like that.

39 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

EBbbvFlU0AALDD9?format=jpg&name=4096x409

 

So, I'm trying to figure out how to feel.  Should I be alarmed, or should I be praying for the Sweet Meteor of Death?

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wildcat09

wildcat09 29353

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16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I don't disagree that this is a current state of affairs.  Which is why we need leadership to help these folks see the damned light.  And today, there actually ARE (effectively) jobs available.  Right now (let's see how long it lasts, but for now....) the jobs are there.  As to not knowing where to go, and not having a concept of leaving, give them direction and a vision.  Show them a damned nice apartment in Houston, an hour from a free public beach, that sort of thing.  And show that they can afford that and more at a $75k a year construction job.  Things like that.

So, I'm trying to figure out how to feel.  Should I be alarmed, or should I be praying for the Sweet Meteor of Death?

#TeamSweetMeteorofDeath

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F250

F250 28772

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1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Yeah, but remember that in The Grapes of Wrath there were a lot more people traveling for jobs than there were jobs available. It depressed wages and violence ensued. 'They should all just move to where the jobs are' sounds like a simple solution but it's a lot more complicated than that. Apart from the above, not everyone knows where to go, not everyone has the means to go, a lot of people are connected to family and friends and the only home they've ever known and can't imagine leaving. You have to figure there are also some people who would rather die than live in Houston. 

A few years ago I was at a client's location for a couple of weeks in Canton, Ohio. There were a couple of young guys in the office that kept grilling me about Austin. What is the tech market like, what are all those festivals like, weather, etc...

After fielding a thousand questions about Austin I finally asked them about their current job prospects outside of the company they are working for, they said this particular Steel company was all there was and will be.

I followed up with, "you guys are smart and talented, you both have computer science degrees and experience, you could find a higher paying job in Austin in a snap, why not move?" They said family, friends, home and roots. These were the educated people, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to convince coal miners in Appalachia to move.

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DigglerontheHoof

DigglerontheHoof 21195

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54 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I don't disagree that this is a current state of affairs.  Which is why we need leadership to help these folks see the damned light.  And today, there actually ARE (effectively) jobs available.  Right now (let's see how long it lasts, but for now....) the jobs are there.  As to not knowing where to go, and not having a concept of leaving, give them direction and a vision.  Show them a damned nice apartment in Houston, an hour from a free public beach, that sort of thing.  And show that they can afford that and more at a $75k a year construction job.  Things like that.

So, I'm trying to figure out how to feel.  Should I be alarmed, or should I be praying for the Sweet Meteor of Death?

Fing iPhone 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105122

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10 minutes ago, F250 said:

A few years ago I was at a client's location for a couple of weeks in Canton, Ohio. There were a couple of young guys in the office that kept grilling me about Austin. What is the tech market like, what are all those festivals like, weather, etc...

After fielding a thousand questions about Austin I finally asked them about their current job prospects outside of the company they are working for, they said this particular Steel company was all there was and will be.

I followed up with, "you guys are smart and talented, you both have computer science degrees and experience, you could find a higher paying job in Austin in a snap, why not move?" They said family, friends, home and roots. These were the educated people, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to convince coal miners in Appalachia to move.

Whereas, a counterpoint - I had a young associate originally from Youngstown, Ohio. Having drinks after work, I met a friend of his (tech industry) from Youngstown who had recently relocated here.  I asked him how that came about.  He said it was pretty easy.  He got a call from a recruiter in Austin.  He and his wife flew here for an interview.  As soon as their Uber left the airport and pointed towards downtown, he saw all the cranes -- he pointed them out to his wife, and said "Look at that.  Shit is happening here.  Nothing's happening in Youngstown.  We're taking the job and moving here."

The calculus was that simple in his mind.  Move from where shit isn't happening to where it IS happening.  99% of economics and jobs flows from that sort of thinking.

We have that in Texas as well.  You may love Possum Pecker, Texas.  Your ma and pa may have been born and raised there, and their ma and pa.  But when the widget plant shut down, the money dried up and nothing's going on at all, 'cept for working at the Dollar General, the Stripes by the highway, or the run-down mechanic and tire shop that mostly sells meth out the back.  GET.  THE FUCK.  OUT.  Let Possum Pecker die.  You sure as shit don't have an obligation to sacrifice your life to keep it alive.  Go to Corpus and work at a plant.  Go to the Eagle Ford and roughneck or drive a truck.  Go to Houston and work construction.  Just get the fuck outta Possum Pecker, and your life will improve.

Goddamn, my friends and I figured that out in high school.  "Hey....this party's lame.  There's 30 guys and maybe 6 girls here.  Let's go where the girls are."  And we did.  But it seems like a huge chunk of America is content to stay at the sausage fest and bitch about how they can't get any action.

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Dnaguy

Dnaguy 11952

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4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Whereas, a counterpoint - I had a young associate originally from Youngstown, Ohio. Having drinks after work, I met a friend of his (tech industry) from Youngstown who had recently relocated here.  I asked him how that came about.  He said it was pretty easy.  He got a call from a recruiter in Austin.  He and his wife flew here for an interview.  As soon as their Uber left the airport and pointed towards downtown, he saw all the cranes -- he pointed them out to his wife, and said "Look at that.  Shit is happening here.  Nothing's happening in Youngstown.  We're taking the job and moving here."

The calculus was that simple in his mind.  Move from where shit isn't happening to where it IS happening.  99% of economics and jobs flows from that sort of thinking.

We have that in Texas as well.  You may love Possum Pecker, Texas.  Your ma and pa may have been born and raised there, and their ma and pa.  But when the widget plant shut down, the money dried up and nothing's going on at all, 'cept for working at the Dollar General, the Stripes by the highway, or the run-down mechanic and tire shop that mostly sells meth out the back.  GET.  THE FUCK.  OUT.  Let Possum Pecker die.  You sure as shit don't have an obligation to sacrifice your life to keep it alive.  Go to Corpus and work at a plant.  Go to the Eagle Ford and roughneck or drive a truck.  Go to Houston and work construction.  Just get the fuck outta Possum Pecker, and your life will improve.

Is Possum Pecker east or west of Cowvag? I forget. I’ll have to google map it to make sure.

Now I know for sure it’s south of Skunk Scrote because woo howdy do Possum Peckerites hate them some Skunk Scroters and visa versa. 

Personally I think they’re both kind of Dickish to hang out with.

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bolverk

bolverk 29671

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One thing y'all gotta keep in mind about eastern KY and West Virginia is the median age in that part of Appalachia is significantly higher than the nation as a whole, which typically implies that the younger folks who had any "get up and go" got up and went already.

Those interviews are with the holdouts who hung around too long. And, even if they did suddenly snap out of the insular mindset, who the hell is going to buy that house trailer from them? Sure, they're called *mobile* homes but I'm not really too confident of that.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 45916

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29 minutes ago, F250 said:

A few years ago I was at a client's location for a couple of weeks in Canton, Ohio. There were a couple of young guys in the office that kept grilling me about Austin. What is the tech market like, what are all those festivals like, weather, etc...

After fielding a thousand questions about Austin I finally asked them about their current job prospects outside of the company they are working for, they said this particular Steel company was all there was and will be.

Heh . . . I used to travel to Canton regularly to visit a steel foundry that made parts for us.  It's a weird world.

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105122

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5 minutes ago, bolverk said:

One thing y'all gotta keep in mind about eastern KY and West Virginia is the median age in that part of Appalachia is significantly higher than the nation as a whole, which typically implies that the younger folks who had any "get up and go" got up and went already.

Those interviews are with the holdouts who hung around too long. And, even if they did suddenly snap out of the insular mindset, who the hell is going to buy that house trailer from them? Sure, they're called *mobile* homes but I'm not really too confident of that.

Walk.  The fuck.  Away.  Sell whatever furniture and other shit that you can, and git.

Seriously, if I was in that sort of shitty, no-way-out existence, I'd drive to Houston and live in my car -- my whole family would - for a month or two if that's what it took.  Because after that, you can get a shitty apartment in Pasadena or something.  Then a year later, maybe a nicer apartment.  Seriously, I did a 2 minute search, and found entry-level jobs in the Houston area for $35-40k a year.  You aren't living high on the hog, but dammit, you're LIVING.  You can eat, and afford that shitty apartment.  And after a year or two of marketable experience, that's getting closer to $60k. Average pay for a coal miner is only around $44k.  

And guess what?  Your kids will grow up in an area where there is actual opportunity and prospects.  Even if they're just blue collar, imagine that -- they can start out making $35k right out of high school.  If they develop any special skills or certification, $80k-$90k is well within reach after just a few years.

A few months of sacrifice for a much-improved life with actual prospects of making it even better.  That's the right path.

Edited by Brisketexan
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DixonHur

DixonHur 11301

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3 minutes ago, bolverk said:

One thing y'all gotta keep in mind about eastern KY and West Virginia is the median age in that part of Appalachia is significantly higher than the nation as a whole, which typically implies that the younger folks who had any "get up and go" got up and went already.

Those interviews are with the holdouts who hung around too long. And, even if they did suddenly snap out of the insular mindset, who the hell is going to buy that house trailer from them? Sure, they're called *mobile* homes but I'm not really too confident of that.

I live in rural eastern Kentucky, and from what I can tell, the only ways to "get out" are death, rehab, or incarceration.  And I suspect those in 2 out of the 3 options end up returning.

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RPM

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14 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I live in rural eastern Kentucky, and from what I can tell, the only ways to "get out" are death, rehab, or incarceration.  And I suspect those in 2 out of the 3 options end up returning.

You left out truck driving.

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bolverk

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15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Walk.  The fuck.  Away.  Sell whatever furniture and other shit that you can, and git.

Seriously, if I was in that sort of shitty, no-way-out existence, I'd drive to Houston and live in my car -- my whole family would - for a month or two if that's what it took.  Because after that, you can get a shitty apartment in Pasadena or something.  Then a year later, maybe a nicer apartment.  Seriously, I did a 2 minute search, and found entry-level jobs in the Houston area for $35-40k a year.  You aren't living high on the hog, but dammit, you're LIVING.  You can eat, and afford that shitty apartment.  And after a year or two of marketable experience, that's getting closer to $60k. Average pay for a coal miner is only around $44k.  

And guess what?  Your kids will grow up in an area where there is actual opportunity and prospects.  Even if they're just blue collar, imagine that -- they can start out making $35k right out of high school.  If they develop any special skills or certification, $80k-$90k is well within reach after just a few years.

A few months of sacrifice for a much-improved life with actual prospects of making it even better.  That's the right path.

No, I get it. It's just that someone needs to teach them the notion of the sunk cost fallacy.

10 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I live in rural eastern Kentucky, and from what I can tell, the only ways to "get out" are death, rehab, or incarceration.  And I suspect those in 2 out of the 3 options end up returning.

Personally, I've never been but I've heard stories from the branch of my lineage through my birthmother (whom I first met in my late 20s). Every ancestor she has on both sides were from either eastern KY or West Virginia (county names I recall were Perry, Harlan, and Breathitt) and they all migrated en mass to Middletown, Ohio, to work in the steel mills. While they might not have been the most educated bunch of hillbillies, they found a way out.

So far as I know, everyone from the younger generations are scattered to the four winds.

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10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This.

Leopards eating people's faces party, and all that.

Reminds me of the old man working at the sawmill that kept cutting off his fingers. He finally realized it was a losing proposition.

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elfenix

elfenix 34238

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1 hour ago, DixonHur said:

I live in rural eastern Kentucky, and from what I can tell, the only ways to "get out" are death, rehab, or incarceration.  And I suspect those in 2 out of the 3 options end up returning.

the zombie problem is pretty bad there

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suddenly shaggy

suddenly shaggy 929

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It's ridiculous that millions of people are starving in Central America from the drought that has been killing all their crops while we are paying farmers to let their crops rot rather than sell them to China. When we bail the farmers out again, which we all know we will, we need to buy the crops directly and ship them to food banks here, as well as to Guatemala and other Central American countries to feed them.

We're paying for the crops anyway. It should have broad bipartisan appeal, but we all know it won't. Democrats will support it and want to feed them because it's the right thing to do.

The GOP won't, because the government paying the farmers for their crops and letting them rot is apparently not socialism, but buying them and giving them to feed brown people would be. However, if the GOP really wants to slow illegal immigration, this is the quickest way to see tangible results. Just like the discussion of Appalachia upthread, people don't rip up their lives and risk everything to move if they don't have to. The choice the migrants have now, stay in Guatemala and starve to death versus risk death and incarceration trying to get into the United States, is an easy one. 

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Post Oak

Post Oak 20213

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30 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

From the article:

"Trump’s overall approval rating is 79% among farmers, according to a Farm Pulse survey taken last month." 

Fuck 'em. 

Turns out these farmers aren't against welfare as much as they would like you to believe

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105122

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2 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

Turns out these farmers aren't against welfare as much as they would like you to believe

Per the days of the "welfare queens" rhetoric, we all know what that means.

They're against....you know....THOSE people....getting government money.

But when white folks get it, well, that's just good hardworking people of the land getting what they deserve.

I have tried and tried to see it differently, but it's fucking sad how much of this bullshit comes back to race.

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