Grey One talks sass wrote:
"...[I]n theory every law/rule has been asked by a congress critter to be added to the books. Sometimes it's because a group of citizens get together because "there otta' be a law!" and sometimes it's because a politician wants to run off of the appearance that government is useless.
There is also a cycle not mentioned here. It's the business to politician to lobbyist cycle that must be ended along with Citizens United. The mom and pop shops aren't failing because of governmental persecution but because big business cannot tolerate competition.
Don't believe me? Look at the laws you find to be overreach to discover who benefits, not who suffers from its enforcement. Government in and of itself is only a tool, a garden hoe if you will that keeps the weeds down. Business on the other hand will use whatever tools (including ones not their own) to get to their ultimate goal - bonuses. Greed is good I've been told and their adherence to that goal is why our prices are still so high even as material and transportation costs have gone down.
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After the ACA and it's expansion plans had begun to roll out We The People had a course change. If HRC had been elected this wouldn't even be a talking point. Since we got the former guy who hated all things Obama changes were enacted. Medicaid was offered to states but they didn't have to take the expanded parts (that which funded the rural health care centers). You know Red states - they hate the feds and will cut off their noses to spite their face. So starting in 2018/2019 rural healthcare centers started to close just as COVID was entering the picture. Then the former guy mismanaged our economy (infrastructure week is coming, believe me, it'll be great, best healthcare ever coming in two weeks!!) and here we are.
I've no clue what plan the Biden/Harris admin is trying to get passed to help regular Americans but here's the thing. With the Inflation Reduction Act and Invest in America Act (I might have the second name wrong) the Biden/Harris admin invested in middle America. They are repairing bridges, roads, railways. They can only move as fast as Congress lets them and based on the clown show we've all been watching Congress is the one you should be mad at, not the Biden/Harris admin. As Biden has said, you know legislation is good when those who voted against it are trying to take credit for getting it passed. I've read several stories in the past week where the GOP are doing this very thing.
Craig wrote:Dave, I sort of agree with you about parties responding to peoples needs, especially in rural areas. But, it has more to do with Dems not showing up to contest in heavily Republican districts. Taking your example of eastern Oregon. Congressional district 2 covers all of central and eastern OR. Since 1981 they have had Republican reps in Congress and straight Republican representation in the state. The current Rep is Republican Cliff Bentz. He voted against the infrastructure bill and the Invest in America bill.
There are lots of reasons the people you describe are struggling. Lack of investment in rural areas is one. These areas gave huge tax breaks to Big Box stores to open, driving out Mom and Pops only to see them close 10 years later leaving their shells littered across the country. Sweetheart tax incentives to Multinationals to build plants with promises of thousands of new jobs and delivering only a fraction of what they promised (see FoxConn in Wisconsin). Independent farmers being driven out and bought up by CAFOs. All this promoted and enabled by their local reps, usually Republicans.
I'm not saying Dems have the magic formula to fix everything. One party offers only tax cuts, spending cuts, regulation cuts and culture wars. It ain't working for the folks who put their trust in that. The other party at least offers investment in infrastructure, expanding broadband, affordable health ins. and subsidies to rural hospitals, Public/ private investment in microchip manufacture (of the 6 new plants, 4 are in red states), etc. I think Dems have a good story to tell in red areas if they just show up and compete.
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We can argue all day about policy, and both Grey and Craig brought some good points today. But this is the line that grabbed me...
"I think Dems have a good story to tell in red areas if they just show up and compete."
Overall, yes they do. But they also need to go humbly and listen. It's about winning hearts, minds and votes. They can do it, if they'd try.
Isn't Marjorie just as cute as a baby elephant's dump?
But they also need to go humbly and listen
I agree. In an earlier comment you brought up friends in eastern OR lamenting the Feds ignoring their needs. It seems their current representation isn't listening.
A good example of what you're talking about is Anderson Clayton, the N. Carolina Dem party chair. We need more like her.
Also, too. The Republican voters in rural areas want the Federal government out of their lives. That is until they want something from the Feds.
If anyone can explain how to win the hearts of MAGA with their shuttered mind i'm all ears.
Yes, Dems need to assert themselves AND "listen" to rural white voters.
But let's not forget the fact that rural white conservatives are a minority, yet they have disproportionately MORE representation than any other group. They have more than enough representation in the states and in the House and Senate to obstruct the majority and impose their will on the country.
Their fellow conservatives at the Federalist Society have bought and paid for the Supreme Court. And still they whine about being "victims".
The rich are getting huge tax cuts, corporations are scooping up more profits and advancing their deregulatory agenda as women lose their reproductive rights and Blacks struggle against GOP gerrymandering to get fair representation
I don't hear many rural white conservatives showing any concern about others at all.
I see a lot of white fright and a sense of entitlement. They too often see only themselves as "real Americans". I don't hear them thanking Dems for farm subsidies, rural welfare, infrastructure, Social Security and Medicare. In fact they VOTE for Republicans who deny their states Medicare, and declare they want to eliminate Social Security and reproductive rights
And still they complain that Dems "don't listen" to them while, as Craig said, "their current representation isn't listening" either.
Enter evangelical white nationalism, bigotry, racism, "replacement", and Trumpism.
Republicans who don't fall in behind Trump are "RINOs" or traitors. Most of them think Biden stole the election. The majority should NOT bend to their will in a democratic republic.
This is also why Trump can only win a majority among WHITE Americans, as Republicans do little more than stoke the culture wars.
"I don't hear many rural white conservatives showing any concern about others at all." Thank you Dave Dubya for hitting this nail on the head.
I've heard nothing but liberals need to meet the conservatives half way. Ad nauseum this trope is presented as if members of the Democratic Party - the young on fire ones, not the ossified dinosaurs who are just as beholden to their corporate masters as the GOP - would just listen.
Well, they have listened and guess what, when the legislation came up to help rural areas the Democratic party delivered, the GOP took credit and guess who will be voted in place, again?
Lets be clear, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, and a whole slew of other ism's and ia's are alive and well in the rural areas (not to say they aren't in the city but here one can get away and find their own logical family. In the rural area, once you are shunned you might as well be dead because you won't be able to buy a soda in that town).
I've asked this before and I'm asking it again. Please explain to me how I'm supposed to reach consensus with a group of humans who would rather I DIDN'T EXIST. I don't want the rural folks to die, I want them to come to the table in good faith. But that's not what happens and the Dave Millers of the world chastise me and those like me that we aren't trying hard enough.
REally???? Because from where I'm standing we've got the rescue nets, the long poles, the extra chairs at the table.
I get it - neighbors will help each other out when times are tough but to translate that into acceptance is a reach that has never been successful. The death statistics alone prove this point.
So, again, how is our country supposed to move forward when one side wants the other to die and the other side just wants everyone to share?
Every solution I've come up with turns me and mine into the bad guys as we become the enemy we fight as historically when an oppressed population gains power the atrocities against the oppressors are legendarily cruel. I'd like to avoid that part of history thankyouverymuch.
Those opposing us have to find it in their hearts and minds to accept us AS WE ARE (not the strawman pedophiles they've been told we are), humans who just want to work, live, and play as they do. They have to accept not everyone worships as they do. And, they have to accept that they've been lied to for at least a decade if not more.
It's a lot of ifs and I've no faith any of them will be achieved in my lifetime.
Grey One talks sass: "I don't hear many rural white conservatives showing any concern about others at all."
I also don't see the rural white conservatives making their governors, US Senators and Reps accountable for their states' consistent bottom rankings for quality of life standards.
Mississippi always ranks the lowest in education, health care, and other quality of life standards, and yet it keeps sending MAGA US Senators and Reps to Congress and keeps electing MAGA governors to run the state. I don't see how states like Mississippi are the responsibility of the Democrats in DC or anywhere else, when these poor states seem to be happy with the folks they keep electing to represent their interests in DC and on the state level.
Definition of insanity... to keep doing the same things over, and over, and over again while expecting different results.
The gop and MAGAverse has nailed that one for damn certain!
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