Truth be told as the two political conventions came to a close last night the difference in tone and optics were as stark as night and day.
If you are a middle American steel worker, or factor worker who cannot find a job, the message coming out of the Republican gloom-fest is just what you want to hear.
If you believe Immigrants are boogeymen, that President Obama is a Manchurian president, (who isn’t a real president) planted to destroy America. If you believe Obama is doing nothing about defeating ISIL. And if you believe the millions of jobs created under Obama’s Presidency did not happen, then I can see how Donald J Trump is an attractive candidate to you.
It’s quite easy to suspend reality if one is predisposed to believing the likes of serial philanderer Newt Gingrich and Race-baiting Rudolph Giuliani, a former Presidential candidate who failed to win a single delegate are credible voices on where America should go.
Look-we can continue to beat this drum of insanity, suspending common sense when we continue to say the same stupid old things cycle after cycle expecting that repeating a lie enough changes it to truth.
John McCain said it best in 2008, speaking to those so-called rust belt voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio: The jobs aren’t coming back.
No one was born a steel-worker, no one was born a factor worker. As I have said repeatedly- cows do not eat and wait for the grass to regrow so they may eat again; they keep moving. No one was born a steel-worker.
Lets be real, under Barack Obama 12.8 million jobs were created; that is not only fantastic, it must be viewed in specific contexts.
This happened after the worst recession since the great Depression . It happened against Republican blanket obstructionism. It happened while many jobs which people took for granted traditionally dissapeared from the economy; not only because of globalization but because of advances in technology.
Millions of jobs gone, ♦Toll collectors ♦Bank tellers♦ Librarians ♦ Supermarket check-out clerks♦ Lithographers♦ Store Clerks♦ We could go on and on about the millions of jobs which have dissapeared because of technology. When you add the jobs outsourced based on labor costs , you begin to get a better picture why Wall street is doing just fine while Main Street isn’t.
This is the other side of opening up to the global marketplace. Yes we may be able to sell more goods per-se , but there are far more workers competing for less jobs, that drives down labor costs.
Making America great again is an unattainable mirage; much like Reagan’s shining city on a hill was.
If people want to believe in a metaphoric unreachable Utopia, they are entitled to do so. That however will not place food on the table, keep a roof over their heads or send their children to school.
Understanding the changing dynamics of the 21st century global economy will. That means recognizing as Senator McCain said years ago “those jobs are not coming back.”
Seeking retraining and reorienting oneself in a changing world will.
Being angry, hateful and mad is a not a strategy for survival. Demagoguery, stereotyping , finger pointing, and hatred is never a strategy for survival. Adaptability is.
When people cannot find jobs they cannot feed their families and that is heart breaking . It can reasonably be said that in Silicone Valley there is hardly a shortage of opportunities.
According to indeed.com The Silicon Valley, CA job market is strong compared to the rest of the US. Over the last year, job postings in Silicon Valley, CA have increased by 10% relative to a national decline of 32%.
Those facts speaks exactly to the need for retraining and a different mindset about employment.
Before the American West was won pioneering prospectors set out in covered wagons pushing ever more westward . Many had high hopes of striking it rich as prospectors of Gold and other precious metals.
Some did find gold and other precious metals, the vast majority did not.
Travelling with those enterprising prospectors were people who sold shovels and pick-axes. People who shined shoes and others who repaired the hooves of horses.
All across the heartland and further west small one hoss towns emerged .
The Barber, the Blacksmith, The motel owner. The Saloon owner, and yes the undertaker.
That was the spirit of America-an understanding that people can shrug off what they held dear, set aside old comfort levels and set out on new paths, in new places, with new possibilities.
What Donald Trump offers is fear instead of strength, anger instead of focus, despair instead of enthusiasm.
Voters can decide which way they want to go and they will.….