Angry Voters

I have been hard on Donald Trump (and rightly so).  But I haven't discussed his supporters much.

I sort of understand them.  They are angry.  They are desperate.  They aren't living the life their parents enjoyed.

In a general sense, we all know that some people succeed in life better than others. And the others don't.  The reasons are not my point here.  My point is that they know the world is somehow passing them by, they are not succeeding,  and they are angry.  There are few emotions stronger than anger.

Hate is usually directed, anger is diffuse.

Trump has activated the angry people.  He wouldn't have gotten the Republican nomination for President if anger and fear wasn't a real thing in significant part of the population.

I do not fear Trump.  He will go down into crushing defeat on Election Day.  It is the angry people who concern me.  Their anger is justified.  They used to have decent-paying jobs putting headlights on cars, collecting coins from parking meters, loading luggage on airplanes, etc.  There used to be jobs you could just learn to DO without having to work on a computer, make decisions, or attend meetings and argue with people.  Some people are just not good at those things.  And they have fewer places to do work now.

And I understand because in the 1st 10 years of my adult life, I had cruddy jobs too.  I pushed a lawn mower in the hot sun for 2 Summers on an Army Base.  I spent 2 Summers pumping gas at a full service station where the owner dipped his sticky fingers into the till and charged us workers for the "losses". 

I worked at minimum wage in several department stores while the rent went up faster than my wages.  I even got to where I was in charge of a 1/4 of the department store and my hourly pay was 25 cents above minimum wage.  And the store managers cheated us every chance they could get because every dime they took out of our pocket went into theirs!

But I took a competitive exam for Government work and scored 100% in 5 categories of jobs.  That was because *I* spent my time in high school studying while "other" kids were goofing off.  I learned "stuff".  I practiced general skills.  I did well.  I was promoted regularly.  I retired well.

But not much better than the middle class in the US did in the 50s and 60s.  The high point of the US economy was when unions were strong (but not overly strong), when the percentage of the total wealth held by the top 1% was low, and when a college education for children was withing reach of most middle class families. 

There was a chart in Scientific American magazine a month ago that showed the percentage of national wealth held by the top 1% of Americans. 

In the 1920s, it rose to 20%.  At the end of The Great Depression, it was down to 15%, and the end of WWII, it was down to 10%.

In 1970, it was down to 8%.  After the Republican Tax Reform act of 1986, it rose rather suddenly to 16%, and after the 2000 Bush Administration, it went back up to 18%.  That is wrong.  The trickle down theory of wealth only means every one below the top 1% gets peed on.

The Republicans are doing it very very wrong, in pay to their super-rich supporters.  But the Democrats are doing things a whole lot better.

What we need is a Centrist-Union party dedicated to recreating the middle class.  No industrialized nation can survive without a strong middle class.  That is what makes democracy work.

Democracy works best when the poor have a path up, the middle class has some basic stability in life, and the rich are accepting a lower level than "outrageously fabulous".

I'll give a sports example...

Say you are a farmkid in Kansas and you have a choice between driving a tractor around cornfields for $20K a year vs earning $100K a year catching balls in the outfield.  Of course you would take the $100K.  But is it worth $50M.  No, you would do it for $100K. It is idiodically super-rich people playing their own game, competing with each other.

If they weren't, the seats would cost $10 and they would all still make a fine profit.  THat's what a generally middle-class world would look like...

Politics

After the last post, I want to make it clear that I do not think Hillary Clinton is perfect.  I know, "DUH"!  But thinking one candidate is essentially unfit to be President does not automatically make the other major party candidate better.

There are concerns about Hillary Clinton, as well.  Some go back a long way.  None of the buckets of charges against Hillary Clinton appear to hold water, though.

1.  Whitewater -  One of the earliest charges against the Clintons involved the Whitewater Development Company.  The Clintons lost money in a real estate deal.  The Whitewater Development company hired the law firm at which Hillary Clinton worked at the time for a separate failed investment.

Republicans claimed a conflict of interest and possible payback to the Clintons.  8 years of Republican-led investigation and millions of taxpayer dollars spent resulted in no finding of any wrongdoing by the Clintons.

2.  WalMart - In 1986, Walmart (based in Arkansas) was under pressure to name women to their Board of Directors.  Hillary Clinton, then merely a talented lawyer (from Arkansas) , was chosen.  As a Board Member, she championed ethnic and gender management diversity and supported corporate environmental responsibility.

Republicans claim this proves she doesn't understand business priorities and that she supported low worker wages..

Today, these are recognized as legitimate business concerns.  Her 6 years on the Walmart Board of Directors gave her considerable experience about how major business operate.  And while there, she never supported the WalMart "low wages" strategy.

3.  Monsanto -  Republicans sometimes like to claim that Hillary Clinton once sat on the Monsanto (multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation) Board of Directors.  This is a false claim designed to undermine her reputation for environmental concerns.  There is no evidence for the claim.

4.  Vince Foster -  Republicans claim that the Clintons arranged to have Vince Foster (Deputy White House Counsel for Bill Clinton for a few months) killed to protect unspecified secrets.  Mr Foster sufferred from depression exacerbated by the stress of some political failures (Kimba Wood and Lani Guinier recommendations were unsuccessful).  There were several suicide notes, and there is evidence he spent some time organizing "end of life" concerns.   The Clintons were cleared of involvement by the FBI and several independent investigations.

5.  Wall Street And Bank Donations - Not all wall street investors and bankers are Republicans.  But Republicans like to think they are.   So they get really annoyed when VERY rich people Wall Street people support Democrats.  They attack Hillary Clinton for being supported by some very wealthy people as some sort of flaw, when they glory in the very wealthy people who support THEM!  It makes no sense that all wealthy people have to support Republicans.  Some wealthy people support Democratic Party values too.  And they like to hear from the Clintons.

6.  Citizens United - Speaking of the false claim that Hillary Clinton favors the Wall Street Investors (above), she doesn't support the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.  However, it being the current law, she has to operate within it's guidelines in order to run a viable campaign.  She desires this Supreme Court ruling to be overturned in the interest of fairer campaigns in the future.

And I will add something here.  MONEY is not "speech".  One person, one vote does NOT mean "one dollar one vote"!

7.   Benghazi - Diplomatic service is dangerous in some nations.  There were 13 attacks on US Embassies during the George W Bush years, resulting in at least 60 deaths.  4 people died in Benghazi.  All were tragic.  The Benghazi situation was confusing of initial cause, and seems to have changed from a minor protest about religious images to an opportunistic attack for more political/religious/insurgent reasons by more violent elements.

The deaths at Benghazi have now been misused as attacks on Hillary Clinton while Secretary Of State.  This is wrong.  Several investigations have found no evidence that Scretary Of Stae Clinton, either allowed the attacks or refused to send military aid.

As best I can tell, the main Republican attack is that she did not call the incident a "terrorist attack"  early enough publicly AND that she called it one to family and friends before the facts were certain.  Public officials SHOULD be circumspect publicly.

In any case, there was no willful failure of duty.  The idea that any Secretary Of State would willfully allow fellow officials to die is reprehensible.   Numerous Republican investigations have failed to find any failure by Secretary Clinton.  And they wasted $7 million of our taxes trying to do so.

8.  Email server - It was an agency regulation, not a law.  And every Secretary Of State since email was created ignored it.  They are in charge of the rules and get to define them.  And Clinton's server was never hacked.  I wish more companies could claim that...  That being said, it wasn't the smartest decision she ever made.  But like my first boss told me, "everyone gets one minor screw-up".  And this one is minor.

9.  Dollars To Iran - Well, the dollars to Iran were Iran's money that we managed to lock away from them for years.  We didn't GIVE them a dime.  We (the international community) unlocked their international assets after negotiating a cessation of their nuclear research program.  It wasn't Clinton's decision; it wasn't even Obama's decision.  It was an international agreement.