Posted on 05/15/2016 10:57:29 PM PDT by Trumpinator
The National Review, a conservative magazine for the Republican elite, recently unleashed an attack on the “white working class”, who they see as the core of Trump’s support.
The first essay, Father Führer, was written by the National Review’s Kevin Williamson, who used his past reporting from places such as Appalachia and the Rust Belt to dissect what he calls “downscale communities”.
He describes them as filled with welfare dependency, drug and alcohol addiction, and family anarchy – and then proclaims:
“Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster, There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. ... The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles.”
A few days later, another columnist, David French, added:
“Simply put, [white working class] Americans are killing themselves and destroying their families at an alarming rate. No one is making them do it. The economy isn’t putting a bottle in their hand. Immigrants aren’t making them cheat on their wives or snort OxyContin.”
.....
Downscale communities are everywhere in America, not just limited to Appalachia and the Rust Belt – it’s where I have spent much of the past five years documenting poverty and addiction.
To say that “nothing happened to them” is stunningly wrong. Over the past 35 years the working class has been devalued, the result of an economic version of the Hunger Games.....The working class only had their hands. They lost and have been left to deal on their own.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I wasn't talking about your street. Maybe you should get out more.
I probably get out more than you do and no need to get snarky at 7am. But white middle-class people while hard-pressed still raise decent families throughout the USA. Those families go on to work hard and provide all the benefits for the poor. BTW, the article is about the white working-class and their problems, not the middle class.
I have great respect for the working class. They do all the work my husband and I don’t want to do and they do it with great effectiveness. And usually with a smile on their face and a willingness to do a favor for nothing. That they are despised by college educated snobs is only one more reason to admire them.
I notice that your post received some negative responses. But I have to agree with you, especially, “...our young men have not grown up into adults and our young women cannot find mates that have jobs and a family focus.”
There are exceptions, of course, but young people who have fundamental goodness and maturity are much harder to find than they would have been a couple decades ago.
Our very middle-class church recognized our ten high school graduates yesterday in morning service. Out of the ten, one seemed to be a focused high achiever, presented himself well, completed his two years of community college while he was in high school, and has a specific goal for his life. The one who wants to be a preacher listed his passions as Worldwide Wrestling and video games. (God help us!) The others generally are aimless.
I know they’re young and many changes can occur over time, but I wasn’t impressed. (Never had kids, so maybe I just don’t get it. I admit that.)
You disagree that there is a pornography addiction crisis?
You haven't noticed that young men are not at all like most of us that grew up in the 60's/70's?
You cannot see that the priority of most young men is that of self? That's OK when you're twelve, but not when you're 20.
If you cannot see that there is something terribly wrong with our society, then there is nothing that even Donald Trump can help us with.
Yes, we all know young men who have given themselves selflessly in service to our nation, or young women that are in the mission fields - but they are now the exception.
A big part of the issue here is that the definition of “middle class” has been defined upward so much that the term almost doesn’t even have any meaning anymore. Most of what is considered the “middle class” these days is really a wealthy upper class. The middle class is disappearing, but not everyone is falling into poverty. A sizeable portion of that group has become the modern bourgeois class.
Didn't mean to be so snarky - I am just shocked that you cannot see a problem with the very fabric of our society, one that goes beyond the rot of the inner-cities and has now infected the suburbs and rural areas.
I understand you live in a very nice neighborhood, and your peers are exceptional people - but sadly that is no longer the norm across our nation.
I understand problems in American culture. I just don’t see the white middle-class causing it. It’s more a combination of them getting squeezed in by Hollywood sleaze, corrupt government and the black lumpen proletariat and criminal class.
Wait a minute! There are plenty of college degrees in the Am. middle class. And something significant and terrible has happened to us. Traitorous betrayal of us and this country by the political classes and the 1% for self interest and their agendas. And,stop trying to bring us in line by using the word conservative falsely.
The gloBULList turds have sold this country out. Putting America back to work will reduce the dependency cycle. Your fixation on pornography as the root of all evil is a bit weird. Get over it. There are much bigger problems than that.
The message is fallacious
Dealing with women has for many been found to be a road to nowhere. Until women relearn there real place in society, there will be deterioration
I agree with that statement.
Putting America back to work will reduce the dependency cycle.
That isn't going to happen anytime soon. The only employer who can fix this problem is the U.S. government, and America is already bankrupt. The dependency cycle will end once Americans figure out how to "get back to work" on their own.
If that is all you got out of what I wrote, that's just sad.
Sadder still if you think moral decline is not a societal ill.
I think a huge part of the problem is that when this trend towards “globalism” happened back in the early Nineties there really was no mechanism in place to transition a significant amount of the working population who were losing their jobs into meaningful employment. One significant reason is that it didn’t happen over night. It took us an entire generation it get where we’re currently at. Most just tried to hold on which is a natural human reaction to the situation. I can remember after leaving the Navy back in the early Eighties. My father worked for General Motors at the time and offered to get me in to the factory. I thought about it but eventually said that I thanked him for the opportunity but my future was not at the plant. I could see the writing was on the wall even back then. I opted to go on to college which was the best decision I ever made. Unfortunately not every one has those options or opportunities. I believe that after 20 years we’re reaching a breaking point with the working class population. This most certainly has been exacerbated by the massive influx of both legal and illegal immigration which has greatly depressed the remaining jobs that are available to this segment of our population. While I don’t have all the answers I certainly agree with quite a few of Donald Trump’s positions and believe that they would be very beneficial to America. Staying the course is no longer a viable option.
I disagree with that last part.
Our Nation and culture has been under attack since I have been able to read a newspaper. The elites seek to destroy white people as a political and economic force. They seek to marginalize and disenfranchise them, needing only their tax dollars for their continued existence.
One example: In analyzing the programming that is provided by the media, it is apparent that the agenda of the elites is one of hatred and contempt for white people and their (mainstream) culture.
“When black people get riled they destroy neighborhoods.
When white people get riled they destroy continents”.
That’s the version I am familiar with. I saddens me though. I know in my heart my people will never spontaneously rise up and defeat our enemies. We have been cowed and broken
A broken people is what the elites want.
Trump is ok with foreign labor crowding my field. There is no lack of US candidates for these jobs.
I just did a “diversity training” course online for my job and it pushed the stat that within 10 years white men will only be 31 percent of office staffing (not any specific field).
Not sure where all of those white men in America’s labor pool (with degrees no less) are supposed to work until they reach retirement.
That is spot on.
It is an immaturity that they never grow out of.
I was at a graduation party yesterday; it was in the country, and I mean 100% country. (I even got a tour of the barn and animals!)
It was a fascinating sociological study; on one hand you have the lingering conservative values of country people on display, with good parenting and the "Yes Sir, No Ma'am" that I have come to expect from well-parented children. On the other hand you have a cohort of slacking, listless teens including the morally-vacuous girls trying desperately to be noticed by the worst behaved ghetto boy in attendance.
It is painfully apparent whose parents failed.
Am I understanding correctly that you are blaming the problems our nation is facing on "women" and their inability to understand their "real place in society"?
All I can say is that you have a lot of nerve, and a warped sense of what inalienable rights (God given) are. I see by your profile that you think of yourself as quite the renaissance man. And apparently you place you own perceived elevated status above "women". Do you also place your understanding of one's "real place in society" above God's law as well?
Woman's "place" is alongside men. We are to compliment the abilities of men, just as they compliment ours. I'll give you an analogy that perhaps your manly brain can relate to..... We are to work as a team, side-by-side. And just as on a sports team, the players have different positions to play, different jobs to perform, different physical capabilities to contribute to the task of winning, they all take their place on the field to play alongside the rest of the team. For instance the place kicker in a football game may not have the strength for tackling, yet can kick a winning field goal. So you would not put your place kicker in the midst of the defensive line to be surely injured, and yet, that place kicker is an integral part of the team, not relegated to some lower status as you perceive women to be.
I do admit that many women today do not understand this either. In their warped view they see women somehow elevated above men and call themselves "feminists" when they aren't "feminine" at all. They don't want to play on the team either. They are like the place kicker in my analogy, who sees himself as godlike and insists on the coach putting him in as quarterback.
The real problem our nation is facing is caused by some men and women who, in their greed, have forgotten what inalienable rights and freedom are. They have grown a government so big and so corrupt that it's only purpose is wealth and power to those in charge. And just as in the days of feudal society, the masses are only there as slaves for these elite. To make this happen, they must destroy the middle class. They can not tolerate allowing the concept that one can work hard and someday obtain wealth (as so many of us baby boomers did).
You would do well, my FRiend to rather than insult your fellow conservative women with comments about putting us back into our "real place in society", that you begin to play as a team member just as we are trying to do.
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