Donald Trump Voters, Just Hear Me Out

New York Times ^ | NOV. 2, 2016 | Thomas L. Friedman

[artichokegrower]

This is my last column until after the election, so I’d like to address the people least likely to read it: Donald Trump voters. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and a few of them will buy fish wrapped in this column, and they’ll accidentally peruse it! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

[windsorknot]

NYT......Thomas Friedman: enough information to ignore.

[buffaloguy]

This is an accurate example of what elites are thinking and was probably cobbled together from discussions overheard at their wine and brie parties.

Absolutely out of touch. Different planet.

[ohioman]

A better title to this article: Thomas L. Friedman is a lying POS who deserves terminal cancer.

[miss marmelstein]

Please explain what that cliché “bombastic” means, eh? I hear this all the time. Example?

[tillacum]

Not me, I wanted to read his brilliance and thoughtful way
with words. I’ve watched him on tv, he looks like his words.

[MHT]

Friedman’s best-selling “masterwork” book was just a re-shuffling of his old columns. He thinks he’s so damn smart it is sickening.

[drop 50 and fire for effect]

Please explain what that cliché “bombastic” means, eh? I hear this all the time. Example?

The word fits better than most alternatives. He fairly frequently touted his own skills and knowledge. I find the way he did it loud and obnoxious. It is a matter of personal preference. Mr. Trump has done it less recently as he has found a way to use a teleprompter to his advantage. Evidently, you disagree and are welcome to do so.

I'm not going to continue to debate this, as I noted, my vote is anti-Hillary. I have never pretended otherwise. Further, while I find much of Mr. Trump's mannerisms off-putting, I have less issues with his policies, particularly tax policy and rebuilding the armed forces.

Good day to you madam.

[ek_hornbeck]

I assume you're referring to his Earth is Flat book, where Friedman offered readers the innovative, unprecedented insight that thanks to the internet and other forms of mass communication, the whole world is now interconnected. That's right, we sure needed Thomas Friedman to point that out to us. His next best-seller will no doubt reveal other novel and profound insights to us, such as "water is wet" and "sugar is sweet."

I don't know who's the bigger fool, Friedman himself, or those who take him seriously as a writer and thinker.

[princeofdarkness]

I’m sure there were a few articles like this in 1980 pathetically begging people not to vote for Reagan. Pretty much confirms that they sense a huge win for Trump.

[miss marmelstein]

Oh, I guess it’s cause he’s a New Yorker. That New Yorker is going to put this country back on track.

[Maverick68]

Trump supporters, particularly less-educated white males

In other words, working class people...you know, the people the Dems USED to claim to care about?

[Lorianne]

Fair enough.
We disagree.

I want every single episode of these people slandering, libeling, denigrating their fellow citizens recorded and noted. It’s going to be important later.

[ek_hornbeck]

In other words, working class people...you know, the people the Dems USED to claim to care about

Someone ought to write a book about the sea change in the Democratic Party, i.e. how starting with the 1960's on, they essentially abandoned any pretense of representing the white working class, who they wrote off as bigots (Hillary's "basket of deplorables") and instead became the party of militant racial "minorities," radical feminists, and homosexuals.

[Lorianne]

Does automation also include all the work that can be done by computer and therefore it can be done anywhere and the ‘products’ of that work sent anywhere.

Many jobs have been lost digitally. Manufacturing is not the only kind of work there is. But even there, a lot of the engineering and design work that is part of manufacturing can be (and is) done offshore. It can be done anywhere.

I think just looking at ‘jobs’ as making things is a bit limiting. There are all sorts of jobs that are part of process of making things that do not include the actual making of the things.

In addition a lot of record keeping jobs, accountants, medical records etc are easily outsourced since this work is almost all done by computer.

Other jobs in the same boat: design, engineering, medical imaging analysis, legal research, etc.

So it’s not only about people in factories making things, though that is a big part of the jobs that were lost in the last 30 years or so

[central_va]

Factories create goods(wealth). The other things you describe while important are only "value" added work. You can't drive a great engineering design program. You can't eat a well manged accounting process and you can't mine for medical records.

There are only three ways to create wealth, mine it, make it, or grow it. Any country that is heavily into agriculture, manufacturing and mining is a wealthy country.

[Lorianne]

I agree with that about the ways to create wealth. But those are not independent unless we are talking a subsistence level economy.

Mining and agriculture jobs (which you cannot ‘outsource’ per se as they depend on a physical location) plus manufacturing jobs is what compared to all these other jobs I mentioned, the ‘economic framework’ kind of jobs?

Yes, we should mine, grow it, make it here as much as possible. However, only one of those 3 can be physically ‘outsourced’.

There are many other types of jobs which can be (and have been) easily outsourced. Banking, finance, accounting, legal services, design, engineering, record keeping ... these are jobs that are a big part of a modern, non-subsistence level, economy.

Now, if we are talking about a subsistence level economy, those jobs would all be here or come back here anyway. In that scenario we could not afford food grown elsewhere or materials mined or extracted elsewhere.

[central_va]

Boy where do I begin. A factory generates a secondary economy in a way that far surpasses any other sector of the economy. If you want to see the reverse just look at Detroit. It is the engine of the economy. If you do not understand that then I cant help you. You are macro economically retarded.

I haven't started on the national security implications of de industrialization. Once the USA is de industrialized China will have it way with us. Manufacturing the muscle of the economy.

[Lorianne]

I’m not arguing for de-industrialization.
I think we should be as self sufficient as possible in every economic way. Especially we should always be food and energy independent.

However, I think focusing solely on manufacturing when discussing ‘outsourcing’ is a very limited way of looking at the problem.

[Randy Larsen]

I knew better than to click on that article! What a useless POS the author is. Lies, backed by lies to prove the other lies.

[Auslander154]

The fellow travelers like Friedman and his kind sift through all the Clinton scandals and somehow can never find a smoking gun.

Not even next to Vince Foster.