Posted on 12/27/2016 3:03:23 PM PST by Rudolphus
If you want to understand how badly Democrats lost the white working class in the 2016 election, your local fire station is not a bad place to start. Nearly 85 percent of professional firefighters are white, and more than 95 percent are men, making them look a lot like the other blue-collar voters who surged to Donald Trump this year. But firefighters are also heavily unionized, tend to live in cities or suburbs (rural areas often have volunteer fire companies) and are government employees — all factors generally associated with the Democratic Party. And all of those characteristics, along with the fact that firefighters are roughly evenly distributed across the country, make the group a microcosm of the larger breakup between working-class whites and the Democratic Party this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
It was on my mind all Election season as to a model of how Trump wants to get things done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bH1vlteSuQ
It is ironic they are communicating via a phone, now trump is tweeting but still "Direct" ;-).
NYPD and NYFD BOOED Hillary Clinton in 2002 (or was it 2001) at the Concert for NYC (following the 9-11 attacks).
The police union supported Trump.
I remember when Donald Trump mentioned going down to the “711” and the LSM thought that he misspoke “911”. It turned out that “711” was the number of the Fire Station that he personally supported during the crisis.
Here in Florida, the firefighters SOLD OUT the citizenry to help pass amendment one. Firefighter went in the ads supporting an attempt by the utility companies to get a monopoly over solar energy in all of Florida.
It failed, but it showed the firefighters TRUE COLORS. Anti-citizen that is.
That’s what union welfare beggars do... No surprise at all.
There are more volunteers than paid FF in the US.
Despite the strong Democratic leanings of the IAFF brass, the rank and file is much more evenly split...and they are ALL getting very tired of being bad-mouthed or ignored, even while their wages stagnant and their health care costs skyrocket.
Expect more deflections from middle-class blue collar workers, who are tired of being called intolerant by the snowflakes, the media hacks, grievance studies professors, and celebrities, none of whom have ever worked an honest day’s job in their lives!
But of course: Union = Democrat
There are more volunteers than paid FF in the US.
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Without them, small town and rural America would be in big trouble.
In Florida, unionized firefighters are grossly overpaid.
Unionized firefighters scare me, since the main purpose of the unions is to guarantee jobs for the mediocre and thus guarantee a steady inflow of union dues with which to support the Dimocrat Party. The last thing I ever want to see when my house is on fire is a 103-lb affirmative-action- hire woman with ‘tude coming up the ladder to save me.
VERY well said....
Traditionally, unions have restricted access to jobs to those who are union members and already employed in the field.
Maybe things have changed lately, but craft unions resisted affirmative action for a long time.
Same here in NJ; most of the state is served by volunteers, but the paid ones are just an expensive holdover from our manufacturing days (when the companies bore the cost). We simply don’t have enough fires to justify the 6-figure salaries many rake in while sleeping all day in firehouses (the fact that many PAID firemen have 2nd jobs - often in the trades - speaks volumes), and they have ferociously resisted regionalization (which would make them much more cost-effective).
Very different from cops, who recently more than ever can argue for the wages/benefits they receive.
NJ paid firefighters are basically in line with public school teachers’ unions; supporting Dems to get more money for themselves while doing very little work. I’ve never supported residency laws for municipal workers, but when you see paid firemen, who insist everyone needs the professional skills of a paid department to protect their families, buying homes in towns served by “jolly vollies” (volunteers) you realize they are full of sh!t.
Here in NJ as urban areas laid off cops (gibsmedats don’t contribute to their own law enforcement costs) some deal was worked out where others municipalities would hire them if jobs opened up. Shut out a lot of young people from those jobs while putting ineffective affirmative action slugs in an alien environment (outside the ‘hood).
My town also has a deal with the NAACP that neighboring Newark NJ residents may take our police test while Newark itself can shut out our residents with a residency requirement.
Great points.
Am enjoying all your NJ comments today—lived in the Garden State for the first 52 years of my life. Left in 2006.
Live in an island of sanity in southern DE now.
Thank you!
You’re not missing much here; I guess you’re one of the earlier waves of taxpayers fleeing NJ. They just released a report that over the past decade 350K whites have left NJ, but they’ve been more than replaced by Hispanic and Asian immigration. Sad to see what NJ has been reduced to; I’ve posted in the past that it has a great mix (one can live an hour from mountains, the ocean, farms, even NYC), but it has just become too Third World-like while also becoming prohibitively expensive.
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