Trump: Tribune of Poor White People | Hacker News Reader

Trump: Tribune of Poor White People

theamericanconservative.com

5 pointsdpeck6 comments

"The average kid will live in multiple homes over the course of her life, experience a constant cycle of growing close to a “stepdad” only to see him walk out on the family, know multiple drug users personally, maybe live in a foster home for a bit (or at least in the home of an unofficial foster like an aunt or grandparent), watch friends and family get arrested, and on and on."

I'd prefer to see a statistical presentation of this information, rather than hearsay, but if even somewhat true, a basic income trial in these areas would be highly valuable.

While basic income might make sense, many of these people won't be satisfied with it. They would be ashamed and angry that society has no useful job for them anymore. Wouldn't you?

There's a reason many of these people prefer Trump, who promises jobs and (false) hope, over Clinton, who isn't making such promises.

What?

Hillary is totally promising jobs, it's one of the core planks of her "platform": https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/jobs/

She is, but it's not exactly the same.

Where I grew up (Appalachia), there's already plenty of great infrastructure. There are, however, no industries to replace coal mining or steel production. It's literally impossible for Trump to bring those jobs back -- it's much cheaper to extract coal in the West, so there's little-to-no incentive for a for-profit corporation to build new mines in Appalachia.

I did a social studies report in 6th grade on the topic, "What will replace coal in West Virginia?" Even then, we couldn't figure anything out. Nothing has changed. WV is the strongest state for Trump for that reason.

Clinton can promise jobs in a general sense, but it's not what they want to hear. They want to hear someone offer them a time machine to 1960, when men could work in mines or manufacturing from his teens until he retired, and they knew their sons would be able to do the same.

> I'd prefer to see a statistical presentation of this information, rather than hearsay, but if even somewhat true, a basic income trial in these areas would be highly valuable.

It may or may not be true, but a conservative would say welfare ultimately generates a higher rate of single parent homes.

I wish Sam & Co the best of luck with their basic income experiment but it is such a difficult issue fraught with so many complications and implications it is often hard to know how to begin thinking about it.

This is a really thoughtful article* and I plan to read the book ("Hillbilly Elegy") discussed.

*Despite the URL, it's not kneejerk anything. Ignore the comments at the end as usual though...

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