Ladies and Gentlemen who live in wealthy suburbs near or in city-states in the US,
The US rural communities, and poor urban neighborhoods, constitute a Second World nation moving toward Third World "status." What compounds this trend, which I have long blamed primarily on corporate trade deals which hollowed out the nation, and pushed people into cities, is the growth, in those communities, of the religious right, which reenforces racist and xenophobic (and increasingly anti-Semitic) "reasons" for this decline. This political reaction exacerbates and makes more difficult the ability to change policies that are beggaring so many people.
People wonder why I push Sanders, and this is one significant reason, as the people in white rural America, despite Bernie's Jewish heritage, trust Bernie in a way they trust nobody else except Trump. It accounts for the polling which shows people beyond Democrats support him and help defeat Trump. That the largely white rural folks should not trust Trump is a valid question, but the answer is not one us well off folks in the suburbs of city states, and inside wealthy areas of city-states, want to hear. The reason is Trump continues to consistently speak rhetoric to those folks' worst values, which makes it appear Trump is keeping his "promises." Again, these people need to know that who they vote for will have their backs. This is what is wrong with candidates who are evasive, who rely on focus groups, etc., and why the Native American "issue" for Warren ends up going to her integrity in a way that sticks--and does not stick to Trump. They know he's a lying cad, but he has not lied in his policy making about immigrants, no matter his own hypocrisies of having hired "illegals" himself.
This past weekend, The Folks and I had traveled down south to Truth or Consequences, NM, and, along the way, The Folks saw the poverty that is in the many square miles of New Mexico among small, rural oriented populations. They were shocked. I said this is what we would see if we drove across the nation and looked, with any degree of carefulness, at the trailer or pre-fab homes, the empty storefronts, etc. and saw the only places for any employment there is at the Post Office, a public school, or maybe a small hospital--or worse, a private or public prison. I find it astonishing how only the Clintons get blamed for this regression of economic fates, not Reagan, not Bushes, not the mostly Republican congress critters who consistently voted for these trade deals. But it remains a fact and, ironically, it is a basis for mistrust of corporate media, which tends to promote corporate Democrats and rail against those who seem to make sense from a right wing perspective to these rural, religious oriented folks. It's just too bad this ends up becoming an echo chamber for these folks, especially if they belong to a hate factory, I mean right wing church, which tells them to fear gays, lib-ruls, and immigrants, and to keep their guns locked and loaded.
But, sure, let's just keep telling ourselves how much we like the gay neo-lib, Mayor Pete. Let's keep telling ourselves how much Warren is the same as Sanders. Let's keep telling ourselves Joe Biden is more electable. And keep giving Harris, Booker, Castro, and others space to keep up their vanity candidacies. Oh, and young folks who like Yang, who has turned into a neo-lib in so many ways, and was unable to explain his foreign policy to Maddow last week, yeah, keep telling yourselves he is the answer. He won't be when he has to confront the rural communities, who still hold excess power through the Electoral College, when they are told how his VAT will increase their own taxes and cause them to lose food stamps if they try to take his $1,000 a month--those folks who are themsleves on food stamps and know people on food stamps. It is one of those great contradictions; you know, like the white guy in his 50s or early 60s on social security disability who listens to Rush, Michael Savage, and Hannity all goddamned day, and rail against "big gummint."
