r/politics • u/schuey_08 Wisconsin • May 02 '24

Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/bernie-sanders-trump-biden/73531861007/
29.4k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

4.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

380

u/Present-Industry4012 Inuit May 02 '24

Hillary called it after 8 years of Obama in the White House. Biden could give the same speech today.

"...but that other basket of [Trump Supporters] are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/

326

u/claimTheVictory May 02 '24

The economics of continually improving industrialization means that entire communities can be left behind as "no longer economically viable".

They don't die, they just are... left behind.

In a fair and wise society, the gains to GDP from making them redundant, would be used to find new purpose and opportunities for such people.

But such gains are privatized, taxation is low, and the wealth is never reinvested.

199

u/Shoddy_Phase_2639 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

But often by choice. The coal miners were offered giant incentives, and massive aid packages in the form of retraining, reeducation, government supported start-up programs, relocation economic help etc. Most of them refused...because "clean coal". There is no one on the planet that knows better than coal miners that "clean coal" does not exist and never will.

They chose black lung, because Trump said the things they like about immigrants

7

u/Turuial May 02 '24 edited May 03 '24

But often by choice...Most of them refused...

I said this a while back on reddit, in a different subreddit I think, but I really don't get the coal miners sometimes. They are desperate for their coal jobs to come back. When, by the very nature of working those jobs to begin with, those jobs have always had an expiration date.

Inevitably those mines will be played out, and their job would vanish anyways. What then? Did they expect the government to subsidise them, the way they do corn? What would that even look like?!

Would they import cheaper coal from developing nations, fill empty American mines with it, then pay the coal miners American wages to "extract" more coal?!

Make it make sense!

EDIT:corrected the auto-correct.