> People voting for Trump are regular blue collar workers loosing from globalization. Hence they want walls. I don't think there is any good in demonizing them.
I agree with this, but there’s a bit that I don’t understand about their mindset. If they think they’ve lost their job to an immigrant who’s willing to work harder for less money, how does less government involvement make it better? You can’t just ban immigrants and solve the problem because the real problem is a system that allows exploitative labor practices. By American standards those immigrant workers are also getting a bad deal and the people doing the exploiting aren’t going to stop unless someone forces them to.
I think the reason you see people latching on to Trump is because they think all politicians want to maintain the status quo and they think Trump will break it. I understand the sentiment, but Trump didn’t really DO anything to help them. All he seems to do IMO is assign blame and talk about how things should be. It’s easy to say “we have the greatest plan” or “everyone should live in a mansion”, but it’s really hard to actually have the greatest plan and to implement it or to build everyone a mansion.
It’s really sad because I think middle class America is being disenfranchised and there’s a near majority of people who’ve been convinced it’s the fault of poor, “lazy moochers” rather than the wealthy capturing and hoarding all of our productivity gains over the past 40 years.
I think there should be common ground in wanting to get rid of the part of the government that serves the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. It’s just a matter of understanding the sides are wealthy vs everyone else, not right vs left.
> If they think they’ve lost their job to an immigrant who’s willing to work harder for less money, how does less government involvement make it better?
I'm not sure they want less government. Walls are built by governments, tariffs are protectionist measure. They want neo-mercantilism, which Trump is embodiment of.
> but Trump didn’t really DO anything to help them.
Oh, he started a big trade war with the gravest enemy stealing their jobs. I think he also imposed more strict immigration policy, but I'm not sure.
> capturing and hoarding all of our productivity gains over the past 40 years
I think that's wrong. Your productivity gains are mostly due to technology and rise of Asia. Asians and tech companies reaped the productivity gains accordingly. I mean, even eastern europeans like myself saw an extraordinary increase in standards of living.
> middle class America is being disenfranchised
> I think there should be common ground in wanting to get rid of the part of the government that serves the interests of the wealthy
I don't think that's your problem, and I don't expect american future to be good.
First, I think your political system is broken due to Duverger's law. Hence you have a political system where people have to adjust their views according to politicians' stances, and not vice versa. Lack of competition leads to corruption, regulatory captures etc etc, and I doubt that such system would find a will to reform itself.
Second, your wealthy already pay quite a lot of taxes, unlike Europe, where there is regressive VAT and high income tax for the middle class, and middle class is the main fiscal contributor. Hence your politician more concerned about well-being of those who affects budget the most. There is nothing strange here, and this kind of corporatism wouldn't heal itself as well.
I think that the root of your problem is not malicious rich whom Americans like to demonize so much, but broken beyond repair political system and unfair tax burden: politicians are more free to act as they will facing no pressure and competition, politicians strive to please big biz which is the main contributor to the budget. I'm really curious how you'll deal with that, if you'll manage to.
> I think that's wrong. Your productivity gains are mostly due to technology and rise of Asia.
IMO the average person hasn’t gotten enough of the gains from tech and it’s one of the things that worries me. As automation accelerates we can’t tolerate a handful of elites reaping all the benefits from that.
I don’t know much about the USA tax system. I’m Canadian. We pay high taxes and I don’t have a problem with it. In general though, I think the wealthy elite in the world have been capturing a disproportionate amount of the wealth / productivity gains since the 80s.
I also think the rewards for “success” are way too high for CEOs, etc.. They claim to be irreplaceable, but whenever something bad happens and they get called before Congress they act like they barely know more than the janitor. I think their only real value is in knowing all the other rich people.
I believe in capitalism and think hard work needs to be rewarded, but that the rewards are skewed too much. Once you have 100x the standard of living of the average person in the wealthiest countries in the world I think that should be enough. Everything else is just pure greed.
I agree with this, but there’s a bit that I don’t understand about their mindset. If they think they’ve lost their job to an immigrant who’s willing to work harder for less money, how does less government involvement make it better? You can’t just ban immigrants and solve the problem because the real problem is a system that allows exploitative labor practices. By American standards those immigrant workers are also getting a bad deal and the people doing the exploiting aren’t going to stop unless someone forces them to.
I think the reason you see people latching on to Trump is because they think all politicians want to maintain the status quo and they think Trump will break it. I understand the sentiment, but Trump didn’t really DO anything to help them. All he seems to do IMO is assign blame and talk about how things should be. It’s easy to say “we have the greatest plan” or “everyone should live in a mansion”, but it’s really hard to actually have the greatest plan and to implement it or to build everyone a mansion.
It’s really sad because I think middle class America is being disenfranchised and there’s a near majority of people who’ve been convinced it’s the fault of poor, “lazy moochers” rather than the wealthy capturing and hoarding all of our productivity gains over the past 40 years.
I think there should be common ground in wanting to get rid of the part of the government that serves the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. It’s just a matter of understanding the sides are wealthy vs everyone else, not right vs left.