re: #188 HappyWarrior

Okay. I don’t live in the area but my belief is it has to do with cultural issues dominating the parties and the GOP knowing how to push the buttons of resentment. It’s sad honestly since there are a lot of people there who are the children and grandchildren of immigrants. It amazes me really. My grandparents home in Johnstown went for Mondale and then went for Trump but back then there were more people with memories of life before the New Deal.

Pretty much my thinking.

I think Deb touched on a bit of it when we were talking about our life around the steel factory days this morning. He mentioned going to school and getting to the Irish Catholic school which was near the German Catholic School (I hope I am remembering that correctly).

I am just about finished reading “Reckless” by Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders) and she mentioned living for a time in Cleveland and how aware you had to be of the neighborhoods and how you had to “fit” in or there would be trouble. That was the early 70s.

Being segmented into areas of only people like you doesn’t help anyone. You are suspicious from the get-go and you have nothing but your own people telling you how things are. Many old cities were like that.

Take away the jobs and that suspicion just goes crazy. It is always “them” that messed it up for “you.” And the politics of the right have played on that from the late 70s on with ReaganNomics. And it has only gotten worse to where Trump didn’t hide it. He sold it.

It’s really going to be a hell of a test to see where this all falls.