Rust Belt Voters Made Trump President. Now they Want Jobs.

[HughBeaumont]

Stories that Make Me Want a Meat Thermometer Lobotomy Dept:

West grew up in a blue collar family in Lapeer, Michigan, a city about an hour from the U.S.-Canadian border. She admits she "got in the wrong crowd" in high school and never finished. She didn't worry about it at first. She just walked into a temp agency and landed a manufacturing job.

She worked at a GM parts plant and then on the assembly line of Lesley Elizabeth, a company that makes cooking oils and spices. She figured manufacturing would be her life.

But those jobs paid minimum wage -- barely above $8 an hour in her state.

"I was only bringing home $960 a month," the soft-spoken mom, now 28 and the mother of three young boys, told CNNMoney. "Daycare alone was almost $400 to enroll my kids in."

About a year ago, she moved back in with her mother and went back to school to get her GED through a state program. Her family also receives Medicaid to cover health care. She hopes to retrain to be a nurse.

West and her mother are Trump supporters. They see him as an "action president." They especially like what he's doing on trade and immigration.

"I'm not racist at all, but I do believe in building a border [wall] to protect our country," West says, referring to Trump's promise to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. "We can't even take care of our own people right now."

Ballsacks. It's CRINGE-inducing to listen to these people. Let's elect a billionaire to solve problems created by millionaires and billionaires by employing solutions that dropped the middle/working/poor into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Great job, media. Keep the hate narratives flowing and cry "Not Guilty!" as we get divided further.

[Kittycow]

1. Hey! She's leaching off government programs!

No irony here of course

[guillaumeb]

3. She is white.

She is entitled to government assistance.

She is part of that group that Lincoln talked about when he said: you can fool some of the people all of the time.

[HughBeaumont]

7. Nobody called the social safety nets "ENTITLEMENTS" . . .

. . . . until people that weren't them started getting earned benefits.

Tangled web weaved, and all that . . .

[guillaumeb]

12. I went to a Tea Party meeting in my town a while back.

After listening to various people complaining about those people getting free things, and complaining about government worker pensions, I asked how many at the meeting were receiving Social Security. Most hands went up. I asked why they were talking government money and asked why they did not live on their savings.

Silence, perhaps 20 seconds worth, and one woman explained that they earned their benefits. I said that I had worked for the Federal Government for 37 years, and asked if I had earned my pension.

Again, silence.

[HughBeaumont]

15. Those are "Build the moat, raise the drawbridge" conservatives.

Because, of course, "NO ONE WORKS AS HARD AS I DID!!!".

And of course, "I DESERVE MY BENNIES, EVERYONE ELSE IS A LAZY MOOCHER!!"

Here's another thing they don't get. GOVERNMENT is not just in their benefits . . . it's all around them. Most entities that they take for granted; the businesses they work at, the roads they drive on, their properties, their schools, their mail, their utilities, etc. etc. have some sort of government program to make it easier, safer, less corrupt, punctual and accountable.

Demonizing government is the ultimate object to distract from corporate petty larceny.

[HughBeaumont]

4. Electing Trump was a package deal:

They got their "Brand Name".

The rest of us get our earned benefits cut by the assholes he comes with (Ryan House, McConnell Senate).

"See our side", my ASS.

[OnDoutside]

19. She won't be for long when they are cut off !!!

[guillaumeb]

2. A high school dropout, no skills,

working minimum wage jobs, going to school courtesy of a state aid program, and on Medicaid.

A self-sufficient white American who is, of course, not a racist, BUT..........

[JustAnotherGen]

13. I didn't go there

But I'm glad you did.

Maybe it's the way it was edited but . . .

She never said:
I made some poor choices.
I made poor choices with a limited income.
I had another child when I probably couldn't afford to the feed the first.

One of my SR Analysts would die to pay $400 a month for her daycare. She pays close to $1600 - for one. And she does that as a double income household (husband is a young police detective) with one student loan (theykilled themselves to get her husbands paid off first before having their son), and a mortgage. She's a year older than Angelica, caucasian, from a working class back ground.

I see a tale of two young women and one doesn't bitch or complain or whine - she's doing the best with what she has - but made really good choices.

I don't know what to tell Angelica except -she voted for the guy. Now watch her funding for her education go away.

[guillaumeb]

14. Agreed. Elections have consequences.

Unfortunately, Angelica's bad choice will also affect the rest of us as well.

[JustAnotherGen]

21. Yep - and looking at the aca

What happens when my Sr Analyst and her Husband want to have a second child and health insurance no longer covers it?

I'd bet they don't have another one - because they make good choices.


BTW - neither were Trump supporters and really really are NOT racist. She's disgusted with what she's seeing.

[Jim Beard]

24. Maybe thats what she wanted to do, get even at those who have made the right choices.

[guillaumeb]

27. An interesting idea.

A resentment or hate based vote for a candidate who hates everyone?

[Vinca]

5. So where in Michigan are the Trumps manufacturing their clothing and accessory lines?

[hollowdweller]

6. We worship money, business and the military in this country.

It's no wonder these people were attracted to Trump.

First his TV career sets him up as some sort of authority on business.

Second we have capitalism and democracy all mixed up in this country.

Really, the whole "run gov't like a business" thing is something that sells voters. However gov't is NOT a business and you don't run them the same way. A company can raise prices and they get a pass but try raising taxes.

There is a certain hostility toward having academic people in Gov't, but mostly they seem to do a better job than those with "real life" experience.

We hate gov't employees other than the military and we hate politicians even though the most experienced of these seem to run the gov't better than total outsiders. However like the worship of "business" we BELIEVE outsiders are better. True they are less beholden to special interests usually but that could be fixed by some lobbying reform.

[HughBeaumont]

11. The unspoken rule of any corporation is to "care for the Major Shareholders First and Only".

So how, Trump Voters, would it be to YOUR benefit if a guy who's always come from an atmosphere where this rule is law (really, a choice, not an ACTUAL law like everyone thinks it is) runs this country as he has conducted his business?

Not to mention "draining the swamp" apparently means "adding corporate and Putin contaminants".

[Freethinker65]

8. and that is why the GOP intends to destroy public education

[JustAnotherGen]

9. I went to the link and read all of the bios

Angelica disturbs me - I don't know ALL of the details of the personal life - and what got her in her situation . . .

But I kind of feel like she had a choice at one point.

She's now blaming her situation on a government that has failed to provide her a job. She could have made different choices ten years ago.

[Jim Beard]

25. I think her first problem was not using birth control.

[hatrack]

10. And they're not - they're going to get dirty air, smelly water and dead fish

So FUCK THEM.

[procon]

35. That particular class of voters lacks the critical thinking skills to

put the puzzle pieces together correctly and see who is actually causing their problems. They tend to grab the most simplistic answers and follow the crowd in blaming whatever hapless group that Trump has identified as his boogeyman of the hour.

[Wellstone ruled]

16. Ironic is it not.

Voted for Trump believing something magical was going to happen and her day to day issues would go away luckily,there are a couple of Democratic Legislated things that are saving her butt until this magical mystic thing happens.

Famous quote last year from Harry Reid when asked about the loss of Hard Rock Mining Jobs in his home town of Seachlight Nevada, "Let's get real,your mining jobs are gone and they are not coming back,and you folks are going to have to move to find work". Wow,a Politician who spoke the truth.

[Jim Beard]

26. He wasn't running for re-election.

[Wellstone ruled]

30. I know,was in the

room when he made this statement.

[Initech]

17. I have zero fucks to give for these people. Actually less than zero.

They voted for Trump purely out of blind hatred, for both Hillary and Obama. They knew what they were doing when they pushed that button. Don't expect us to bail you out next time.

[Blue_Tires]

18. +1000

[HughBeaumont]

22. +1,000. Oh, a bailout WILL be expected by them.

And they'll love us once the economy gets going and they're employed and safe again . . . .

. . . . then RIGHT out we go again to make way for their NEXT Christo-Fascist hero!!

These people suck.

[Initech]

23. That's the christofascist mindset in a nutshell.

They demand a bailout. We give them the bailout they demand, then they go right back to hating us. This is why we can't have nice things.

[andym]

20. The power of conservative messaging-- You could be rich + successful "if only for the government..."

If only for the government's regulations, taxes and redistribution of money to the undeserving poor, you would be a millionaire too. And you are superior human because you believe in freedom above all.

And it works enough to brainwash enough people to give the GOP significant power. The real problem occurs when GOP politicians act on the underlying premises of the ideology.

[lagomorph777]

28. Good to know she will be punished for her vote.

Not so good that millions of innocents will, as well.

[lpbk2713]

29. "Damn you Obama."

OMFG The stupid must really hurt.

[angrychair]

31. So, irony is lost on these people

A person with a marginal education and poor educational opportunities, that got a GED through the types of programs that republicans will dissolve, lives on public assistance, worries about people that are doing jobs that, historically speaking, people like her typically would never do.
She is receiving aid that illegal immigrants cannot legally receive.

Trump has no interest in helping people like her and never will.

[HughBeaumont]

40. "THA'S DIFFRNT! AH URND MAH BENNIES!"

"Build the moat, close the drawbridge" Conservatives, again.

Only THEY deserve benefits. Everyone else can pound sand.

[BeyondGeography]

32. An hour from Canada and the wall is how the Con Man got her

Oy.

[HughBeaumont]

39. "Border Jumpin's" great when you want to party in nearby Windsor.

Not so much when one seeks low-paying economic opportunity, dontCha know!

[Lotusflower70]

33. You know what kills me

People complaining about others (namely minorities) not taking personal responsibility and yet when white people don't take personal responsibility it's not an issue. Some people are totally clueless. You have to help people to lift them up. Just like the woman in the article received help.

[get the red out]

34. Hard lesson

This could be a hard lesson to learn for them. Unless they still blame the Democrats.

[louis-t]

36. The "we can't even take care of our own people" argument

from conservatives is laughable. Conservatives DON'T WANT TO TAKE CARE OF YOU!!! She doesn't know that she has been on her own since dumpy got elected, and it's only going to get worse for people like her.

[ogsball]

37. If you have to say. . .

"I'm not racist" then you probably are.

[DeminPennswoods]

38. I'm miffed I have to help pay for those 3

evidently born-out-of-wedlock kids.

[NewJeffCT]

41. So, she's on Medicaid and wants to retrain to be a nurse

you mean, her insurance is through a program Republicans want to kill and the money to retrain her to be a nurse has been killed by Republicans for years...