Will H. in reply to Stillwater says:

I believe this is very perceptive, but there is the additional dynamic of the seed falling in fertile soil.
The Left, in large part, has succeeded in de-personalizing the person, and a great many now consider them hopelessly irrelevant, and likely to be so for the duration of their lifetimes.
This was discussed, to some extent, in a previous thread, concerning presenting Cuomo to a Western audience.
Let me dig a little deeper.

Say, you’re white, young, male, some college, live in a 98% white suburb of a major metro area– or you could be from a small town in a rural farming area, young white male, wondering what to do– or older, worked in a factory half your life, and trying to keep your knees healthy enough to see retirement.
These people do not live in the aggregate, though Dems, and their policies, speak mostly to the aggregate.

Illustration: I was a kid at the dinner table, and I didn’t want to eat the cornbread because the juice from the green beans had run over on it, and got it all soggy.
My mom tells me: “You eat that cornbread! There are other kids in Africa that are starving right now!”
So, if I eat my cornbread, then these other kids in Africa won’t starve? Is that right, mom?

The young college suburban kid, the rural youth looking for direction, the aging factory worker– these people are all involved in their own problems, and dealing with those problems takes most of their time.
Coming to these people to tell them how bad these people they never see have got it, because of institutionalized discrimination, doesn’t do a thing to alleviate their problems.
Telling them how lucky they are that they don’t have to experience this other thing does nothing in the way of alleviating their problems, and doesn’t make them feel any luckier.
In fact, it only shows how out-of-touch with their reality that the speaker is. It is a negation of their personhood.
Their reality is a localized one, but very real nonetheless.

The Left has no place for the Common Man.
It loves to peer into every dank, dark corner to proclaim its love of the residents there, but it has no time whatever for the middle of the room, or those standing there.
I thoroughly reviles the Common Man, and hates his way of life, seeks only to destroy him, to will him out of existence.
In fact, it is quite likely to view “common” as a pejorative term, unless having a kumbaya moment.

This whole thing about “old white guys” being the cause of all the world’s ills makes it easy for these people– the aging factory worker wondering if he will ever collect on his pension, the young suburbanite still living at home because he can’t afford to move out, and the rural kid looking for direction– to turn away, to whatever else might happen to be there.
Something that doesn’t negate your existence is more likely to be viewed in positive terms than something that does.Report

Will H. in reply to Dark Matter says:

There are some assumptions here that need a bit of unpacking.
It’s really more of an issue with the urban / rural divide, but on the global scale.
Allow me to demonstrate.

Google tells me that the GPD per capita in the U.S. is around $58k, and that of China around $15.5k.
Nevermind what Google tells me about the Illuminati.

These numbers come out to about $4835/mo. & 1292/mo.

I would wager that person making $1292/mo. doesn’t have to pay $1200/mo. (or more) for an efficiency apartment.
I can point out several in the U.S., but it would tire out my arm, and I don’t know if I could keep up.

Likewise, “income” means different things to different people, and not one thing across the board.
For example, when I worked union, I had two different types of wages paid, one of which I never saw. For the sake of keeping the math simple, let’s say a standard scale would be around $40/hr in the pocket, and $25/hr in benefits; and with the (now) standard 60-hr work week.
I would get time-and-a-half for every hour over 8 worked per day, and all day on Saturday, but only straight time for benefits. This works out to ( 70 * 40 ) + ( 60 * 25 ) = $4300/wk.
That doesn’t matter much though.
There are only two numbers in the benefits amount that really make any difference, and those are the Health & Welfare fund (i.e., health insurance) and the pension contribution. Of these two, H&W is pretty meaningless, because every hour counts as 1 credit, regardless of the contribution, and I can bank up to six months of credits. The pension is divided (very unequally) between the national and the local; so, I really have two pensions, paid from different trust accounts.
I never paid a penny out-of-pocket for health insurance, and I never made an out-of-pocket contribution to a retirement account. Granted, each raise on every new contract was voted on to determine how much of the money would go where.
On the other hand, I never got any bonuses.
But still, compared to the non-union worker making $40/hr, I was coming out way ahead, even with the type of deductions coming out of my in-the-pocket amount (e.g., apprenticeship fund, target fund, etc.). Those contribution might come out to $3.50/hr, or so; so let’s say:
( 70 * 40 ) – ( 60 * 3.5 ) = $2590
Compare this with the non-union worker, with 10% going in to an IRA and $135/wk coming out for health insurance:
( 70 * ( 40 * 0.9 ) ) – 135 = $2385
The union worker is getting about $200/wk more at the same pay.

Other nations generally do not pay for health care from their wages. Public transportation is much cheaper. And they don’t pay anywhere near as much for housing.
Postage is typically much more expensive, and often iffy, but that’s about the only point, other than wages, that the U.S. comes out ahead on.

All those things that come with being a resident or citizen of a nation are not paid for from wages, because they don’t need to be.
The U.S. basically has a policy of encouraging upgrade of service in a fee-for-use system.

On the other side of it, subsidies for farmers producing sugar in the U.S. operates as a tariff against other nations
There are a lot of other nations that produce no sugar at all, because the U.S. keeps flooding the market with cheap sugar.

Like Jeff Foxworthy said in his bit about the family farm: “We made most of our money not growing corn.”Report