Paul Waldman writes in the Washington Post that the white working class who voted for Trump might be realizing that they were scammed, if not now, then eventually.
One by one, he is breaking the promises he made at his campaign rallies.
Imagine you’re one of those folks who went to Trump rallies and thrilled to his promises to take America back from the establishment, who felt your heart stir as he promised to torture prisoners, who got your “Trump That Bitch” T-shirt, who was overjoyed to finally have a candidate who tells it like it is. What are you thinking as you watch this?
If you have any sense, you’re coming to the realization that it was all a scam. You got played. While you were chanting “Lock her up!” he was laughing at you for being so gullible. While you were dreaming about how you’d have an advocate in the Oval Office, he was dreaming about how he could use it to make himself richer. He hasn’t even taken office yet and everything he told you is already being revealed as a lie.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, Duh …
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My exact response
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Of course he did, it is what he does best. White working class has no idea how bad off thier lives are going to get
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He’s the new P.T. Barnum. “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
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Unfortunately, he will drag millions of people into the sewer that didn’t vote for him, including most public educators, educated critical thinkers and the poor.
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Never underestimate the power of denial …
But WRP says it best …
“Yeahbut”
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38515-miles-to-go-before-we-sleep
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A well written piece. But, time will tell what we’ll all encounter.
I’m always thinking about the wild cards history has dealt out. For example, Bush Jr. was cruising along for his first six months or so in office, figuring he’d be focusing on domestic issues. The mood of the nation that beautiful autumn morning was a million miles away from Afghanistan. (Kabul? Kandahar? Tora Bora?) Then, bang, Sept. 11.
I think this is a very dangerous time in history -for many reasons.
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I have seen enough Heil Hitlers to last me a while. Muslim registries, internment camps, white supremacy, enhanced interrogation, climate change denial, intelligent design are in vogue. Did I forget conversion therapy, or whatever it is called? The icing on the cake is closing public schools and handing out vouchers. And these people are serious. I am exhausted.
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Unfortunately he’s NOT canceling his promises on the much more important matters like global warming. It looks like he will indeed by defunding NASA’s co called ‘political science research.
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Sad to hear that, but the cat is out of the bag, we already have a ton of data, and monitoring can’t be stopped because too many other things, like weather predication depend on that same data. In addition, I doubt that he will interfere with the DOD’s preparations for the ways climate change will continue to affect their planning and operations. The denial and obstruction of climate change deniers cannot stop physics from taking place. It will not place anyone’s head in the sand that doesn’t want it there. The policy implications are bad though.
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A friend said it best; “I went to sleep early on the 8th in America, and woke up on the 9th in Nazi Germany.”
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Yes, white working class voters got scammed, They also turned their backs on the core values and principles that are the foundation of a democratic republic.
Anyone think public schools should now focus on democratic citizenship? Do the AFT and NEA “leadership” now think the “college and careers” and Advanced Placement and SAT emphases were misguided?
Assuming the impending recounts in PA, WI and MI don’t change anything, it’s going to be a long four years.
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Actually 8 years. Didn’t Trump just brag about that in the NYT?
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He’s got a lot of promises to keep, and he’s going to do some immediate damage…for now, let’s keep it to four years.
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It will probably be 20 years .
Think about it.
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Trump isn’t draining the swamp, he’s building a levee around it to make it deeper and bring in new swamp creatures he likes to replace the few he evicts. His deluded supporters never bothered to ask what “drain the swamp” actually meant. Had they read the GOP party platform, a thing that almost none of them appear to have done, they would have seen that it presents a strong defense of anonymous dark money contributions to politicians and political parties/PACS. That’s right Trumpaholoics, the swamp creatures you put into power don’t want you to know anything about the puppet masters pulling the strings you are dancing on. Told you so.
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i DON’T NO ABOUT you guys – but i am going to get a job cleaning TRUMP new air o plane- AIR FORCE 1
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Just read an article that Kentucky went big for Trump, ignoring his promise of dumping Obamacare. However, many Kentuckians actually benefit from it, finally being covered after many years of going without insurance. Now they’re afraid he might do it, leaving them again without health insurance. WTF?
We’re a nation of idiots. Maybe public education is to blame. #sarcasm
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No Trump did not scam the white working class. Clinton’s/Obama did. My depression will not fully set in until the small meteor strike does not hit the podium on January 20th .
But lets look at the liberal media elite. This morning we have Paul Krugman (who should always stick to print because he is a hopeless disaster on TV )
Lets go line item , through a few points
“Recently Bernie Sanders offered an answer: Democrats should “go beyond identity politics.” What’s needed, he said, are candidates who understand that working-class incomes are down, who will “stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry.”
But is there any reason to believe that this would work? Let me offer some reasons for doubt.”
That his premise Here comes a reason .
“First, a general point: Any claim that changed policy positions will win elections assumes that the public will hear about those positions. How is that supposed to happen, when most of the news media simply refuse to cover policy substance? Remember, over the course of the 2016 campaign, the three network news shows devoted a total of 35 minutes combined to policy issues — all policy issues. Meanwhile, they devoted 125 minutes to Mrs. Clinton’s emails.”
Well Paul perhaps if Hillary did not have 125 minutes worth of emails to cover there would have been more time to cover the economic policy to stimulate those jobs that she never fully espoused. His claim is also dispelled by the fact that we are sitting here discussing it . So someone must have had an economic message that came through. Other than lock her up and the emails.
“Beyond this, the fact is that Democrats have already been pursuing policies that are much better for the white working class than anything the other party has to offer. Yet this has brought no political reward.”
“Consider eastern Kentucky, a very white area which has benefited enormously from Obama-era initiatives. Take, in particular, the case of Clay County, which the Times declared a few years ago to be the hardest place in America to live. It’s still very hard, but at least most of its residents now have health insurance: Independent estimates say that the uninsured rate fell from 27 percent in 2013 to 10 percent in 2016. That’s the effect of the Affordable Care Act, which Mrs. Clinton promised to preserve and extend but Mr. Trump promised to kill.
Mr. Trump received 87 percent of Clay County’s vote.”
I am not going to sit here calling for a renewal of coal. I live on long Island and would like to keep it above sea level .
But is Obamacare a solution for people who had middle class incomes with employer provide healthcare even pensions(that may not have been the case in Clay County,for a long Time } . It is an expansion of welfare . If you are in the working poor with very little income the subsidies defray the costs. If you are above the poverty line but by no means what we used to call middle class ,you have a useless expensive system with high deductibles that provides catastrophic healthcare . These people want jobs not a hand out. ..
“Is the case of former coal country exceptional? Not really. Unlike the decline in coal, some of the long-term decline in manufacturing employment can be attributed to rising trade deficits, but even there it’s a fairly small fraction of the story. Nobody can credibly promise to bring the old jobs back; what you can promise — and Mrs. Clinton did — are things like guaranteed health care and higher minimum wages. But working-class whites overwhelmingly voted for politicians who promise to destroy those gains.”
A few things about that. The small part of the story is the 15 million jobs lost to trade deals with Bill Clinton’s and Obama’s name on them . 5 million directly in manufacturing and the other ten in supporting industries like the Bar down the block from the Mill . Or the engineers and construction workers who were constantly kept busy . Now our man Obama could not accept that Bernie , Hillary and the progressives were taking TPP off the table . So he “waved that cape in front of that raging bull in the Midwest, daring him to skewer him in the butt.”
Sure did take your legacy and shove it O. The Trump . court might even reverse the 13th amendment before they are done ( I am being sarcastic Diane )
Again they lost middle class jobs they could care less about minimum wage and Obama care that’s why there are 2% fewer workers 25-54 in the workforce bringing the real unemployment rate to a recessionary 7%. much higher in those Midwest states. They’re in the underground economy selling those drugs that kill them. Working off the books, what ever they have to do. Like minorities have done in the urban ghettos for decades .
Selling loosies can cost one his life in NYC.
“and anger on the part of the less educated at liberal elites whom they imagine look down on them.
To be honest, I don’t fully understand this resentment. In particular, I don’t know why imagined liberal disdain inspires so much more anger than the very real disdain of conservatives who see the poverty of places like eastern Kentucky as a sign of the personal and moral inadequacy of their residents.”One thing is clear, however: Democrats have to figure out why the white working class just voted overwhelmingly against its own economic interests, not pretend that a bit more populism would solve the problem.’
Lets skip Kentucky Paul, Appalachia has always been a different story. Lets stick to the Midwest. You “don’t fully understand this resentment” These are people who had incomes between 60 and a 100 thousand per family .some much higher,. You want to toss them few crumbs . Remember that sucking sound of American Jobs leaving the country that Ross Perot warned about. You promised these people, Bill Clinton promised these people that trade was going to be good for them. Barrack Obama has been telling them “trust me this time is different. Would I screw the American people” . Let me think about that, yup you would.
Now as for Hillary , I could give a shit less about Benghazi or those State Department Emails . The emails that were really upsetting came from Wiki and the Russians and the confirmed that Trump is right the system is rigged, rigged for the Trumps of the World by the Hillary’s of the World. But yes Trump will screw the working class royally and you did your best to make sure that the progressive populist never had the chance to counter Trump. Now step aside and shut the hell up.
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Yes, it’s in his nature. He’s a natural fraud.
He is Peer Gynt at his sinful worst, and worldly best.
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❝A new creature now walks the land, most clearly visible on televisions tuned to “news” networks. No zoologist has labeled it yet, so I just call it the “Yeahbut.” Every time a fascist, a racist or an all-out Nazi is tapped for a Cabinet position in the looming administration, all the apple-polishers on the screen say, “Yeah, but how bad can they really be?” or “Yeah, but that was a long time ago” or “Yeah, but those people don’t vote anyway,” and we are all a little worse for the wear in the stench of the Yeahbut’s passage. Forgiveness is divine, it is said, but watching the TV people exonerate themselves for the ruin they gleefully foisted upon us in the name of ratings and advertising dollars makes me glad, for their sake, that I am a peaceful man.❞
William Rivers Pitt
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