While I agree with the sentiment that rural communities have far too much power relative to population, I think this indicates another issue which reflects on Democrats. In years back, Dems were the party of the blue collar worker. They supported unions and causes that benefited these individuals. Any more, Dems are much more the party of the educated, white collar workers. The blue collar workers view the Dems as having abandoned the middle class. Not because its true, but because republicans have successfully scapegoated them. Dems were successful at improving environmental regulations on industry in America. Republicans have used this to place the blame on Democrats for the dying economy in rural America, all the while paving the way for these jobs to be outsourced and automated away. It doesn't help that the outsourcing was a bipartisan effort. The only ones fighting against it were Democrats, but Republicans have still successfully placed this blame on Dems as well. By simply using lies and a few misguided tariffs, Trump has convinced people that the Dems are the reason we're losing the middle class. And so we see these kinds of trends.
If Dems want to win permanent majorities in America, they need to appeal again to blue collar workers.
If Dems want to win back blue collar workers, I think we need to do a few things.
We need to seriously increase the minimum wage. Its insane that a person working at McDonalds in the Netherlands earns $22/hr while someone here can make as little as $8/hr. We also need to stop mocking these types of jobs. If a job isn't worth paying a living wage, its shouldn't exist, at least not at scale.
We need to seriously increase government spending on infrastructure, everywhere. This would seriously strengthen blue collar jobs, and send a lot of money into these dying communities.
We need to seriously increase government spending on social workers, particularly in rural communities. They should be paid at a rate comparable to other civil servants deemed valuable to society such as police officers.
We need to seriously ramp up sustainable resource extraction. We need to stop depending on developing nations to destroy their environments to get our high GDP industries the resources they need, and either extract them locally or from other nations that will adhere to strict environmental standards.
I'm sure there are other things too, but its a start.
If Dems want to win permanent majorities in America, they need to appeal again to blue collar workers.
If Dems want to win back blue collar workers, I think we need to do a few things.
We need to seriously increase the minimum wage. Its insane that a person working at McDonalds in the Netherlands earns $22/hr while someone here can make as little as $8/hr. We also need to stop mocking these types of jobs. If a job isn't worth paying a living wage, its shouldn't exist, at least not at scale.
We need to seriously increase government spending on infrastructure, everywhere. This would seriously strengthen blue collar jobs, and send a lot of money into these dying communities.
We need to seriously increase government spending on social workers, particularly in rural communities. They should be paid at a rate comparable to other civil servants deemed valuable to society such as police officers.
We need to seriously ramp up sustainable resource extraction. We need to stop depending on developing nations to destroy their environments to get our high GDP industries the resources they need, and either extract them locally or from other nations that will adhere to strict environmental standards.
I'm sure there are other things too, but its a start.
