I cannot find it in my heart to admire the people who comment here proscriptively, without any attempt to signal empathy. Its understood few of us (myself included) will be doing anything to ameliorate this situation, and that empathy signalling is at best chest beating, but I still find the lack of compassion in the responses chilling. Yes, not smoking would reduce health risks and spend. so what? If you haven't tri…
I don't disagree with you, but I think there's a lot of people see the kind of people in the article as the opposition to progressive social issues like #BLM, acceptance of immigrants and the very same socialist policies that they survive off of and need to be expanded if these people are to see their lot in life improve. Rural communities overwhelmingly voted for Trump and they form the core of the Fox News constitu…
We've all come to understand that politicians are mostly liars. And I think Trump represented what was seen as a break from the mold because he seemed authentic. He said things that you're not "supposed" to say, he acted in a way you're not "supposed" to act. In general, he seemed to be being a person and not a politician. He made lots of promises as all politicians do, but I think his behavior being far outside of the mold gave people hope and optimism that he was being genuine - that he would actually fight to bring jobs back, work to curtail foreign competition for what jobs there are, and so on.
Sanders similarly broke the mold of a politician. Polls show socialism focus tests somewhere near the apocalypse, yet Sanders openly called himself a democratic socialist. And he talked about many things that have become completely taboo in politics including the corrupting influence of banks paired with a completely myopic monetary policy, single payer healthcare systems, corporate tax avoidance (something Trump also hit on), and more. He said things you're not supposed to say, and so I think we also viewed him as breaking the mold of a politician - and being somebody that might genuinely work to do the things he is talking about.
The behavior you're describing is why it's particularly tough for the two sides to ever see eye to eye. Imagine you were one of these disenfranchised poor living threadbare and barely getting by ever since the day you were born --- and the national discussion was on how to try to treat individuals who came into the country illegally better. That sort of thing breeds resentment. That resentment in turn is then characterized as racism. And that perceived racism in turn denigrates their own position even more, which results in even more empathy for immigrants leading to even greater resentment, and so on. It's a vicious cycle.
I wish there 'domestic exchange programs.' Have a substantial number of individuals living in one side of the bubble temporarily join a family living on the other side. I think peoples' eyes would be opened if they could see we all really just want the same thing - and that's a better life for the people. The only thing we disagree on is how to get there. But somehow in this process instead of seeing eye to eye we've instead characterized those that disagree with us as something less than rational humans capable of being swayed. And as both sides refuse to communicate to the other sides rationally this sort of inhumanity becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.