The media would like us all to think that the working class isn’t voting for Obama because he’s an arugala eating, latte drinking, non-bitter elitist.
Note to the media- we working class people know about Starbucks. We drink lattes too. We don’t think Hillary spends her days shopping at Walmart and eating at MacDonalds. We don’t care if our next president is someone we can have a beer with.
And note to Obamabots- it’s not just the white working class that doesn’t trust Obama. It’s the Latinos and the Asians. It’s pretty much everyone but the African Americans (and we can’t fault them for voting for someone who looks like them).
Obama cannot win the working class because Obama has NO FRICKEN IDEA what we need. His ideas all center on making things easier for business. We know that benefits to businesses usually involve less protection for us. Less job protection, less retirement protection, less wage protection, fewer benefits, more hours, etc.
We, the working class, need wages that will pay our housing, gas, and food costs. We need health insurance that doesn’t cripple us. We need a country with a future. We need another industry boom that creates living wage jobs. We need education that is affordable for ourselves and our children. We need a real way to save for retirement. We need options for our young people above and beyond becoming fodder for the war machine. We need schools in our neighborhoods that prepare kids, not warehouse them.
Yes, there is part of us that remembers Bill Clinton. But what so many people fail to realize is that the working class has been in a recession since Bush took office in 2001. We have never had an upward swing under Bush. But under Clinton we got raises. When Clinton was president, my income doubled every year that I worked full time. I actually made it to the middle class. I had a house and a car that was paid for and ran. I could pay for childcare and rent and utilities.
Since Bush took office, my income has decreased by 30% every year until it hit half the poverty level. And I’ve been stuck there since. That is 7.5 years of poverty. That more than half my kid’s life.
We trust Hillary not just because we remember Bill, but because we know she actually thinks about our plight. We know that she has the big wonkish brain to find solutions that actually help us.
Hope and change are lovely ideas, but we can’t feed our kids hope and change. We can’t pay for college with hope and change. We can’t by food on hope and change credit. We want solutions. We want to count. We want our kids to have a shot at the American dream, though for the last 8 years it’s become obvious that we are the new feudal class. Our Lord and Employer may change, but there is no way for us to improve our lot anymore.
We don’t care if the person with the right ideas drinks lattes or coffee regular. We don’t care if that person drinks Bud or Burgundy. And we want someone who understands that we aren’t just bitter, we are angry. We got promised the American dream only to have our homes foreclosed on. We know we’ve been fed a load of shit. We want someone to make the promise reachable again. We know Hillary has the not only the chops to do it, but the desire to. Barak is just feeding us another load of hopeful shit, but we know the taste already.
