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Howburn Digger wrote: Yeah they probably know that it doesn't really matter who you vote for if you are always on the breadline. No wonder they hated Obama - he bombed Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan despite none of those countries ever showing aggression towards Amerika. He was awarded the most Ironic Nobel Peace Prize ever handed out. Obama was at war with an unaggressive country which had never attacked Amerika for every single day of his tenure in the White House. Sometimes five at once. Obama just posed as Liberal but was a Hawk and more warlike than any other President in the last fifty years. Obama started - and with Hillary ran - more US wars of aggression than ANY other US President in History.
The guy they have there now hasn't started a single war. He's a mouthy, kinda unappealling guy but he comes from a country full of those types. That current White House incumbent is just less warlike than every one of his predecessors for the last fifty years.
Well, you may be giving my former neighbors in South Brooklyn a bit too much credit re their knowledge of world affairs. They all flew American flags, and were suspicious of me because I didn't (and I certainly didn't tell them I was a member of the Liberal Party of Canada). They didn't know anything about world affairs except for being exceptionally proud of their "Irish" heritage (again, we're talking the remnants of a dying breed of "old Brooklyn" as most people I ran into in stores or on the street spoke Russian). When I asked if they'd heard of James Joyce, they had no clue what I was talking about. Then I asked if they'd even been to Ireland? Nope. I asked if they'd been to Boston, where I had lived previously and which is probably the most "Irish" city in America? Nope. As I said, they didn't even venture as far as Manhattan, though they did make an outing to Coney Island once a year.
Obama was no doubt a corporate Dem and the deporter in chief (he quietly deported migrants at a higher rate than Trump). And yes, his Nobel Prize was a joke. Wishful thinking. But from what I could tell, that wasn't the problem they had with him. There were some more affluent blacks buying homes on "their" street, as well as Asians and lots of Russians who seemed to be loaded with money. They generally resented all of this and blamed it on Obama.
These people were like a throwback to Hubert Selby's great novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn. By the time I left, many of them were hooked on oxy and as well as selling it, and there were usually flashing lights from cops and/or EMT services there picking up overdoses and sorting out fights almost every night. When I left I sold my house to a Muslim guy, and I found out later they attacked him and one of them is being sentenced today, I believe, to a spell in Rikers prison for hate crimes. The same guy's baby mama overdosed on oxy and died not long after I left, and their kid will now be in the hands of "the system." He never had a chance.
This unfortunately seems to make up much of Trump's constituency. His current government shutdown will hurt many of them who depend on welfare and child support from the government. As will it hurt the farmers who are being clobbered by his tariffs on soybeans in places like North Dakota. But many will stick with Trump no matter what. He may be a trust fund brat, but he knows how to speak their language.
I was just struck by Julian's view of Americans as having this "international view" of life in that recent interview. Yes, the upper bourgeois in America may have that. But about 70% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck, and have a very narrow view of the world. What I lived in was more often like a daily live version of the Jerry Springer show.
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