Call Centers and Landscaping Business.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Blue Collar workers are the voter group which the Democrats should be going after. And they can do it if they stop and think about the basics. These people have been talking to you all, but nobody is listening to them from our side. When the Right griped about hispanics taking over their jobs, everyone immediately assumed this was all about picking crops. It was not about farmwork. There are a lot of other jobs that blue collar workers are fighting for where they compete with minority groups. Landscaping and yardwork is one of them.

In California you may have Mexicans do landscaping and yard work. In Florida, where the education level is crap, blue collar workers depend on lawn work for their livelihood. They own their own hitches and riding mowers. On Thursdays, especially when the rest of the week has been rained out, you can see them all come out to knock out the yards. Each one operates with the same equipment. It's a business industry.

So, Obama is very wrong if he thinks that low level jobs, like call centers, are not desired by Americans. These are the VERY jobs we should be fighting for if you want the blue collar vote.

I think this is why we lost Jacksonville in the Florida elections. I have a friend who lives there. Very blue collar. She is a Democrat but as long as I've known her she has dated rednecks so our relationship has periods where I don't get to see her at all. Anyway, I spoke to her recently and she said she liked Jacksonville better than Orlando because there was lots to do for people who don't have money. She says there are a lot of free concerts to go to and these free concerts are what? Country. Guess what she's hearing for free? Right-wing propaganda. But she doesn't think of it that way because what she has is a place that wants her and offers her and her family a community, despite her lack of money.

She didn't like the Central Florida area because the area where she lived in the suburbs was trying to upscale their image and that meant getting rid of people like her. It's an irony because it's an upscale Republican City she use to live in that began to make City ordinances that made it harder for blue collar workers to stick around. Those ordinances were changed intentionally to upscale the area. Yet, she doesn't see this as a Republican agenda. Instead, she blames this abstract enemy that everybody knows as City Hall or government. And everyone knows that "government" translates to Democrats.

So there you have it. The people that these blue collar workers blame for their lack of jobs are Democrats and minorities, even though it's the Republicans and their high and falooting ideals that are making it difficult for them to make ends meet. If the Democrats can't wrap their minds around this disconnect before the next election, we are lost.

You give these blue collar workers jobs and you win the next election. It's that easy.

[Romulox]

1. The President can't hear you--he's too busy negotiating "free trade" with South Korea right now.

:shrug:

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I wonder if Obama is capitulating to the right because he thinks they'll

go easy on him in the next election?

[Ikonoklast]

3. It's not that easy.

Many of these type of people are very, very, very low information voters.

They don't trust anyone that isn't just like them, they don't like minorities, they are used to being told what to do by a person in authority, they see intelligent people as threatening to them in some vague way, they are secure in their prejudices, many times they don't even vote, as they're 'too busy'.

Many of those type are the "America, Fuck Yeah!" crowd, and want the military to kill all those brown people so they can have cheap gas for the pick-up truck.

Some of them are just plain stupid.

[BeFree]

5. Yep

And some of them are George F'n W Bush who became president because all the pointed headed liberals trashed them and scared them away from the Democratic party.

Talk about plain stupid. This "Hey, America, fuck you, you're stupid" is why we are being oppressed. Eh?

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. I don't disagree.

But, this Democratic friend has probably veered right because they're the only ones that are welcoming her with open arms.

Put it to you this way: Why are Democrats so eager to provide social programs for this low income group, but not be as eager to put money into programs that will create jobs for them?

[TwilightGardener]

26. Exactly what program will the Dems not entertain that will give them a job?

I'm truly baffled by your statement.

[Fumesucker]

8. I've worked blue collar jobs for most of my life...

Your description of blue collar workers is remarkably biased and nowhere near as accurate as you seem to think it is.

Just because someone does not shuffle paperwork in an air conditioned office does not mean they are stupid or even "low information". I have two members of my family who are physicians and they both are remarkably ignorant when it comes to politics, I routinely trounce them in any sort of political discussion because they think they know far more than they really do.

[uncommon]

13. I concur. I have seen a lot of ignorance among more well-to-do voters.

A blue collar worker will usually at least hear out a new idea in my experience. Mostly because they don't generally assume they are smarter than everyone else.

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. I think that the reason why blue collar workers get slammed a lot

is because the most vocal among them tend to be the right-wing conservatives which seem to knee-jerk their opinions. Keep in mind I said "most vocal."

And,I know where I live, blue collar workers are dissed by the well-to-do Republicans. It seems like the only way they keep their self-respect is by dissing someone else, weaker than they are.

We need to break this cycle of self-abuse.

[Fumesucker]

20. But that is true among all classes of people..

The most vocal are right wing idiots..

How many times have you seen a liberal/progressive person ranting in public about politics versus a right winger doing the same?

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. The irony of this is that they somehow have the impression that we

are still a majority force. They seem to have an inferiority complex of sorts.

[Ikonoklast]

22. I don't disagree with you about the Highly Educated=Politically Intelligent equation.

Doctors are a good case in point.

There is a little bit of intellectual arrogance displayed by some professionals who feel that just because they are experts in their field, any opinion about any other subject should be regarded as expert, also.



But I was only commenting on my personal experiences, which have been as a blue-collar guy my entire working life. Sadly, I know far, far more of the type of people I described than not.

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. Alas, I've encountered these people mostly through my friend, who as I said before,

dates quite a few rednecks. I usually stop coming around the house when she and the new boyfriend decided to co-habitate because, once a guy thinks he's in the house it becomes his territory to guard and seeing an hispanic woman walk up their driveway you see one kind of look on their face. It's guarded and judgmental. If the kids didn't come out and greet me in a welcome manner, they would probably shoot me.

The saddest turn of events is when I watched the daughter, who was a good friend of my daughter, develop a double personality. When she was with us, she was the girl we always knew. But on their turf, suddenly the rules of all her redneck fathers and turned redneck brothers, suddenly applied. I was a stranger that had to guard what I said or expect to draw that sharp critical tone that rednecks are well known for. They must hear it all their lives from other people, that they're just itching to use it on someone else.

[lumberjack_jeff]

25. And so their votes don't count? n/t

[Brickbat]

27. The sweeping generalization in your post is one of the most disgusting I've seen on DU.

Shame on you.

[BeFree]

4. Rock the Vote??

Where was THAT this election?

We won in 2008 and so we thought what the heck, we're done.
Bong, anyone?

So, the old folks became the electors this time. What else do they have to do but mess with the youngsters? And they voted for the republicans and all their rules and regulations on individuals that would tend to take jobs away from the youngsters, put them in jail or in some way ostracize the young for not following their damned rules!!

Where the hell was Rock the Vote in this election? EH?

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Was that during the Dean era?

[BeFree]

11. We sure do miss the Doctor, eh?

On that note, I once had occasion to ask a very well connected, top-shelf democrat who was very active in the party's political maneuvering, what the state leaders thought about the Doctor.

He said they did not like him. That he was too controversial.
That is when my image of the good Doctor rose to great heights.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Well, maybe the state leaders don't like ordinary people?

I once subscribed to a british newsgroup where the Tories and Socialist would clash as violently as you can clash on a newsgroup. No moderators. Only in one instance did I find a Tory able to shut up a Socialist. He said that the Socialist was always fighting for causes that affected people that the Socialist was repulsed to invite to dinner or befriend. The Socialist, for the first time that I ever witnessed, conceded the point.

So, those upper-crust Democrats need to recognize that if they didn't like Dean, they probably didn't like the people he was connecting with.

[BeFree]

17. That's what I figured

So, the enemy of my friend is my enemy, too.

The socialist defending those whom he does not like for some reason, is the epitome of socialism.
It is political tolerance writ large. It is acceptance and respect for the individual.

Instead, people like the forenamed 'High Party Hack' turn away from tolerance of those who are not as elite as he and his fellow prison guards.

Good to know the Doctor rattled their cages. We need him back, here and now, more than ever.

[Dappleganger]

6. BTW, Jax=South Georgia

I know, we live just a few miles south in St. Johns county. It's full of blue collar folks who still think they are middle class and that if the rich get richer than somehow it will trickle down to them. Problem is the repukes have been in charge of Jax for so long, as well as this state that they don't get it the republicans have driven this state into the ditch. On news4jax.com as well as FTU's site they constantly compare Peyton et al. to democrats, yet refuse to acknowledge that the republicans helped to make this system what it is--corrupt and full of cronyism.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Hmmm...

Well, if we can win over Jacksonville, we can win over other Southern areas. Maybe one city at a time?

[Dappleganger]

15. Not gong to happen.

[uncommon]

12. I worked in a US based call center - it wasn't exciting, but it was a decent paycheck.

Of course we all got laid off.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Hey, it pays for the rent.

I just got chewed out by a right-winger who claimed that everyone who was on welfare wanted to be on welfare. I'm not going to go into it, but the reality is that the kind of jobs that are easy to get a hold of, which may not be exciting but can pay for the rent, are few and far between.

[uncommon]

18. When I was laid off from that job, I made it on my savings for a few months and

looked every day for another job that might pay the bills and ended up living with my mother for a brief time and needing food stamps.

I am one of the lucky ones - I had a place to go and I managed to get a better job about 6 months after the layoff through a friend.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. Populism. Populism. POPULISM. pop-ulism. popUlism.

Going to India to brag about the economic benefits of offshoring - not.