Direction

All politics are local is a pretty famous truism.  The logic behind this is that voters are always aware of things that actually impact them and are, like most humans, pretty sure their experience is the most valid experience.  So as I discussed the other day, you may have a single issue that you believe has to be fixed above all else (abortion, jobs, taxes, housing) because it has a direct impact on you (physically or emotionally). To the extent the electorate is experiencing the same things they will tend to vote the same.  So in a farm district issues important to farmers will often dominate and since those districts tend to be church going, god fearing districts they even agree for the most part on social issues.  Since the people who grow up in those districts with contrary life styles or beliefs are likely to move away it is self perpetuating.   Similarly in a urban center with diverse populations, life styles, opportunities and beliefs, we are likely to have a completely different outcome in an election.  You can predict the majority of congressional districts pretty reliably, at least when it comes to national elections.

Now I have found that most Americans except the general idea that America has shared values.  However, what they think those shared values are is somewhat different, if not at the top level then in the way to achieve it.  For example, look at National Defense.  You can support it by wanting to be involved globally combating threats in the places they originate while trying to internationalize the concepts in our constitution or you can say keep our troops and money home, build a defense that no one will ever try to attack and let the rest of the world take care of itself.  Both of those positions support a strong defense with probably the only common ground being a strong military.

Issue after issue follows the same pattern, a strong economy, education, immigration, health care, etc. etc.  There is no way to really prove what works better, although there are plenty of examples, they are either inconclusive or they weren't implemented fully.  Take international trade agreements.  They are supposed to improve the overall world economy thereby lifting each nations economy in the process.  However, while that may be true it does it by making the global economy more efficient.  So if it is more efficient to do manual labor (manufacturing) in a foreign country while providing complex services here, it leads to many displaced workers who have antiquated skill sets.  Yes goods get cheaper overall and maybe the total number of jobs is the same or better but the nature of those jobs is different and the impacted individuals are the victims.

This is not the first time we've had an experience like this, and it will work itself out over time, but a displaced factory worker who is making half of what he/she used to and who sees the products they used to make with a made in someplace else label on them feels betrayed.  They worked hard, made good products and the company they worked for was profitable, so what happened?

Well what happened is the management of the company needed to stay competitive and to stay competitive they had to relocate production.  As famously said in well known movies, it's just business.

Of course this seems like something that can be reversed, if things could just go back to the way they were.

More to follow.