Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events

UC Berkeley Sociologist Arlie Hochschild answers the question, "Why are 50% of Blue Collar White Males Planning to Vote for Bush in 2004, Even When He is Picking Their Pockets and Stealing the Future…
Greg — (archived)

The surprise is that the people most hurt by Bush's policies are his strongest supporters. We know that there have been 2.5 million jobs lost in his presidency. He's kind of got a "bleed 'em dry" approach to the non-Pentagon part of government spending. He's not doing anything to help blue-collar workers learn new trades, or get a house, or help their kids go to college. He's loosening the Occupation Health and Safety regulations. The plants the guys work at are less safe. His agricultural policies are putting small farmers out of business. So we have to ask: why would they vote Republican? Tax cuts are creating budget shortfalls for the schools the guy's kids go to. The library hours are shorter. And, given Bush putting the foxes in the henhouse in environmental posts, the air and water are going to get dirtier. Kids are more likely to get asthma. He's even loosening regulations for nursing homes, so the man's elderly parents are going to have worse care in their later days. All of Bush's military adventures -- the ones he's already done in Iraq, and perhaps Iran and Syria, impact the blue-collar guy more than anyone else. His kids are going to go, or his brother is going to go, or he's going to go and possibly be killed.

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