Ya Know What, Jim? Yesterday Pissed Me Off

Jim Geraghty's dismissive post about Trump supporters being idiots and fools was snot. Pure and simple mucus that belongs wadded up in a piece of tissue at the bottom of a garbage can. And he's just the latest in a long procession of people who think and have written and said the same kinds of things.

What's infuriating is that none of these people have got the first foggiest clue about why so many people are backing Donald Trump.

Thinking about it here, on the receiving end, I got mad yesterday. Really mad because until he and his pinhead friends know what I and what people like me have lived for these past twelve years, he has no right in the world to dismiss us. Until he and the others understand how disenfranchised and disrespected millions of us feel, he would do really well to just shut the fuck up.

Sorry - I'm trying not to do that anymore because I have a bigger vocabulary than that, but that says precisely what I want to say.

Just. Shut. Up. And here's why:

I do not, I never have and I never will draw six or seven figures a year in salary. I make an honest wage, but it is a just-barely-scraping-the-sides-of-the-barrel and enough-to-barely-make-ends-meet wage. And it's not because I'm not good or smart or talented or skilled. It's because it's the best I can find in this economy.

I will never sit down in some fancy Washington or New York restaurant and scarf a portion of a $100, $200 or $1,000 dinner. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford it. I can't even save up for it because I don't have two pennies to scrape together at the end of a month - it all goes to pay my expenses.

I drive a twelve year old Ford station wagon with almost 150,000 on the odometer. I will make that car last just as long as I possibly can, not because I like it but because I cannot afford $200 or $300 or $500 a month in lease expenses. I can't afford to spend $8,000 or $10,000 or more on a 'new' used car, either.

I never have and I never will drive a Mercedes Benz or a BMW or anything other than a basic form of transportation. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. I can't afford it.

I am not quite sixty years old. I have worked since I graduated from high school in 1975. Aside being mainly unemployed for sixteen months, the longest time I haven't worked was the two years I took off to stay home with my daughter, before I had to go back to work to support the family.

If I did manual labor, I'm the kind of person who would have honorable calluses on my hands. I don't have calluses, but I do get up at 4:45 every morning and leave my house by 7:00 every morning and don't get home until 6:30 every night. I have taken one day off in the past year - for the birth of my grandson.

I am, and others like me are, the backbone of this country and its economy. Unlike the pointy airhead pundits who make a living writing drivel about what goes on inside Washington.

I, and others like me, work to help produce goods and services that have meaning.

At the end of the day - who cares about opinion? What does that do for anyone? I can't eat it or drive it or wear it - so why should people who produce nothing but hot air on a computer screen think they can disrespect me and others like me who actually produce things that have real meaning?

And we are the majority who are supporting Trump.

So now, Jim, given those things, given our honest labor that pays an honest day's wages, who the hell are you to call me and others like me idiots and fools?

And I'll take it further - you don't get it, okay. Here is why I'm supporting Trump:

In the late 1990's and through 2001, our family was solid middle class. We had a mortgage on a nice house in a nice neighborhood and were doing okay financially. I had a job that paid enough that my husband could stay home and day-trade, taking care of our daughter.

We decided to sell the house we were living in - it was really too big for a family of three, so we bought another house. We used the equity we had built up over the years and bought a slightly more expensive home - not bigger, not better, just more money because prices had gone up. The mortgage on our new house was manageable.

We were just like millions of other middle class Americans. Things were fine through 2005. By then, I had been at my job for ten years. I was earning enough that I could support my husband and our daughter. We could even save a little every month.

Then, in 2006, we started seeing signs the economy was changing. The day-trading had already gone by the wayside - I was the sole support of our family and I was getting nervous.

The company I had been with had its first layoffs in its fifty year history. In the course of twenty minutes, six people were gone. The survivors, me included, took pay cuts or cuts in our hours to keep things going. Gradually it got better and then 2007 hit.

The housing bubble burst and the economy collapsed in on itself.

The millions of bad loans that Congress, George Bush and Hank Paulson, driven by the Federal Reserve and the banking industry had palmed off on people who never should have qualified for loans came home to roost. No one was repaying the balloons on the loans they had taken out in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 after the banking laws were repealed by Congress. Together these characters, along with Newt Gingrich and Billy-Jeff and others in Washington had destroyed the fiduciary responsibility of the banks to protect their depositors' money.

The Washington insiders, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street had colluded together to create a devastating housing bubble. Those people who should never, ever, ever have received loans had received loans - often for the full value of the property they were buying. No job? No problem! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were there to provide the money needed - just ignore the fact that those institutions were, at the bottom line, publicly funded by other homeowners and workers like me.

In 2007 we elected a first term Senator from Illinois. This man had never run a company. He had never managed a company. He had never, to the best of anyone's knowledge, ever balanced a checkbook - but he was elected to the office of the President.

Immediately, he started blaming Bush for everything that was wrong - and that has not changed eight years later. He did nothing, materially, to change things, to make them better. He didn't consult with business people to figure out what they needed to make their companies stronger and more vibrant. He didn't do his job and work with Congress to re-institute Glass-Steagall and put in place laws that would hold the banks and investment companies accountable.

No! He bailed them out. He took whatever was left of our hard-earned money and handed it over to the too-big-to-fails that had created this mess - paying no attention whatsoever to the devastation that was taking place in the real world outside of Washington and New York. Oh, sure, he gave it lip service - but lip service doesn't keep a roof over a families head. It doesn't put clothes on their back, shoes on their feet and food on their table.

The economy continued to fall apart through 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 - more layoffs, unemployment soared, companies by the hundreds of thousands down-sized or just closed their doors. There were no new jobs for the people unemployed by the malfeasance of George Bush, Hank Paulson, Congress and the continuation of bad policy by the new administration.

But who cares! Let's get Obamacare going - never mind that it will destroy whatever small companies might be left in America. Who cares about the employers of millions of people or the millions of people who will lose their jobs because of the onerous requirements? I don't because it's my legacy!

Never mind that start to finish the vast majority of the American people screamed that we didn't want it - but it was shoved down our throats anyway - to the detriment of families and businesses and the medical care providers.

The company I worked for had more wage freezes and layoffs - 2008, 2010 and 2012. In the last, I was caught up. Eight people - almost the last of the non-partners / owners - were included in that layoff. I had been there for seventeen years. Some had been there more than twenty and twenty-five years. They had been looking forward to retiring in a few years and... wham! Unemployment, the potential of losing their homes, evisceration of their 401ks.

In eight years since that first term Senator took office, this economy hasn't even begun to recover. Regardless of what anyone inside Washington and the nattering class says - this economy has not recovered.

Unemployment, if you dig through the piles of manure the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the government cover it with every month, is horrible.

Do you realize that under current employment counting rules if a professional who is on unemployment works just one hour - just sixty minutes - in a week and is paid just $20 - the BLS counts him or her as employed for that week?

If someone works as a temporary employee - at one-half or one-quarter of their former wage - for just an hour in a week, they are counted as 'employed'.

How does that work? Come on! That's not a sustainable wage. That won't buy lunch in a lot of places in this country, so how can those people be called 'employed'? Yet they are.

For me, after losing my job in 2012, it took me more than two months to find even a $14 hour temporary job - less than half of what I had been earning, with no benefits - for two days.

And that wasn't because I wasn't trying. The day after I was told I no longer had a job, I put together my resume. I called the employment agencies - seven of them - and made appointments. That week after losing my job, I was in front of agency people, selling them on my skills, yet it took two months for me to find even a $14 per hour job.

I did well there. I did well enough there that that company specifically asked for me when they needed coverage the next several times. I had the same thing happen with other employers so by November, I was working fairly regularly.

Then I got lucky - so I thought. I got an offer - but they were going through an internal restructuring so it would 'be a few weeks' but I shouldn't accept any temp work because 'they might need' me right away. Eight weeks went by with me supporting my family on $11.50 per hour unemployment while waiting for this job that paid almost what I had been making at my last job. To me, given the economy, it was a good wait.

Finally, in January 2013 I started work and I worked until... sequestration. March 2013 began the government intervention that cost millions of government and government contractors their jobs - me included.

May 1st saw me back on unemployment, back to knocking on doors, calling the temporary agencies two and three times a week, spending hours every week cruising Monster and Craig's List and Indeed and company websites searching for anything that would pay even a little more than the unemployment benefits I was receiving.

In the meantime, the siding on our house began to rot - we couldn't afford to paint or fix it. Our bedroom window broke - we can't afford to replace it. The roof is on its last legs - not quite leaking but it will be in a year or two or three.

In October 2014 I became a criminal thanks to my federal government. Obamacare kicked in but I make too much to qualify for subsidies and too little to afford almost $900 per month in premiums plus the $6,000 deductible for my husband and me. This year, in my taxes, I "get" to pay a penalty for being uninsured. 

For nearly three years I lay awake at night, worrying - how am I going to pay the bills? Will I be able to keep this job or will I be let go? Will I ever find another job? How are we going to make it?

Now I have a job - it's a regular job but I am making thirty percent less than I made just four years ago. I still cannot afford those insurance premiums. I am still a criminal. I cannot afford to save. I cannot afford even basic repairs to my house. The value on the biggest asset that I own that is finally starting to look like it might go back to where we bought it twelve years ago but at this point, the only way I might realize that potential is if I throw about $60,000 that I no longer can afford into it for the repairs that have gone wanting for so long - $30,000 for new siding, $20,000 for a new roof, new paint and new carpet.

In the years since I lost my job in 2012 we have gone, as so many others have gone in this past decade, from comfortable middle class to barely making it. Even now, because I don't earn enough to be comfortable, we unplug appliances when we're not using them. We have taken light bulbs out of fixtures to save money. We don't run the heat until the house gets below sixty degrees. We don't run the air conditioner unless it's over 100 degrees outside. We don't drive unless we absolutely have to, because we can't afford it, even though gas is now at a reasonable price.

Before this mess began in 2006 / 2007, we could go out to dinner occasionally. Nothing big, nothing expensive, but we could. Now we can't. I honestly cannot remember the last time we ate out - and that last time was Jack In The Box. Not because we wanted to, but because it was all we could afford.

So before these erudite airheads tell me that I'm an "idiot" for voting for someone outside the norm, they should sit down and talk to people like me. They should walk the walk of a life like mine before opining on how "wrong" I am.

I am voting for Donald Trump because the same-old, same-old of Washington politicians and a one term Senator have not been good for me, for people like me, or for this country. I am desperate to try something - anything new and another one term Senator is not an option.

So take my advice, Jim - and pass the word to your buds: just shut up until you know what you're talking about.

Best~
Philippa

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Jim Geraghty - Don't Be Obnoxious, 'k?

Jim Geraghty is a perfect example of why I don't merely dislike the National Review and its collection of vapid pundits. I loathe them. Yesterday he posted an article with a title dripping foul contempt across my computer screen: 'Trump Supporters Are Foolish Idiots on the Titanic'.

That's the problem with giving the punchline away at the outset, Jim. No one reads past the title.

As a Trump supporter, I'm not going to waste time reading that article, or any other by him. I don't need some asphyxiated pinhead telling me that I'm wrong. Why I'm wrong doesn't even enter into it - he hasn't a clue why I think as I do.

For Trump haters, it's validation. Still, it's probably a pointless read since he's preaching to the choir. He probably hasn't even made the tiniest effort to discover why so many people across the board want to have Trump as president. Without that, he can't add anything new or interesting to the theme. It's just that he's got his idea and he's convinced it's right so he's going to bloviate on it. Probably to meet a deadline.

It's why I call them asphyxiated pinheads. They have no capacity for at least trying to see the other perspective. They are too unimaginative for that. Without trying to learn what it is that makes people who support Trump tick, they sit in front of their keyboard, breathe deeply in their rarefied atmosphere, exchange more CO2 for O to get that rush of superiority and then start writing.

It's plain as day that in their opinion if we do not fall in precise lock-step with their view of the world and how things should be, we're a moron or a passenger on a political Titanic or both.

Now he's just as entitled to have his opinion as you or I, but to sit in judgement of a broad base of the American public - no.

I ask you, who died and gave him that right? I'll say it flat out right here so there is no mistake: I do not give him that right. And I do not like being mocked or insulted - and he and his cohorts at the National Review and Weekly Standard keep doing it.

Let's see if this works: Hey! Geraghty! Spend a dime and pick up a copy of:

It's available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble and I think you should probably spend some quality time studying it. Somehow I doubt that Dale recommended insulting your way into popularity.

Whatever.

I saw on Twitter yesterday that the GOP and Trump are trying to mend fences. Again. At this point that fence is probably more wire than wood and I don't know if it's going to hold. Probably a week or so, at best, until something else blows up - real or manufactured.

As for Trump, what needs to happen is he has got to get his points in order. He has got to stop shooting from the lip.

Just a few hours a day with his team of political advisors would be time well spent. Practice how to present ideas in as few words as possible. Learn to side-step the questions you don't want to answer in a way that doesn't make you look foolish. Grasp the fact and hold it tight that you do not have to answer every question put to you. Think before speaking. BE HONEST - which is something I know Trump well knows how to do.

Not answering a question is easy. Just say, "You know, I'd rather not answer that in detail right now. I have a plan but it's still early stages because so much can change between here and there, but here's the broad outline..." Then outline it - in broad enough strokes that there's some form but no detail. Like the nukes for Japan - that should have been easy.

"Well, Anderson / Chris, I think that having a line of defense between us and North Korea seems like a good thing. Japan is an ally - we've been friends for decades. We do business with them. We trust them, right? So why not? Same with South Korea."

On nuclear proliferation and the difference between 'need' and 'want' - sometimes we need things that we don't want. Make it a joke - "you know, Anderson / Chris, I don't like going to the doctor for my annual exams. I don't want to do it but it's something I know I need to do, so I do it."

Just slowing down and deliberating on what to say would go a long way toward making what he says more palatable, less off the wall.

It won't shut the pinheads up, but that's okay. The nattering-class can go on nattering and the rest of us will go on ignoring.

So, that's my take and I wish the pinheads well. I won't be reading a word that they write and they won't read what I write, but I do wish them well.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories