Conquer Club

No dude. Zorro wrote that point that truckers have their finger on the political pulse of the country. Hoping he'd explain. Guess not

KoolBak wrote:No dude. Zorro wrote that point that truckers have their finger on the political pulse of the country. Hoping he'd explain. Guess not

Sorry, I must have missed that. Would you like a full length thesis, or an executive summary?

1. Truckers don't over "fly over" country; they go through it.
2. Truckers stop at various locations throughout that flyover country, interfacing with the forgotten blue collar workers
3. Truckers driving long distances on straight Interstate highways listen to more things than just country music.

tzor wears blue jeans and interacts with the wait staff in his local diner, so he understands what 'real people' (i.e. the truck drivers and lumberjacks who make up 95% of Americans) think.

Yes, I understood your original post; I simply ...disagree? I was hoping you'd address MY actual post. Not really important....not gonna change each others' minds and I have enough head butting in RL to want more here

But...I will clarify my OP. I am not saying truckers are NOT smart or informed. Just saying they are no MORE politically astute as a group based on their occupation. I am sure there are carpenters much more astute than some elected officials. It's the person, not the blue collar job they have (generalization but that's my point. And I have had a LOT of exposure to the trucking industry and its members over the last 30 years).

tzor wrote:

KoolBak wrote:No dude. Zorro wrote that point that truckers have their finger on the political pulse of the country. Hoping he'd explain. Guess not

Sorry, I must have missed that. Would you like a full length thesis, or an executive summary?

1. Truckers don't over "fly over" country; they go through it.
2. Truckers stop at various locations throughout that flyover country, interfacing with the forgotten blue collar workers
3. Truckers driving long distances on straight Interstate highways listen to more things than just country music.

It's weird how these "forgotten" have a totally disproportionate influence on US politics relative to their population and are featured in like 85% of NYT op-eds, but are totally invisible.

It's almost as if they're actually a fairly small proportion of the population the media fixate on because it makes for an interesting narrative.

That's the good thing about a constituency-based system of elected representatives. A marginal number of floating voters in a select few swing seats get to decide the future of national policy all by themselves.

Uh huh. That's it.

They're not hidden to me. But senators? Politicians? Never met one.

Well...I got within 6 feet of Ronny baby in ....84? Got to sit front row too at his speech at University of Portland. Buddy was head of security. Put us in front of the VIPs....pissed them off. Lmao

He was a great speaker...

As typical of mrswdk, this statement or idea is a broad generalization that is not always true. It is, at best, an oversimplification that occurs in a few elections anywhere in democracy. In fact, in some elections, there are what we in the USA call "Landslides" where on person or one party takes a huge majority of votes so those "few swing seats" (I think the better term in this instances is swing voters) are insignificant in the totals.

Regarding Democracy, I will offer this thought from an influential British person:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, speech, House of Commons, November 11, 1947

mrswdk wrote:It's almost as if they're actually a fairly small proportion of the population the media fixate on because it makes for an interesting narrative.

That's the good thing about a constituency-based system of elected representatives. A marginal number of floating voters in a select few swing seats get to decide the future of national policy all by themselves.

jusplay4fun wrote:Regarding Democracy, I will offer this thought from an influential British person:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, speech, House of Commons, November 11, 1947

Yeah but Churchill also said:

"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

So I think it's safe to say that 'Churchill said it' is not exactly the gold standard of everlasting wisdom.

mrswdk wrote:

jusplay4fun wrote:Regarding Democracy, I will offer this thought from an influential British person:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, speech, House of Commons, November 11, 1947

Yeah but Churchill also said:

"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

So I think it's safe to say that 'Churchill said it' is not exactly the gold standard of everlasting wisdom.

I don't understand how that proves your point. British imperialism was the greatest thing in the history of the world. How does Churchill supporting it prove that he has ever said anything wrong?

mrswdk wrote:tzor wears blue jeans and interacts with the wait staff in his local diner

Well, yes, I do, but we generally talk about how they are and how their families are ... I have a really great local family run diner.

I do have to do petition runs in my election district, but I don't wear jeans then.