Thanks, Hops! I am so lucky to have her as my daughter.
Below is a reply she wrote to a Trump supporter friend who responded to the above post. After reading her posts, I asked whether I could nominate her to run for president in 2020!
Richard
"Shawn, thank you so much for opening up and sharing your thoughts with me. I truly appreciate it so much. Below I wanted to address some of the points you brought up. For anyone else reading, please see his post on my wall. Facebook keeps deleting this as a reply.
1. Welfare
So I spoke with an incredibly smart friend who is a social worker about this. Again, I like to search out people with experience as I know there are smarter people out there and I was curious. Katie is one of those people. Here is what she had to say:
"First of all, there are so many things that are considered “welfare” it’s nearly impossible to determine any patterns at all (re abuse, re use, re populations, etc).
I would imagine that welfare probably refers to TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) and maybe also SNAP (food stamps). And, each state makes their own decisions about public assistance so it’s even more complex.
TANF requires people to engage in work activities which they define SUPER broadly. Any kind of vocational training program counts, job searching, job readiness. Providing childcare for ANOTHER person doing work activity counts. Very loose. And for a two-parent household, there is only a requirement to complete 30 hours per week combined in any way between the two parents. So it may seem like people are doing nothing or gaming the system, but a big piece of this is actually the way the policy is designed. I won’t get into whether or not I agree with this or not.
TANF caseloads have decreased year after year since implementation, through the recession, and despite continuing trends of deep poverty. It is not easy to stay on TANF.
It’s really the way we pay people that keeps them on public assistance. So again, while those “thousands of people” may appear to be gaming the system by receiving assistance and working we all know that minimum wage (and also jobs OVER minimum wage) do not constitute a living wage.
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-high-public-cost-of-lo…/
The big takeaway is that public assistance fraud trends are notoriously difficult to illustrate (and you can use/manipulate statistics to prove a point in either direction) but what HAS been proven is that it really happens on the level ABOVE the beneficiaries (eg. doctors and hospitals re. medicare/medicaid)
http://www.theatlantic.com/…/just-how-wrong-is-conv…/278690/
Similarly, I would say that employers who do not pay a living wage are defrauding us, forcing taxpayers to make up for their unwillingness to fairly compensate employees.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a great way to get more info on this. But a blanket statement that lots of people abuse welfare is irresponsible. Yeah sure, there are anecdotal incidences of this happening, probably even people that this individual knows, but as a prevalent problem it’s not been shown to be the case.
2. The Oil Field
I have seen the decline in the oil field industry over the past few years and it is heartbreaking. It's so difficult when a region is so dependent on one industry and that industry falters (see Detroit). Unfortunately for the oil field workers, the future is clearly moving towards clean and renewable energy. I can't say exactly at what pace, but this dependent economy as it stands (without adjustments and refashioning of skills) is eventually untenable.
But what about the oil workers now? Well, the reason why the gulf was shut down was due to the 2010 oil spill, which actually hit the Louisiana economy of tourism and fishing quite hard (which I'm sure you know first hand). This being said, the Obama administration is actually trying to reopen the gulf, much to the chagrin of environmentalists (
https://www.google.com/…/obama-administrations-plan-expand-…).
Also, considering how many oil field workers are unemployed or underemployed, it's pretty hard to stomach oil CEO's making upwards of 11 million dollars a year (
http://www1.salary.com/MARATHON-OIL-CORP-Executive-Salaries…). That is some serious economic disparity. In addition, the oil and gas industry is a HUGE lobbying force. They have only increased government lobbying in the past ten years coming close to $180 million per year and most of this money is going towards republican candidates (
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01). With these numbers it's very hard to see the industry as the victim of the government.
3. Trump as a businessman
There is no question that Trump has built a brand with vast name recognition. However Trump started with quite a head start thanks to his father and his father built a business with a lot of help from federal subsidies which seems to be counter to your sentiment about government aide? (
http://www.faireconomy.org/the_self_made_myth_infographic).
Also, Trump himself has declared bankruptcy six times (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/fact-check-has-trump-decl…/). No matter what, the guy is resilient, I will absolutely give him that!
Lastly, if you are using the model of Trump as the CEO of our national company and the citizens as his employees, please be aware that he has been plagued with labor issues. Just because Ebenezer Scrooge was a businessman, it didn't really work out so well for Tiny Tim? Garrett and I witnessed the strikes and subsequent failure of The Taj Mahal when we were in Atlantic City (
https://www.google.com/…/trump-taj-mahal-casino-is-closing-…) but this hasn't been an isolated occurrence. (
https://www.google.com/…/hundreds-donald-trumps-employees-h…)
Just because he is a business man, doesn't mean he is necessarily good at it or that he is benevolent towards those beneath him.
4. Make America Great Again
I've never been clear as to what era he was referring to in this statement? Sure, there have been plenty of economic booms and busts over the past several hundred years, but what about the social changes? Does he want to go back to a time before gay marriage? Before civil rights? Before women's suffrage? Before child labor reform? Before slavery? It's true that most of these issues are still things that we are grappling with, but why go back when you could go forward?
I find this phrase to be dog-whistle politics (
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics) In addition to his overtly hateful speech, this type of coded language appeals to people who want to go back to a whitewashed fictional version of America. A Pleasantville, if you will this is why groups like the KKK supported his campaign. (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/the-kkks-official-newspap…/)
5. Campaign Donations
So, here is where I completely agree with you regarding getting money out of politics. Full disclosure, I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. I think this point of politicians being bought by special interests is the common ground we all need to move forward together.
However, it's a fallacy to think that Trump is immune to the special interest money. Trump has plenty of super PAC's supporting him (
http://www.thedailybeast.com/…/trump-hates-lobbyists-except… or
http://www.truth-out.org/…/37219-the-biggest-spender-backin…)
Also, no matter your feelings regarding the NRA, they have not been shy about how much money they have been donating to his campaign. The NRA donated 6.5 million in ad buys at the very end of the campaign (
http://m.washingtontimes.com/…/nra-donates-65-million-to-d…/). Again, regardless of whether you agree with their stance or not, it's hard to say that Trump doesn't now owe them something in terms of policy since they are a single issue lobbying group.
My follow up questions for you, as they weren't mentioned in your reasons for support, are that in spite of having loved ones in the lgbtq+ community, how you could support someone (especially Mike Pence) who wants to revoke their rights? How in spite of being surrounded by smart, strong, incredible women, you could back someone who is accused of sexual assault and clearly uses violent and hateful language about women? How as a man of faith, you could support someone who wants to ban an entire people from the US based on their religion? If you substituted the word Christian every time he said Muslim, could you stomach that?
I hope all of this has opened a dialogue and I hope you know that all of this comes from a place of wanting to understand and communicate. It's not from anger. I'm over anger. We need mediation in this country, not war. We need listening and hearing, not shouting.
Both sides are demonizing the other and all we can do is look at the facts and try to empathize with the other. Strip away the noise and hear what people actually, truly want.
Shawn, you're amazing. Thank you again for reaching out to me. I'm honored."
