ExFed

… Biden did more for blue collar jobs in the States than anyone since Lyndon Johnson.

For fear of reminiscing “the good old days” … Yes, I did like a lot of his policies, especially regarding linking (ever-so-slightly progressive) climate policy with blue collar jobs. The theory was that red states would see enough of the benefits (or the hope of benefits) to soften on the Left. That clearly didn’t work out in the short-run. The Biden administration’s biggest weakness is Trump’s unfortunate strength: capturing media attention and driving a narrative, regardless of truth (i.e. bullshitting).

Oh, I’m not saying anything about Newsom, just trying to dispel some sadly common misinformation about NAFTA. I’ve yet to form a solid opinion of the guy, but I’m not without cynical biases, so he’s got an uphill battle to win in my mind.

Sure. But let’s set the record straight: blue collar jobs in the States didn’t suffer because “Democrat bad and hate workers!” That’s a myth perpetuated by politicians who would manipulate us for their own gain, Republican and Democrat alike.

In meantime we gotta figure out what to do with a ball of shit filled with rat poison.

As long as it’s actually rum. The fake stuff is a crime against humanity.

The greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist. The greatest trick the Republican party pulled was convincing people that its most unpopular ideas are entirely Democrats’ fault.

NAFTA was championed by, majority supported, and voted in by mostly Republicans. It was ultimately bipartisan, but Democrats were significantly more opposed to it than Republicans (of Republican Congress members, only 10 in the Senate and 43 in the House voted against it; of Democrats, 28 in the Senate and 156 in the House voted against it).

This isn’t to say that NAFTA is objectively bad policy; most economists argue that it ultimately benefited the whole country. However it did expose US manufacturing to significant competition, reduced bargaining power for manufacturing workers, and shocked communities which were solely reliant on the sector to support them. Larger cities were mostly unaffected due to their more diverse economies, and in many cases thrived off increased trade and lower prices for goods. As a reminder, urbanites trend Democrat, rural folk trend Republican.

The trope that urban liberals successfully screwed over rural conservatives just isn’t true. Instead it seems that, at screwing themselves over, urban liberals failed and rural conservatives succeeded.

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1031/vote_103_1_00395.htm https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/1993575

The argument you’re making sounds similar to something like “Fossil Fuels are safe, it’s just the CO2 that’s dangerous.”

I didn’t read it that way at all. Their argument sounds more like “there’s nuance that you’re glossing over.”

It seems that we all agree PFAS are generally nasty chemicals, some worse than others. Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene) is just one of the “nicer” ones.