Observations from the Middle

I think it is fair, at this point, (less than a month into the new President’s term) to assume neither side of the political spectrum has the slightest interest in actually working together to improve the lives of the average middle-class and below citizen.  The administration, led by the President, will continue to do random dumb things while vilifying the press and the Democratic Party opposition.  The opposition will continue to do equally dumb things to undermine the President and slow-role any actions by the Congress.  Fortunately for the country Congressional inaction is usually a good thing.

The broadcast news media, living in the major metropolitan cities, will remain totally oblivious to how out of touch they are with their viewers who voted for Trump, and maintain that assured aloofness that sheds off any criticism of its bias.  See:  Media Critic Michael Wolff To Brian Stelter: You Border On 'Quite Ridiculous' In Vilifying Trump  My favorite line in this is when Brian Stelter says “you don’t think there is room for 1-hour a week on CNN for this (i.e. fact checking the President)?” Michael Wolff’s reply is “I wish you wouldn’t turn to the camera and lecture America about the virtue of the media.”  For the broadcast media to take on this role after spending 8-years as trumpeters for the past administration clearly shows an agenda.  I’ll leave it to you to side with or against them on their agenda.

The words “illegal alien” get thrown around an awful lot by both the left and the right.  According to the left there are 11 million of them in the US, a number that has stayed static for almost the entire Obama administration.  Ann Coulter puts the number at 30 million, based on increases and lack of enforcement during those same years.  Whatever the number is there are a lot.  The left thinks we should eliminate all the controls on immigration, while the right thinks we should tighten those controls.  Since we have short attention spans, and are controlled by memes, this gets shortened to “build a wall” or opposition to that idea.  By the way, Trump’s latest executive order has absolutely nothing to do with this illegal alien issue, but the issue of illegal immigrants clouds the real issue of Presidential authority by joining the two as if they were the same thing.

My question to those who advocate for allowing the free flow of immigrants into the nation is a simple one.  How will they (and the people they displace) survive on the minimum wage jobs they will take away from people who are already here?  Of course, the huge companies like Google, Microsoft, P&G, Johnson and Johnson et al., are in favor of this approach for it will provide a vast pool of labor, and allow them to keep wages at the lowest levels.  This makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer.  I thought your platform called for a living wage, how would you make that happen in the face of unlimited supply and a diminishing demand, or doesn’t the reality of supply and demand ever enter into your thought process?