But the people who Trump is reaching right now are not interested in hearing any of this. If you tell them the truth – that the economy has changed permanently and they need to either change careers or face permanent negative economic consequences, they will punish you en masse at the voting booth. What they want is someone who will put on a coal mining hat and tell them that when they are elected, the coal miners are going back to work, or that the reason their manufacturing jobs are gone is that the damn Mexicans (or Chinese or whoever) have stolen them, and that we can put a stop to that if only you elect me. In other words, they demand lies and punish the truth.
These workers are by no means the only voters who demand magical thinking. A huge portion of America demands to be lied to about the financial solvency of our current government-provided retirement security net – a security net that was predicated on an average American life expectancy of about 55 and has consistently avoided any changes to the retirement age even as American life expectancy has creeped towards 75. While Hillary Clinton might not be willing to lie to the coal miners, she’s plenty willing to lie to baby boomers and tell them everything is fine with the program that is threatening to cripple the entire nation’s financial solvency.
Personally, I’m tired of the think pieces that ask how to “reach” these people – all of whom seem to be based on the idea that what’s required is good messaging to mollify their concerns with lies. A far more important concern for the actual health of our country is how we can convince these people that it’s not the government’s job in the first place to magically fix their economic problems that have been created by the natural operation of the free market.
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