On April 14, 2008, here's what Obama said:
"But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
And here's what Jaxonia said:
OK, does anybody out there believe this is a FALSE statement? GEEZ! Haven't they been reading the bumper stickers? Haven't they heard the coarse jokes about Mexicans taking jobs, Pakistanis running Dunkin' Donuts, Indians in gas stations? Haven't they experienced trying to get their computer fixed with a phone call to a telephone help line that has been outsourced to God-knows-where? Haven't they read the signs outside churches, extolling the flock that Jesus will solve their problems? Far from being elitist, it seems to me that Barack Obama is right there at the crux of one of this country's gravest problems, the alienation of the middle class.
Who do you think has a better handle on the collective identity of this country, a mixed-race black man who has daily experienced the worst this country has to offer -- prejudice, favoritism and discrimination -- or two white breads who have lived the glossy American dream that continues to elude the majority of us?
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