Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 12, 2026, 05:47 PMYou've misunderstood the term, and I want to clear that up, because it matters.

"Class traitor" is not a moral insult. It's not me calling someone a bad person, or stupid, or uneducated. It's a statement of fact about a relationship. A worker who votes for a billionaire who will cut their food aid, gut their safety net, and hand their jobs to the coal bosses is acting against the interests of their own class.

That's what the phrase describes. It's not a slur; it's a description of what the vote does.

FINALLY....an excellent description of the term. I deal with science and mathematics, the entire shifting/changing/arbitrary/shifting sands of politics stuff is like sandskrit. Thank you.

Quote from: K-DogAnd you made my point for me, more precisely than I could.

Not a surprise. I've lived it. As with most of my success in life, it is a combination of the normal theoretical schooling requirements (YAWN...), intellect, and then EXPERIENCE in the DOING of things, ALWAYS with the delivery of RESULTS. Those lecturing fools who tell students how to drill wells without ever having held a pipe wrench in their lives. 

Quote from: K-DogYou said the people of Appalachia "may no more believe that anyone's political system will cure their living conditions," because they've been pitched the same promise since Johnson's War on Poverty and seen it come to nothing. That's exactly right. And that's the tragedy.

The fact that someone has been betrayed doesn't make their self-destructive vote any less self-destructive. It explains it. And the explanation is not "they're idiots".

You are incorrect in this regard. I grew up among them. Started in the 1st grade and went to school with them until the 9th grade. My step-father was one. His family were ALL that way. All my parents friends were the same. And "idiots" is a strong word, true, how about "unthinking in their decisions"?

Once Mom fled my murdering drunk father and we were on our own, her entire goal was to get educated. Her origins put here married to another guy from Appalachia. He was a good man, unlike my far more intelligent father. So my genes are somewhat biased, compared to my friends from those days, whom I visit regularly. They still live in the same houses they were born into. Live the same way they were when they graduated high school.

Like or not, these are my people. So..idiots was a poor choice..."unthinking in their decisions" I like better.

Quote from:  K-DogWhen a West Virginia town votes 76 percent for Trump, I don't see idiots.  I asked when will they learn.  Idiots can't learn.

A reasonable operating perspective. But there ARE enough idiots in the mix to not discount them outright. Bred, born and raised in this environment doesn't create folks who naturally think for themselves. Sure they learn...and the 1 in 10 who do tend to flee the place. They don't stick around to make things better.

Quote from: K-DogPeople who can afford to be cynical about politics are people like you and me. Not the people starving in West Virginia.  They can't afford it.

And folks who can't be bothered or don't have the minimum numbers of neurons to flee their circumstances leading to doom are no different than lemmings. All it takes is a Pied Piper. PRESTO! Off the cliff we go! The few with brains who didn't flee when the opportunity arose? You go with the herd you grew up with.

Quote from: K-DogAn independent political movement of the working class is the answer. 

Yeah, they tried that, they were called Democans.

Quote from: K-DogI'm not bashing poor people. I'm taking their situation more seriously than you are and calling it for what it is.

I take the situation as seriously as you do. From Jim Crowe in Appalachia all the way through unions and school teachers getting at least a little (black lung benefits for my aunt after her husband died of it being one example and Mom is being taken care of pretty well). I just happen to have taken another path to get out of Dodge.

I've got no objection to someone firing up a different Pied Piper routine in Appalachia, or anywhere else.

Quote from: K-DogYou've written them off as people who can't be expected to know better.

A reasonable statement. Based on direct experience in being raised there, having family still there, and spanning half a century now seeing the rest of the country. Perhaps you HAVEN"T written them off because you are familiar with them theoretically? Not an uncommon thing among the intelligent. RE presents his ideas on how to be La Longue Carabine at PO.com from experience based on punching paper targets when he was 12.

You are willing to suppose that these people, that raised me, can be convinced of something better, if only their were American politics that were better. Not an unreasonable presumption. I discount their ability to stop marrying their cousins, but will grant that they could certainly follow another Pied Piper. The issue is why would they follow YOURS rather than the next used car salesmen in line?

Quote from: K-DogI'm saying they've been robbed of the chance to know better and through despair or bad guidance they continue to make the same bad choice. 

Quite true. But you appear to discount the very belief systems, and overall lack of intelligence, that makes them vulnerable to ANY half wit who comes along pitching another New Deal.

Us hill folks don't trust outsiders much to begin with. Your general socialistic ideals, while appealing to quite a few I imagine, have to at the very LEAST overcome the natural barriers in America to anything other than 2 party system, as both those 2 parties are arrayed against you from the start. And selling anything that resembles Communism in name or appearance is a no-go right out of the gate.

Ideas/slogans/claims that might work among the intelligentsia of suburban Seattle of LA or DC or NYC is one thing, but there is no guarantee it'll work among that swath of folks in Appalachia.