dennisbmurphy
1 min readMar 4, 2024

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Sorry I don't buy your argument!

I ran for Congress in 2016 and held a town hall with the NAACP in majority black Muskegon Hts , Michigan. I grew up in Muskegon Hts and Muskegon. I saw the results of jobs leaving and white flight that undermined the ability of the city to stay prosperous and keep its infrastructure from crumbling.

The Heights once had several major industrial employers. Many cities did. but then the mostly white, mostly rural townships and surrounding counties decided to cannibalize businesses in the cities by creating industrial parks with cheap land and decades long tax breaks to relocate. Jobs fled the inner cities for townships and counties, but hey, it was okay because the white guys could still get to work.

Then the jobs fled to non-union low wage states leaving behind the upper midwest. The complaints really began when the jobs went to Mexico and then to China. All of a sudden the white working class men are now angry?

I recall distinctly in the Reagan 1980s that if you needed a job you needed to move to where the jobs were. Apparently that is no longer demanded by the GOP.

Trump is not going to win- his appeal to grievance is now seen as shallow and in no way productive in any meaningful way. GOP policies led to the flight of jobs (and yes i include neoliberal Clinton in this condemnation also).

Biden (and the pandemic) have done more to bring back jobs than Trump or the GOP did.

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dennisbmurphy
dennisbmurphy

Written by dennisbmurphy

Cyclist, runner. Backpacking, kayaking. .Enjoy travel, love reading history. Congressional candidate in 2016. Anti-facist. Home chef. BMuEd. Quality Engineer

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