Now when I talk to people in the city, I've heard so many things such as 'Can we all agree that America is disenfranchised by the electoral college?' or 'Isn't it crazy how trump supporters care about the borders so much?'. Where do you think the cheap heroin that is killing my friends is coming from? And the most frustrating part is I have to sit there completely silent while I think about my best friend who has died and come back to life multiple times from heroin. Why? Because I'll be labeled a trump supporter and potentially lose business. Even though my point has nothing to do with Trump at all and I'm only thinking about my friends.
I can't think of a single scenario where brining up people in cities that have no opportunity is unacceptable. If anything it's the opposite, and people in rural America know it can get much more violent in the cities. They respect that fact.
The fentanyl and fentanyl analogues that have spiked opioid overdoses in the past few years are coming via mail from China and Canada. Literally hundreds of people have died in the span of two nights from batches of heroin laced with cheap internet fentanyl derivatives. The people selling cheap internet fentanyl laced heroin aren't cartels or minority run gangs, they tend to be in the 16-28 demographic of white-bread drug dealers with access to a computer. The margins make sense (a dose of fentanyl can be as cheap as 1/100 of a penny when dealers pick it up in bulk vs the more expensive gang-sourced heroin) and attract people without many opportunities nor the education/ qualifications to make sure they can accurately sell people micrograms of a powder and not kill them. People like our friends might be or might have been.
Different gangs and supply chains bring heroin into different areas of the country. Some areas still have Afghan heroin coming in, perhaps from the same fields we protected from destruction while we were over there.
I lean left and come from a background very similar to yours. There is a difference between acknowledging the importance of ignored issues in these areas and saying "this is why Trump won".
Yeah, I was trying to find a place to point out that there are different opioid epidemics going on [0]. Fentanyl and derivatives are part of the epidemic that's found in NH.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/13/where...
When I mention Trump, it's because it's almost like there is a sense of disbelief of why he won. It encapsulates the lack of empathy and perspective people have for rural America. Having people understand why people voted for him may at least spark a dialog towards understanding their issues and coming up with solutions.
IMHO, you're doing a terrible job in this thread. You seem convinced that urbanites hate rural folk for who they are, and not what they have done and said.
And you are cherry picking facts and giving tenuous explanations for rural support for issues. It's laughably disingenuous to suggest that rural america supported Trump's wall because of heroin. TBH, you sound like part of the rural problem - too willing to fish around for a more palatable explanation when a fact doesn't reflect favourably on your in-group.
Rural areas do. not. empathize with lack of opportunity. My entire extended family is rural and they are convinced that minorities have unlimited opportunity at the expense of whites. If you can't think of a single scenario where it is unacceptable to bring up lack of opportunity in a city you are in an echo chamber.
This isn't scientific, but I'm happy to argue anecdotes with anecdotes.
Me? I know there are rural problems but I honestly stopped giving a shit 2 years into the Obama presidency. That is when I got sick of hearing racist comments and unintelligible bs about his and his policies. Did you inow that all hispanics get a $400/mo discount on insurance under obamacare? Sweet deal!
Prior to that I was convinced we, as a nation, need to listen to each other. Now I just feel there is an immense sense of entitlement among rural whites.
Because, you know, the government has an obligation to protect their obsolete manufacturing and coal mining jobs. But fuck entitelemebt programs.
Do I think any of the above will go over well in public at the moment? Well, look at my account name.
I'm from a relatively rural area, yet I do not feel uncomfortable talking about my experience growing up and what I know of where I spent my formative years.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drone-drugs-20...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine
[3] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/16/us-coast-guard...
If you're just saying there is a drug problem, though, and you have different ideas about how best to stem the influx of drugs, I still don't understand how you are getting labeled a Trump supporter.
As sanddancer points out, simply building a wall does not seem like it would be a reasonable construction project nor accomplish much for the ultimate goals. Using a bunch of tech, from IR cameras on drones to other detection methods - including for underground tunnels - seems like a much more useful approach. And of course, not cutting the Coast Guard would be important to keep the flow of drugs as low as possible, too.
That seems like a pretty knee jerk response from your friends (1), but, at least from your framing of the issue in these comments, I'm not convinced that you're presenting your arguments to them in good faith. Jumping to border security as a first line of response seems out of order to me.
EDIT: Sorry, meant to respond to this:
>I don't disagree with those statements, but I just care about my friends and I have seen the impact that foreign importation of drugs has had. The price of heroin has plummeted in my hometown over the last 10 years.
I must say, I've never thought about affordability of drugs as a factor in their overuse, though I suppose it does make some sense. Still, though, do you believe that them being more expensive would alleviate the situation? Usually, junkies will find their fix one way or another, financial prudence be damned. I would have thought that community involvement and better rehab programs would prove more effective, but I must admit I do not have your first-hand knowledge.
(1) By the way, either you are misrepresenting your friend's arguments or they are themselves quite misinformed. The issues about Trump and Sessions aren't that they are a womanizer and an idiot, respectively, but (at least on related counts) that the first admitted on record to having committed sexual assault, and that the other has a visible record of disdain for civil rights, bordering on outright bigotry.
I guess I've never understood the bootstrap advice as empathy, was it meant that way?
There are also cities which offer little by way of opportunity and have their own problems with crime and addiction. Density means that, political will and money offered, treatment may be slightly more effective. It can still be an awfully bleak world.