I don’t buy that the neo-liberals sold-out the rust belt: This was a slow death march over decades and across party lines.

After all, slave labor is cheap and lets the wealthy pool wealth, while feeling good about pouring money and industry into third-world countries. Best of all, it left the purchasing power of the middle class intact.

For a time.

I do agree though, that the liberals turned a blind eye when things were becoming unsustainable in the rust belt (fly-over country).

It might be more accurate to say that the democrats started taking the rust belt for granted. And it's hard to ignore the left's shift (in primary focus) from blue collar workers issues towards race and gender issues.

This I agree with.

I cringed when my co-workers talked about “fly-over” country, but I was equally shocked when Hillary Clinton lost.

As much as I hate to say it, Trump getting elected (wrong person, but gets a point across) shows the system sort of works.

Edit: Just to be clear, I’m a liberal at the end of the day but anyone who thinks “their side” doesn’t have problems, I can’t really agree with.

>I cringed when my co-workers talked about “fly-over” country, but I was equally shocked when Hillary Clinton lost.

That's not taking for granted like you are saying. That's coastal elites and intelligentsia looking at "fly over" working class with contempt. It's a mutual cultural divide equivalent to xenophobia.

>Just to be clear, I’m a liberal at the end of the day but anyone who thinks “their side” doesn’t have problems, I can’t really agree with.

Not a Trump supporter. I'm a "politically homeless" liberal as well.

Yeah, it's totally the Republicans who are pro-union.

Famously, the two main parties switched their roles in the South in the 1960s and 1970s.

It may happen with the unions too. Especially with the blue collar private sector unions. I do not expect this change for public sector unions to happen.

That's your cognitive dissonance speaking; it's a demonstrable fact that Trump took a large part of the blue collar/union electorate in 2016.

But he wasn't appealing to those voters on the basis of increasing the power of unions against rich business owners.

The question is whether those voters wanted other things more than that (and whether Trump managed to deliver those other things to their satisfaction).

> is a half hearted attempt to roll some of that back

That's just assumed and is normal politics so I didn't see it worth mentioning. You didn't refute my other point that President Biden does not see Musk as a political ally

Using a political office to effect political change is against the law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act

> Using a political office to effect political change is against the law.

From your linked article:

>using this language to specify those who are exempt:[10]

> (i) an employee paid from an appropriation for the Executive Office of the President; or

> (ii) an employee appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose position is located within the United States, who determines policies to be pursued by the United States in the nationwide administration of Federal laws.

I'm sure that "the administration" that evv555 was talking about involves either of those people, instead of some random civil servant.

Neither i nor ii above apply to political (elected) officials. They are absolutely covered by the Hatch Act. If an elected official were to direct one of the exempted classes to perform a political act, the act of directing them would be a crime.

>Neither i nor ii above apply to political (elected) officials. They are absolutely covered by the Hatch Act.

From the linked article again:

>Its main provision prohibits civil service employees in the executive branch of the federal government,

Do "political (elected) officials" count as "civil service employees in the executive branch of the federal government"? My memory from civics class is a bit hazy, but I recall that elected officials are in the legislative branch, not the executive branch?

The president and vice president (executive branch) are elected officials.

That’s a weird way of describing the Hatch Act. What is the point of political office if not to effect political change? That’s their whole rationale.

The Hatch Act is primarily about using political office for campaigning for political office, with the president and Vice President notably excepted.

They are not excepted. They must abide by restrictions on the use of government resources during their political activities.

https://www.csmonitor.com/1997/1007/100797.us.us.2.html