Yes, There Are Plenty of Bitter People Out There, and For Good Reason Too.

Much has been made over the past week or so over some comments that Barack Obama made at a meeting recently in San Francisco.  The words Obama dared to utter were these:

"You go into 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."

Now honestly, I ask you, gentle readers, how is this statement in any way elitist, as Obama has been pegged by a multitude of critics, including his rival for the Democratic nomination, Hilary Clinton?  It seems to me that what Obama says is actually very truthful.  Having lived in Pennsylvania for 20 years now, and having spent eleven of those years in the Anthracite coal region, I have seen firsthand that many people in parts of this great state are bitter.  They are bitter because all the promises made to them over the last two decades have gone unfulfilled.  Thousands of people have lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA and the transfer of jobs outside of the United States in order for the factory owners to raise their profit margins.  Go and ask any of the hundreds of people in the Tamaqua, PA area who lost their jobs at Morgan’s Knitting Mill if they aren’t at least somewhat bitter at what happened to them and see what they have to say.  And what happened there has happened all over this state.

Yes, many people are bitter, and they have every right to be so.  In the coal region of this state, many of the small cities and towns have been in economic decline for over five decades or more.  You don’t think there might be a little bitterness there because of this?  If you don’t believe there is bitterness readily visible, then you have haven’t looked long or hard enough.

And then there is the claim, by Hilary Clinton no less, that Obama is an elitist.  Since when does someone whose household income exceeded $100 million have the gall and audacity to call a person who makes less than a tenth of that amount "elitist."  And now Hillary has suddenly become a gun-toting and beer-swilling commoner to boot. It’s enough to make we want to turn once again to the porcelain god and offer my sacrifice of vomit.

Further, anyone who has bothered to pay attention to the headlines from Hazleton, PA over the past two years (Google Hazleton and immigrants to see what I mean), would find more than ample evidence of an anti-immigrant sentiment in the heartland of this state. 

Again, I ask, how is anything that Obama said not true?  But enough from me. Below you will find Jon Stewart’s take on this whole debacle.  Not only does he get the point across that I would make if I could, he is much funnier than I am.  Enjoy.