Originally posted by twhitehead
The US is in an almost unique situation where the populace is under skilled for the amount of income they earn.
I can agree with much of what you wrote, except this part I quoted.
After WWII, the workforce in the US boomed, and the "middle-class" was born, consisting mostly of hard-working, skilled workers who made enough money relative to the economy of the time to afford a quite good standard of living. And corporations made a LOT of money from this productivity.
Later, in the '80s, under Reagan, corporations found out they could make an obscene amount of money merely by undercutting their workers' compensation so they did that any way they could, including taking these jobs overseas so that instead of making a moderate income with a work force they were paying $25 an hour, they could make huge mountains of money by using a poorer workforce in the countries they moved to by paying them barely a subsistence wage. And the dissolution of the "middle-class" continues even today. It is driven purely by greed, not corporate survival. It's basically class warfare.
No wonder middle America is pissed off enough to try anything, including electing a big-mouthed, know-nothing. The problem is that it's the Republicans they're pissed off about, but they've been brain-washed into thinking it's the Democrats. It's one of the biggest scams ever pulled on anyone, anywhere.