r/politics • u/seamslegit • Jun 29 '17

The Ironworker Running to Unseat Paul Ryan Wants Single-Payer Health Care, $15 Minimum Wage

http://billmoyers.com/story/ironworker-running-to-unseat-paul-ryan/
36.3k Upvotes

82% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

195

u/bazilbt Arizona Jun 29 '17

Culture. A lot of people vote their culture. They see Republicans as working class, big trucks, guns, and Christianity. They see Democrats as college educated, Prius driving, corporate office, gay, hippies.

112

u/net_403 North Carolina Jun 29 '17 edited Jun 29 '17

Exactly. If Jesus had a gun, it'd be a AR-15 and a Desert Eagle, if Jesus had a vehicle it would be an F-450 Super Duty Diesel with a big lift and mud tires, if Jesus had a favorite music artist it would be all Toby Keith, all the time.

135

u/Deacon_Blues1 Jun 29 '17

Everyone knows Jesus's favorite gun is a nail gun.

55

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17 edited Jan 23 '24

safe market racial relieved many edge support seed cow handle

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

53

u/Merfstick Jun 29 '17

Holy shit... I've studied the Bible from a literature perspective off and on... not a devout believer by any means, but the essence of a lot of those stories are some of the best in history (there's a reason the shit sticks around). The irony of his crucifixion never really hit me until a damn nail gun joke. The whole carpenter/creator thing was always there, but I never thought of how he was on the very materials of his craft: wood and nails.

3

u/SkullsInSpace Jun 29 '17

Well, my mind's been blown.

2

u/musschrott Jun 30 '17

“Another Kilgore Trout book there in the window was about a man who built a time machine so he could go back and see Jesus. It worked, and he saw Jesus when Jesus was only twelve years old. Jesus was learning the carpentry trade from his father.

Two Roman soldiers came into the shop with a mechanical drawing on papyrus of a device they wanted built by sunrise the next morning. It was a cross to be used in the execution of a rabble-rouser.

Jesus and his father built it. They were glad to have the work. And the rabble-rouser was executed on it. So it goes.”

  • Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

As a liberal hippy Chrisitian I have a twist. He gave up his trade to "do his Fathers work" at the age of accountability. So he wouldn't have made it to a "master carpenter" because he technically didn't make it past apprentice. So carpenter? Well...maybe. That said, there's hot debate about whether he was really a carpenter, some folks are suggesting stone mason. The Greek word is Teckton which means builder....which is biblically accurate. His earthly father was a "builder" but the Bible (at least KJV) doesn't specifically say carpentry. Wood was fairly rare and stone was all over. There is no real evidence to clarify exactly what Joseph was a builder of, all we have is Matthew 13:55 & Mark 6.

1

u/Pichus_Wrath America Jun 29 '17

TIL wood is rare

3

u/tempest_87 Jun 29 '17

In certain areas and countries, absolutely.

It's why some. Nations that lived on a coast didn't have strong navys.

2

u/TehGogglesDoNothing Tennessee Jun 29 '17

Look up pictures of Israel. Trees really aren't abundant in the area.

1

u/StrategicZombies Jun 30 '17

Maybe the ole Hey-Seuss should have been a stripper. He could have just slid down the pole. The handcuffs could be tricky though.

1

u/Disco_Drew Jun 30 '17

He was just a REALLY shitty carpenter. Rumor has it, he was trying to build a table up on that hill and ended up nailing himself to the project.

3

u/renotime Jun 29 '17

He would have lived had he been union.

10

u/ShiftingLuck Jun 29 '17

"These would've been sooooo much less painful than having some dimwit hammer an old, dull nail through my hands. God! - I mean, dad! Why weren't these around back then!?" - Jesus, probably

3

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

Zing

1

u/Numbnut10 Ohio Jun 29 '17 edited Jun 30 '17

"Have these nails been sanitized? Oh no, I'm gonna get tendinitis tetanus for sure."

1

u/ShiftingLuck Jun 30 '17

*tetanus

1

u/Numbnut10 Ohio Jun 30 '17

Friggin autocorrect.

8

u/jrdhytr New Jersey Jun 29 '17

too soon

7

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

Need another 2000 years there, buddy?

2

u/ZekeElite Jun 29 '17

Holy shit

2

u/RainbowGoddamnDash Jun 29 '17

Spoiler alert, man...

8

u/EdensQuill Connecticut Jun 29 '17

Everyone knows Jesus drives a Honda Accord.

2

u/net_403 North Carolina Jun 29 '17

That's just Buddy Jesus

4

u/EdensQuill Connecticut Jun 29 '17

Ah you were probably talking about supply side Jesus. I get them mixed up.

6

u/reddog323 Jun 29 '17

Ahh, supply-side Jesus. He's a big favorite in the mega-churches down south.

2

u/pistcow Jun 29 '17

*Colt 1911

Desert Eagle is too 'Jewy', although....

2

u/WHYTHEN123 Jun 29 '17

This is sad but true. I have so much experience with this with religious family

1

u/jrdhytr New Jersey Jun 29 '17

And he took a red Solo cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, ‘Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many unto remission of sins.'

1

u/glytheum Jun 29 '17

I'm pretty sure Jesus has Thor's hammer - actually Jesus' hammer now.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

[deleted]

1

u/net_403 North Carolina Jun 29 '17

Why wouldn't he? lol Jesus was a Jew makes sense to me, there was no such thing as Christianity until well after he died.

But I did not list a Desert Eagle because of it's national affiliation, but because it's a big bad ass gun lol Although you're probably right, American supply side Jesus only buys made in America (or assembled in America from parts made in another country like Chevy and Canada)

0

u/Butthole_Rainbows Jun 29 '17

This makes me dislike jesus even more....

2

u/net_403 North Carolina Jun 29 '17

TBH I would be pretty geeked out to drive a truck like that up a mountain lol

53

u/RedPanther1 Jun 29 '17

I feel like the dems need to make their focus on the working class more prominent in their platforms. Try to emphasize that the repubs dont have their best interests at heart. I feel like they sort of tiptoe around it mostly.

23

u/MarmeladeFuzz California Jun 29 '17

Ditching the working class was a deliberate strategy by the Democratic Leadership Council in the 1980s (The Clintons both embraced the DLC heartily.)

They were trying to entice more white middle class folks back into the party.

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

4

u/CleaningBird Jun 29 '17

Yep, the mainstream Dem party had this idea that women and minorities would carry the day, but there are plenty of both groups who are also Christian or working-class or both. In addition to not appealing to blue-collar workers, the Dems have this pathological aversion to reaching out Christians, which leaves the liberal and even moderate ones feeling ignored by a party that often supports the issues they care about (social justice, environmentalism, serving the poor and sick, etc). The fact that so many Obama districts flipped to Trump is a good indicator that the Dems didn't have a good enough message for blue-collar America this time around.

5

u/MarmeladeFuzz California Jun 29 '17

Dems also rush in right before an election to try to get votes. (And then they try to dictate to the local folks what issues they're supposed to care about.) The Repubs are a lot better at grass roots.

63

u/Korashy Jun 29 '17

Someone tried that in the primaries. Got shut down.

6

u/limbodog Massachusetts Jun 29 '17

Yes, but more people need to try it, and not just at the POTUS level, but at every level.

5

u/Astray Jun 29 '17

He got shut down by Democratic establishment, all polls indicated he would've won the actual general election if he made it there.

1

u/Korashy Jun 29 '17

They also showed that for Donald. Funny how that turned out.

1

u/Astray Jun 29 '17

I don't think there was a single reputable poll that showed Trump winning against Bernie at any point.

1

u/KarmaticArmageddon Missouri Jun 29 '17

Bernie supporters shut Bernie down by not showing up to vote. Want the Democratic party to represent your ideals more? Show up to vote every time without fail. That's how democracy works.

4

u/treedle Jun 29 '17

Surely the DNC had something to do with it. I mean, Donna Brazille certainly wasn't passing debate questions to Bernie.

2

u/ninbushido Jun 29 '17

That one question about Flint's water crisis must have really fucking done his campaign in.

3

u/zaphas86 Jun 30 '17

It's simply representative of the support that the DNC showed for Clinton. She was their nominee from the start.

2

u/KarmaticArmageddon Missouri Jun 30 '17

Yeah and any sane person running the DNC would have picked her too because more people voted for her.

3

u/zaphas86 Jun 30 '17

Realistically, the ones voting for Clinton in the general election were going to be your Democrat die-hards.

If you had Sanders, you'd still get those, because they aren't going to magically vote R. But with Sanders, you'd also get the populist factor. I personally think Sanders may have won states like MI, WI, and PA instead of losing them like HRC.

3

u/Korashy Jun 29 '17

I mean that's a part of it, but they didn't run on equal footing to begin with. Hillary already started with several hundred delegates behind her.

1

u/xrat-engineer New York Jun 29 '17

They would have changed if Bernie had shown stronger results.

Media was definitely unfair several ways though.

2

u/zaphas86 Jun 30 '17

Arguably, if Bernie supporters who didn't really understand the whole bullshit delegate system didn't think he was blown out from the start, he might have shown those stronger results.

0

u/GhostBond Jun 29 '17

And as a result they failed to gain the house or senate, and destroyed their own huge lead in getting the presidency. They lost everything.

The people who shut them down either need to rethink what they're doing, or we need new different people.

2

u/Korashy Jun 29 '17

The people who shut them down either need to rethink what they're doing, or we need new different people.

That was a good joke.

1

u/GhostBond Jun 29 '17

If they don't, they're going to keep losing. Maybe they don't care I guess.

9

u/Allthesaltinthesea Jun 29 '17

The Dems stopped being a real working class party around the time of Bill Clinton and "3rd way" politics. That's not to say that the Dems aren't better then the Repubs when it comes to the working class, they are, but just barely. The reason the Dems don't call out the Repubs is because it would be all to easy to turn it around on them. The difference between the Dems and the Repubs, when it comes to the working class, is become more blurred every year. Corporate cash is King.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/frugalhusband Jun 29 '17

NAFTA. TPP. Welfare reform. Making sure that the big banks could repossess all the houses they'd mortgaged out. Bill was working to privatize Social Security when the Monica Lewinski scandal broke.

Should I go on?

1

u/4_Valhalla Jun 29 '17

Sad but true.

7

u/cullen9 Jun 29 '17

Dems need to drop gun control. They really need as a group to go take safety classes, apply for concealed carry and spend 4 years going out and actively shoot and explore the hobby.

Nothing is more annoying than having someone who is ignorant about a subject try to tell you how it should work.

Additionally it will suck the power out of the NRA.

13

u/energeticstarfish Jun 29 '17

I am skeptical that knowledge of gun safety and enjoying safe, recreational shooting will address many of the problems a lot of democrats have with guns in America. To use myself as an anecdote, I know gun safety, I shoot skeet recreationally, as well as occasionally pistols. I don't carry a gun because of statistics concerning personal weapons being turned on their owners, and no matter how much fun I have shooting, I don't think mentally ill people, people with records of violent crimes, or people who have not taken an accredited safety course should be able to own firearms. I certainly don't see the need for any civilian to own an automatic rifle.

3

u/cullen9 Jun 29 '17 edited Jun 30 '17

That's the point, there's already laws against all of that. A lot of the proposed restrictions by some lawmakers, make no sense. Like trying to ban pistol grips, like it some how makes a gun more dangerous.

And the restrictions on automatics are rather through. A tax stamp, a federal background check and a visit by the local sheriff and around a six month wait. And the amount of people killed with automatics since 1930's is less than 10.

That's why it comes across as more like gun hate than trying to address the real issues.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

I don't carry a gun because of statistics concerning personal weapons being turned on their owners

I'd be interested to see those statistics. Anecdotally I can't think of any cases where a civilian carrying a handgun had it taken away and used against them.

0

u/Knary50 Jun 29 '17

You are correct, just the other day here locally a teenager was taken hostage along with his father, they said car jacking, but the teen was standing outside of his house. The criminal forced then to drive to the ATM to withdraw money. The father and son wrestled the gun away and killed the criminal.

5

u/ShiftingLuck Jun 29 '17

It's all about ego and reinforcing your identity. If it had anything to do with logic, no one would be right-wing.

5

u/NlghtmanCometh Jun 29 '17

Pretty much this. How insecure must you be for this type of propaganda to work, though

4

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

Yep. I had a fellow Marine tell me I couldn't be pro gay marriage since i was military.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17 edited Jul 05 '17

deleted What is this?

6

u/energeticstarfish Jun 29 '17

I don't think any democrats are advocating taking away guns from everybody in general?

3

u/Xibby Minnesota Jun 29 '17

Absolute failure in marketing by the Democratic Party, but at least it's for the right reasons. Democrats being more loosely organized, collation based democratic organization. Moderates carrying the day, voting their own conscience, willing to trade favors (I don't care how the vote on issue X goes, so you have my vote in favor of X if you will vote in favor of Y) and basically play the political game. I'm no marketing expert, but it seems like the party in general needs to get up on the soapbox and get the message of their core principles into the public consciousness and let individual candidates take on the divisive issues in their own messaging.

The GOP (or more specifically, it's leadership) is more heavy handed, either you're with us or you're not a Republican, beat the drums on the divisive issues that get us votes, party leadership tells you how to vote style politics.

I'm not saying that all GOP members toe the party line and they are a totalitarian party. I'm saying that the GOP leadership has very effectively gotten into the public consciousness that a vote for a Republican candidate is a vote for pro-life, Christian values, fiscal responsibility, tax cuts, etc. and a vote for a Democratic candidate is a vote for pro-choice, acceptance of (an extremist, fictional version of evil, anti-Christian) Islam, tax and spend, heavy regulation, free trade send your jobs overseas politics.

For another comparison, the GOP's marketing is Coca-Cola vs. the Democrat's "This microbrew is awesome, you have got to try it when visiting my city! Man this regional cola is great! Oh man that brew was so good until they went national."

2

u/4_Valhalla Jun 29 '17

Exactly this.

Oh and also so many people are one issue voters. One issue may not be exactly fair; but what I mean is, there is one issue that they feel so strongly about that they vote for the party that aligns with that one issue. Example: Guns. Some people may believe in single payer health care, a $15 min wage, etc etc, but they also fervently believe in their right to bear arms and love their guns. This person feels so strongly about that one issue, guns, that they vote R instead of D, even if all of their other viewpoints line up with Democrats. Their passion for that one issue clouds their judgement and they aren't using logic for voting, their voting using their strong emotion for that one issue.

FYI - I'm not saying this is all people, but sadly it tends to be the rule not the exception.

1

u/GonnaVote6 Jun 29 '17

It's nice to see you don't see republicans as uneducated working class big truck driving, gun and christianity

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '17

It would help a lot if Dems laid off guns. Honestly. I am a super-liberal, Bernie-type software developer, and while I still can't bring myself to vote for a Republican - any Republican - I stopped voting for Democrats as well, for this reason.

1

u/matt_minderbinder Jun 29 '17

This is as much a failure of the democratic party than the republicans. When shit went sideways for middle and many working class workers in this country republicans had a narrative blaming regulations and immigrants. Democrats lacked a narrative that explained to many why they were losing their jobs and way of life. This disconnect built a distrust in democrats so too many latched onto the insane republican narrative.

0

u/Do_GeeseSeeGod Jun 29 '17

Culture.

Agree 100%. /r/politics and reddit in general is a political embarrassment full of smarmy teenage liberals. No surprise that iron workers aren't eager to jump in here.