> America doesn't miss manufacturing, it misses unions. A friend of mine has the idea that American politics is about what amount to kaiju fighting on the side

> America doesn't miss manufacturing, it misses unions. A friend of mine has the idea that American politics is about what amount to kaiju fighting on the sides of different factions. Yeah, none of them are great, and your giant monster might step on someone's house every now and then, which sucks, but at least it's keeping the other one from burning down the neighborhood. Traditionally the ultrawealthy were strong enough to practically be their own monsters, massive corporations had their lobbies, "trade associations" and various means of wielding significant influence, and the working class had... unions, and even the nasty old "political machines" to an extent. Now the working class has no effective kaiju. We've been convinced to give them up. So it's just the rich and corporate giant monsters running around smashing everything in sight, with different factions of them more-or-less running the two viable parties (which is not a "they're both the same" claim—though I wouldn't say that Democrats have a monopoly on pro-working-class or pro-poor policies, either, just a majority). Meanwhile we're to believe everything's fine because we can still vote. But we have no kaiju on our side, while everyone else retained theirs, and in this system that matters a lot.