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Both the Republicans and Democrats support job-retraining programs, and some do already exist for a few decades now. It's not clear they have much of a track re

Both the Republicans and Democrats support job-retraining programs, and some do already exist for a few decades now. It's not clear they have much of a track record of success, though, and they've gotten a pretty bad reputation as a result. Proposing "more job retraining" nowadays as your solution is just met by cynicism. The Democrats did lean for a bit towards offering something stronger, but proposals like universal health insurance were voted down by the centrist/neoliberal faction in internal party politics, and didn't make it into the 2016 platform. It definitely wasn't a focus of the campaign either, which somewhat infamously chose to write off blue-collar voters and try to win by flipping moderate Republicans in affluent suburbs instead (Chuck Schumer articulated the strategy as, "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia").

cycrutchfield 7y ago
>Both the Republicans and Democrats support job-retraining programs Care to point me to campaign promises in 2016 to this effect? Or perhaps actions by the current administration in this direction? All I've seen or heard is pining for "clean coal" in various forms. >The Democrats did lean for a bit towards offering something stronger, but proposals like universal health insurance were voted down by the centrist/neoliberal faction in internal party politics, and didn't make it into the 2016 platform So these voters were so distressed by this that they decided to vote for the party whose stated goal was to remove health insurance from the poor and sick? This argument doesn't seem to hold water.
- _delirium 7y ago
  It long predates 2016: the Reagan admistration enacted a job-retraining program in 1982 that was supposed to help people displaced by deindustrialization, offshoring, etc., and some version of it has been supported by every administration of either party since. It doesn't seem to have worked and I don't think any of the target audience believes it will work now, so it's not much of a vote-winner as a policy, unless you can convince people you mean something really different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Training_Partnership_Act_of_1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Training_Partnership_Act_o...

cycrutchfield 7y ago

>Both the Republicans and Democrats support job-retraining programs Care to point me to campaign promises in 2016 to this effect? Or perhaps actions by the current administration in this direction? All I've seen or heard is pining for "clean coal" in various forms. >The Democrats did lean for a bit towards offering something stronger, but proposals like universal health insurance were voted down by the centrist/neoliberal faction in internal party politics, and didn't make it into the 2016 platform So these voters were so distressed by this that they decided to vote for the party whose stated goal was to remove health insurance from the poor and sick? This argument doesn't seem to hold water.

_delirium 7y ago
It long predates 2016: the Reagan admistration enacted a job-retraining program in 1982 that was supposed to help people displaced by deindustrialization, offshoring, etc., and some version of it has been supported by every administration of either party since. It doesn't seem to have worked and I don't think any of the target audience believes it will work now, so it's not much of a vote-winner as a policy, unless you can convince people you mean something really different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Training_Partnership_Act_of_1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Training_Partnership_Act_o...