Amazon warehouse. Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Barely a day passes without a politician or pundit worrying over the future of work. It’s a conversation that tends to focus on the future – the rise of the robots and the growth of the gig economy – rather than the current plight of workers in low-quality, low-paid and precarious jobs. And the discussion rarely stretches beyond the economic. But work is about much more than wages, which means that when work – or good work – deserts a town, so too does its sense of purpose; its sense of pride.
In this UnHerd audio documentary, James Bloodworth travels to Rugeley, in the British Midlands. The old industrial town, once home to the Lea Hall Colliery and its mining community, is now home to a vast Amazon distribution centre, offering poorly paid and insecure work to a mostly migrant workforce.
Rugeley’s story is one repeated in post-industrial towns across the West, and working-class men, angry at the disappearance of what they saw as meaningful work, are struggling with a profound loss of identity.
With contributions from local residents, as well as politicians and experts, James explores the plight of forgotten towns and considers how to renew them.
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SubscribeWhy would a Hispanic voter, who came here legally, think any different about open borders than any other American? Sounds kinda racist to me.
Of course legal immigrants from Latin America don’t look kindly on illegals. Hardly rocket science. Legal immigration is a long, difficult and costly process. No one likes queue cutting.
I’m sure there are similar trends in the UK.
Still, I’m sure political analysts and commentators will keep pretending these groups vote as a single bloc as if all their interests and instincts were the same (just like they don’t in the countries they came from !).
This ongoing assumption that immigrants are always going to be on the side of other immigrants, always for more immigration and OK with illegal immigration needs to be binned forever. Along with thinking that voting behaviour within any given minority is going to be homogenous. Laughable, inaccurate, possibly racist.
I spent the last evening or two immersing myself in online criticism of Obama by black Americans due to his comments last week about black men not getting on board with Harris. The reasons for their discontent with BO/Harris/the Democrats were so diverse as to make trying to lump them together according to race rather misleading, possibly counterproductive.
When the Democrats make the case that America is a “Nation of Immigrants” they are implying a Strawman that Republicans are “Anti-Immigrant.”
No they’re not. As Milton Friedman once said you can have Open Immigration or a Welfare State. You can’t have both. It is statistically impossible to budget for people not yet in the country who may require social services.
Here’s the actual quote for people interested in the truth vs. the complete BS in this article:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
You forgot an important element that Hispanic people are generally more religious and the Democratic Party has turned into the Godless party.