Dead End, PA

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Senator Barack Obama (D - Illinois)

I guess it's a sign of age and cynicism that I completely agree with him. People whose communities have been in steady state of decline often do become angry and bitter about that. Progress in other areas and the empty promises of politicians do nothing to combat that. I mean, when has any politician ever managed to turn back the clock, and bring back the well paying trades that used to dominate blue-collar America? And when in dire straits people tend to turn to external factors for either something to blame, something to save them, or something to comfort them. And this isn't always a positive thing. I understand the admonition against ever criticizing your audience, but sometimes what we want to hear about ourselves and the truth of the situation just don't meet in the middle.