Guest Post: Surprised by Trump's Popularity in Appalachia? Don't Be.

Today's guest post comes from Joshua Wilkey's "This Appalachian Life" Blog and is Entitled Surprised by Trump's Popularity in Appalachia?  Don't be.  While I am a Trump fan, he wasn't my first choice to be President from the Republicans that ran for Election to hold the job.  But he angers the establishment, both Democrats and Republicans.  That's a good thing, because the Establishment Political Class has not been anything but a hinderance for American Citizens.

I say this because it's obvious that Wilkey doesn't like Trump.  In reading this article, you can see that Wilkey doesn't trust Trump, doesn't care for his crudeness, isn't convinced that he didn't collude with the Russians (note that this post was written on October 18, 2019 - 7 days later, the Washington Post would uncover that the Hillary Clinton Campaign and The Democrat Nation Committe had paid to have the fictional stories of Russian Collusion and "Golden Showers" written and these were passed through the office of Republican  - RINO - Senator John McCain), and tries to tie Trump together with Don Blankenship, a wealthy CEO of Massey Energy that was convicted of conspiracy to violate Federal Law by ignoring safety violations at the company's Upper Big Branch Coal Mine, killing 29 coal Miners in a collapse at that mine.

However, Wilkey hits the nail square stating that "Those who voted for Trump generally do not care what those outside the region think of their political leanings, and they aren’t reading USA Today."  He also notes the disdain of Democrats towards the residents of Appalachia and the coal it produces by its miners.  I believe that this was true for many in America, outside of Appalachia about Barack Obama and an accurate perception of Hillary Clinton.

Above all, Wilkey, who is from western North Carolina, understands the politics of the region and he tries to explain it to those who read his blog.  So without further ado, I'll let him tell the tale.

Surprised by Trump's Popularity in Appalachia? Don't Be.

October 18, 2017

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Joshua Wilkey

For those of us who study Appalachia's politics, Trumps popularity comes as no surprise.

Appalachia has long existed outside the economic norms of the United States, and often, it exists outside the norms of American politics, too. The result is that it is sometimes difficult for those who are not from the region, or who haven’t studied it carefully, to understand the region’s politics.

Because a full 95% of the counties in Appalachia swung toward Trump in the election, many were shocked when the President’s first budget proposal sought to slash government agencies and programs thought to be vital to the region. The Roanoke Times declared: “Trump backhands Appalachia.” USA Today arguedthat “Trump budget beats down Appalachia.” In my own back yard, the Asheville Citizen-Times was less aggressive: “Trump’s proposed budget has Appalachia worried.”

I understand why people question the seemingly unwavering support of Trump’s candidacy (and now, his presidency), by folks in Appalachia. Plenty of ink has been spilled since November by various writers and journalists attempting to explain the phenomenon. For some, it boils down to a single issue: coal. For others, it is about elitism. Perhaps the most common argument is that supporting Trump is a sort of hail-Mary pass aimed at economic survival or improvement.

There’s truth in all of these arguments, but there are also other forces at play. Many of those who continue to question the logic of Appalachia so heartily supporting Trump live outside the region and lack the historical or cultural context to understand the complex processes that drive Appalachian politics.

In many ways, those who point to elitism as the root of Appalachia’s disdain for Democratic political candidates at the national level are right. In short, Hillary Clinton simply didn’t belong not so much because she’s an outsider (so is Trump) but because she vocally opposed what many in Appalachia view to be the region’s lifeblood. Clinton went so far as to say: “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” when asked at a debate about the future of fossil fuels. Her answer, and the snark with which she delivered it, played well with her more urban supporters, but it fell flat in Appalachia. Rejecting coal, for many, meant rejecting Appalachian culture. Coal and outsider elitism are bound up as part of the same whole and it is impossible to consider one without considering the other. Combine Clinton’s flippant remarks about coal miners with Trump’s donning of a miner’s hardhat at a campaign rally in West Virginia, and it isn’t difficult to see why many in Appalachia put their chips on Trump’s number.

Those who voted for Trump generally do not care what those outside the region think of their political leanings, and they aren’t reading USA Today. They are, however, posting pictures of train-loads of coal on their Facebook walls, attributing the mining of those tons of coal directly to Trump, and they are sharing social media memes that criticize mainstream media outlets. The consumption and regurgitation of only those talking points that confirm their previously-held beliefs is not a practice unique to Appalachia. It happens all over the US. With Trump, however, many in Appalachia are motivated and perhaps even predisposed to support him by deeply embedded forces.  To properly understand the Trump phenomenon in Appalachia, one must understand the region’s political and economic power structures.

Perhaps more important than any other factor is the reality that Trump came to Appalachia and said, essentially, “I know that you exist and I’m going to help you.” He walked onto a stage in Charleston, West Virginia, in May of 2016, donned a miner’s hardhat, and told the coal miners in attendance that they should get ready to start mining more coal. Politics are often deeply personal in the hills of Appalachia, and the region has so long been ignored by most Americans that it is truly meaningful when a national political candidate not only visits the region but vows his support for their cause. They view every short ton of coal extracted from their region as further proof that Trump cares about them. Never mind that Trump’s proposals are considered by outsiders to be disastrous for the region, or that coal has never been the sort of blessing for the region that coal boosters would have us believe. In Trump, many Appalachian people found an ally who they believed would fight for them.

For many, fighting for them does not mean the same thing as it means to the rest of America. Most people in Appalachia view the notion that those outside the region know what’s best for them as yet another exercise in elitism. In fact, I myself hold this same view. It is offensive and insulting for many of us when those who know nothing about our region’s culture or heritage, apart from perhaps what they’ve seen on reality TV or the in film Deliverance come to our mountains and try to tell us dumb hillbillies what we need. In Trump, Appalachian people found someone who listened to them and what they said they need – namely more coal mining – and pledged his support. While I disagree with the notion that more coal is what Appalachia needs to thrive economically, I cannot fault my neighbors for embracing a leader who took the time to acknowledge and value their own solutions to their problems. Instead, I am heartbroken that so many of my neighbors have yet again been led astray by a political leader preying on their vulnerability for personal and political gain.

For Appalachian people so accustomed to rough and dirty politics, their allegiance to Trump meant that they would support him come what may. They don’t care about his alleged collusion with Russia, nor do they care that he is crude, crass, or short on intellect. Many are encouraged, not disheartened, by actions like the pardoning of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He’s their guy, he says he looks after “his” people, and demonstrates it by doing things like pardoning Arpaio. In Appalachia, that still means something.

For those of us who study politics and power in Appalachia, Trump’s popularity here is no surprise. In Appalachia, there’s a long history of people supporting morally bankrupt and blatantly corrupt leaders. In fact, I would argue, based on my own scholarly work, that central Appalachia is the most politically corrupt place in the United States. Behaviors some of us view with distaste – vote buying, self-enrichment, and egomaniacal self-advancing policies – are just business as usual in Appalachia.

Consider that Appalachia is the region that still overwhelmingly supports villains like Don Blankenship. For those unfamiliar with the name, Blankenship was once the CEO of Massey Energy. He was convicted in 2015 of conspiring to violate federal law by ignoring safety violations at the company’s Upper Big Branch Mine. As a result of Massey’s actions, the court determined, 29 miners died in an explosion that could have been prevented.

In 2009, as many as 100,000 people turned out for a pro-coal rally on Labor Day sponsored by Blankenship and Massey. The rally featured conservative heroes Ted Nugent and Sean Hannity, among others. Clad in an American flag shirt, Blankenship declared that “America’s working families are under attack.” Taxation and regulation, he argued, were the primary enemies of coal miners.

Of course, taxation and regulation are in fact the enemy of the coal barons, but Blankenship was able to successfully tie his own self-interest to that of rank and file coal miners. Despite what many view as behavior antagonistic to the best interest of workers and of the communities in which Massey operated, Blankenship made a rather compelling case that when Massey Energy was successful, so, too, was Appalachia. A rising financial tide for Blankenship’s boat, in short, would be a rising tide for the region, too. So it is with Trump, it seems. Many blue-collar workers in Appalachia have connected their own futures to the success they hope to see Trump achieve.

While many of us view this false correlation as ridiculous at face value, the folks in Appalachia who flocked to Blankenship’s 2009 rally did not view it that way. Blankenship himself boasted that he spent one million dollars to put on the event, and for many in attendance, it was an indication of Blankenship’s deep commitment to his workers and to the region. When one considers Blankenship’s efforts in comparison to Democrats like Clinton and President Obama who were pretty blatant about their disdain for the coal industry, it becomes pretty obvious who many in the region believe they should be supporting.

Mother Jones writer Tim Murphy writes that Blankenship “transformed West Virginia physically and politically.” This is certainly true. He pumped millions of dollars into the coffers of Republican candidates for office. However, he was most certainly not the first coal baron to spend millions to buy political power in the coalfields. In fact, the region’s history is full of corrupt by charismatic politicians who won the hearts and minds of the people even though their interests were largely selfish in nature.

It isn’t just in industry that personalities like Blankenship find success and support. At a local level, politics in central Appalachia are often driven by oversized characters who thrive via a unique flavor of populism. Over and again, people in the region elect local political leaders who are blatantly corrupt and self-serving. What these corrupt local leaders usually share in common is a commitment to local people and an antagonistic approach to outsiders.

Knott County, Kentucky is a prime example of the way corruption is confronted differently in many parts of Appalachia than it is in most of the rest of the US. In 2006, Randy Thompson was appointed as Knott County Judge Executive, and was elected for a full term later that same year. Thompson, a prominent local business and media leader who owned a popular local radio station, was appointed to replace Donnie Newsome who resigned after being convicted of vote-buying. Newsome, it’s worth noting, had run the county from prison for ten months before resigning.

Before Thompson could even complete his first full term in office, he, too, was convicted of vote-buying. In 2008, Thompson was found guilty of designing a scheme through which he was guaranteed political support and votes in exchange for paving private driveways with county materials and equipment. Thompson appealed.

In the meantime, having served his sentence, Newsome had his civil rights restored by the Governor of Kentucky and decided to try once again to become Judge Executive. In 2010, Newsome, previously convicted of vote-buying, briefly ran against Thompson, convicted of the same crime but still awaiting appeal. Newsome was defeated in the primary, but Thompson was reelected by the very voters the court determined he had cheated just a few years before. Thompson continued to serve as Judge Executive until he was forced by a judge to resign his office while serving his prison sentence. It is such a complicated web of corruption and elections that one almost needs a diagram to understand it. 

There exists an extensive and often heartbreaking historical context to explain why Appalachia is different from the rest of the US both politically and economically. Much of the explanation traces back to a history of resource extraction and the takeover of the region by coal companies who bought local politicians and ruled with iron fists. To most outsiders who are unfamiliar with this historical context, Appalachia’s brand of politics is baffling. However, when one considers that felons convicted of vote-buying can be reelected despite their crimes, and that Blankenship, a villain of cartoonish proportions, can attract 100,000 people to a Labor Day rally, it becomes easier to understand why Trump, who has no real operable solutions to the problems faced by most in Appalachia, was able to win in so many of the region’s poorest counties.

The single worst mistake outsiders can make when attempting to interpret the actions of voters in Appalachia is to assume that they are simply too dumb to know any better. This is not the case. It is also not accurate to say that everyone in Appalachia supports Trump or Blankenship or corrupt local officials. It is worth noting that while a majority of voters in 95% of all counties in Appalachia voted for President Trump, that is not the same thing as 95% of Appalachia supporting him. Appalachia has a long history of resistance. However, the region has been so thoroughly defeated in so many ways over the course of multiple generations that those who resist often end up either giving up or moving away. Sometimes, they are defeated over and over until they just stop trying even if they can’t afford to leave.

Appalachia is America’s most neglected region. Despite efforts by the Appalachian Regional Commission and multitudes of federal elected officials, it is still a region in crisis. In many counties, the poverty rate tops thirty percent. In some, it tops forty percent. Those who spend any time in the region realize quickly that the people are in dire need of hope.

In Donald Trump, many in Appalachia found that hope. Because their region has functioned so far askew of American political norms for so long, they are able to overlook Trump’s very evident flaws. After all, generations of corrupt Appalachian politicians have helped their constituents while simultaneously enriching themselves and maintaining power in dubious or illegal ways.

I would argue that many in Appalachia voted for Donald Trump in 2016 for the same reason that they voted for Randy Thompson in 2010. In both cases, they were supporting their guy. When Trump he said, over and over, that he was the only one who could fix the mess, he was echoing generations of Appalachian politicians. It is no wonder so many in Appalachia voted for him.

Until the Democratic Party first acknowledges that Appalachia does indeed exist and then offers the region some sort of tangible hope, those in the hills and hollers of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky will continue to vote for the candidate who puts on a hard hat and says “I recognize that you exist, and I’m going to help you.”

The KEY INDICATOR of a Culture's Suicidal Tendencies - Part 1

As a “Bonnie Scot” (clan Buchanan on my Father’s side, clan Gordon on my Mother’s side), I’m interested in seeing if my racial and cultural heritage is ready and willing to commit suicide.  The Universal Basic Income is a (if not THE) KEY INDICATOR of that tendency, as it teaches young people NOT TO WORK for money.  It teaches that a basic income is a right.  
 
Once you destroy the work ethos in any people group, its people become a useless liability.  There won't be innovation, nor inventions.And I’m not saying that their won’t be a “remanent” of that heritage that won’t choose to work hard and be productive - there is always a remanent group that chooses to do hard things.  But remnants, by definition are less than the majority of the group.

Just a few years ago, Great Britain allowed Scotland to vote on whether it wants to secede from Great Britain.  For those who wanted to leave (primarily the Scottish National Party or SNP), having the resources to leave Great Britain and having control over those resources was a key point.  (Full disclosure:  Great Britain ran the "Better Together" Campaign, to persuade the Scots to remain in the British Union.  Basically, they said that if Scotland were to secede form Great Britain, that they wouldn't get the great trade with the rest of Europe, because they would not be part of the European Union.  But now that the British voted to leave the European Union, the "Better Together" argument is no longer valid!). Scotland, on the north end of the largest of the British Islands, had colder rainier weather.  The land was rocky and the climate didn't produce great harvests.  But for Scotland, not being blessed with resources that allowed great agricultural resources was always a plus, as it caused great minds to find innovative ways to do new things.  Many great inventions in the world were invented by Scots.  Many people in Britain are worried about life without their Scottish brothers and their natural resources and talents.

Scotland is blessed with Oil Reserves in the North Sea that could provide this universal basic income, IF they aren't declared non accessible by the European Union.

But, to see the future, if Scotland decides to go with a universal basic income, witness the chaos in Black America today.  With a basic Income for the black family in America (welfare - by Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society") guaranteed by the government, there is no need for men.  Because there is no need for men, there are no male role models to show young men how to work hard, show what is acceptable behavior (decorum) and to enforce these unwritten traditions of American society.

And although the Black American societal culture is matriarchical, the lack of men available to mentor boys into men, allows causes them to turn to their base instincts and to run wild.  What we get is an incredible black on black murder rate, a corresponding unemployment rate, an astonishing amount of theft, a tragic rate girls bearing children, without being married (and the fathers taking no responsibility for their off-spring) and an unacceptable lack basic education skills that are generally attained.  If you NEVER have to sacrifice and work for anything, you choose for that need to become a “right.”  

The only people in the welfare group that come out ahead are the criminals and poverty pimps, but I repeat myself.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/universal-basic-income-risks-diverting-cash-to-better-off-zbrfvk59q

Universal basic income ‘risks diverting cash to better off’

MisplacedOctober 23 2017, 12:01am,

Providing all citizens with a universal basic income would risk harming the poorest in society, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and adviser to the SNP government has warned.

Joseph Stiglitz, a member of the Scottish government’s council of economic advisers, said he feared that if the policy were adopted cash would be diverted from the poorest to the better off.

Nicola Sturgeon has vowed to press ahead with plans to explore such a policy, which is commonly understood to mean that welfare payments are replaced with a guaranteed income for everybody, and has offered government funding for research schemes.

Professor Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank who holds a chair at Columbia University, said it would be better to focus on creating jobs while ensuring the most vulnerable were supported.

He said: “I do worry about two things. One, that there are fiscal constraints and should the scarce money be used to give everyone a basic amount or should it be targeted at those who have particularly strong needs? I think there needs to be some targeting.

“Secondly, over the long run our responsibility as a society is to make sure that everybody who wants a job can get one, and the underlying problems of lack of employment and lack of adequate pay — anybody who works full time ought to have a liveable income — those are the issues in the long run that we need to address.”

Last week Ms Sturgeon said she would press ahead with work to look into the feasibility of the policy, with the government funding research by councils. She has admitted that a basic income “might turn out not to be feasible”, though the policy is popular with left-wing SNP members. She has stressed that work is at an early stage.

Civil servants have warned Ms Sturgeon that she does not have the powers to replace existing benefits with a universal basic income because the UK government still controls most welfare payments. In a briefing, the first minister was also told that the policy would be unpopular with the public and prohibitively expensive, at an estimated £12.3 billion, roughly the same as is spent on the NHS or about a third of the Scottish government’s total budget.

Professor Stiglitz, a left-wing economist who also advises Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, also backed the transfer of new immigration powers to Holyrood, saying there were “differences in values and in economic needs” between Scotland and the rest of the UK. He said: “It seems to me that it is certainly an appropriate issue to be on the table that Scotland should have the powers to go its own way in migration policy.”

Professor Stiglitz said that he remained sympathetic to Scottish independence, despite his links to Labour, which opposes another referendum, and that he believed Brexit had strengthened the case for leaving the UK. He said: “If the issue were on the table today I would still be sympathetic towards it. The question right now that’s absorbing all the political energies in the UK is Brexit. Typically, societies have the energy to solve only one big problem at a time.”

Guest Post: How to Not Fall For and Accept the Left's Premise That We Are ALL Guilty of Racism and Slavery

I keep running into such GREAT Blogs and Articles that are prescient, specifically about the ARTIFICIAL CHARGES OF RACISM AND SLAVERY continually leveled at the "right" by the Poverty Pimps (we'll include former Divider-in-Chief and Community activist, Barack Obama in this group). 

Today's blog post comes from Selwyn Duke via the American Thinker Blog.  

October 11, 2017

Now, We Know My Mother Has Flaws, But...

By Selwyn Duke

There’s a disclaimer many of us have been conditioned to utter, quite reflexively, and it’s something that has got to stop. When preparing a defense of the United States (against, lamentably, other “Americans”), we may preface it with, “Well, I know our country isn’t perfect” or, as pundit Tucker Carlson said while debating a bigoted lawyer last month, “I don’t deny…that this country is flawed….” Actually, our perspective is flawed.

To gain some perspective, imagine you were giving a speech about your mother and opened with, “Now, we know my mother has flaws, but….” Sound good?

Consider the message sent. Since we’re all imperfect, it’s a given your mother has flaws and, therefore, it isn’t something you’d normally even think to mention. Thus, the very act of mentioning it involves the implication that your mother isn’t just saddled with the usual imperfections — but that she’s uniquely flawed. It’s not something you do unless she’s a somewhat horrible person.

Or you’re a horrible child — or a horribly brainwashed one.

Of course, if America were uniquely flawed, it would follow that there are a host of nations better. If we know of one, we may want to consider moving there. If we don’t, we should stop parroting that stupid disclaimer. Russians don’t do it. Chinese don’t do it. Japanese don’t do it. Not even Sudanese, Iranians or North Koreans do it.

In fact, while there’s no nation without sin, can you think of one beyond the waning West whose citizens feel compelled to issue self-flagellating we’re-so-flawed utterances? So why do many Americans, despite occupying history’s greatest nation, feel such a compulsion? What are they comparing America to? Heaven?

Speaking of the spirit world, many cultures would engage in ancestor worship. We engage in ancestor condemnation. Just recently, while defending Columbus Day against Indigenous Peoples Day dunderheads, a quite well-meaning commentator wrote that there “are 364 other days in the year on which we could acknowledge the sins of our ancestors….”

Sorry, but I don’t do ancestors. First, I’ll consider condemning our forebears when other groups and nations begin condemning theirs. Second, I’m no more responsible for their trespasses than I am for their triumphs. (Speaking of which, when I start getting royalty checks for all the inventions and innovations birthed by history’s great white men, I’ll consider offering reparations.) Lastly, I have no interest in continually “acknowledging” my ancestors’ sins — I have enough problems with my own.

This brings us to another aspect of this matter, one well illustrated by another comment Tucker Carlson made: that our country “is deeply flawed on questions of race.”Actually, no, it’s not. As in the 1990s Rwandan genocide, racial/ethnic/tribal/religious conflicts elsewhere often have resulted in massive bloodshed. In contrast, it’s hard to think of a nation in which so many disparate peoples get along as well as in the U.S. (though the Left is trying feverishly to change that). The point is that in all this talk about “our flaws,” we’re not even talking about “our” flaws.We’re talking about the flaws of people long dead (that is, when the flaws aren’t wholly imaginary).

In other words, we’re fighting yesterday’s battles — harping on our ancestors’ sins in an infinite loop — and ignoring today’s.

As to this, if a man seeing a therapist fixated constantly on his late father’s faults, wouldn’t the therapist point out that, not only is he living in the past, but that incessantly focusing on another’s flaws can be a way of avoiding having to confront your own?

Leftists haven’t the foggiest idea what our “flaws” are for the simple reason that, being moral relativists/nihilists (not believing in Truth, absolute by definition), they have no standard of perfection to use as a yardstick. And if you have no objective standard of right, you can’t know what’s wrong — not any more than you could identify unhealthful foods without believing in and knowing the rules of human nutrition.

We do have real flaws, today, now, things such as confusion over marriage, sex and the sexes (“transgender” agenda); the mainstreaming of perversion; decadent entertainment; rampant vulgarity; racial demagoguery; profligate spending; leftist propaganda everywhere; and, what lies at the heart of it all, moral relativism. But it’s easier to talk about those dastardly dead white males — they’re not around to defend themselves.  

One of the great victories of the Left is that it has woven so many of its suppositions so seamlessly into the culture that even good people accept them, unknowingly, unthinkingly. 

Thus will we utter, cowed and callow, “Look, I know our country has flaws….”

The irony is that if we could purge so-called leftism from the hearts and minds of Americans, most of our flaws would be gone overnight.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

 I've stated in some of my other blog posts, that there is no one who experienced slavery in America first hand that is still living.  Only they have the legal standing to challenge the rest of the country about racism.  And only those who made others into slaves and kept them as slaves can be legally challenged for reparations and penalized for their lawless behavior.  They can't be penalized for boorish, crude or unseemly behavior.   Their heirs do not.have standing to file suit or be prosecuted or  to be penalized or incarcerated for this behavior.  The law deals with aggrieved parties and those who illegally, crudely or boorishly treated them.  Sorry, Poverty Pimps, Black Lives Matter and other Racial Justice Warriors, although you might believe that there is no statute of limitations for the Grievances which you perceive were done against others with darker skin, these perceived grievances weren't done against you and you NEED TO DROP THE INSULT, DISRESPECT and AFFRONT AND GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE. 

Now, if America were really a racist nation, would white people fought other white people over slavery?  Instead, wouldn't they have worked together to kill off those of whom they thought were lesser in stature?  Wouldn't they have committed genocide?  Yet, they didn't.  Americans, being a highly Christian nation, based on the belief system and the culture, understood that these were people.    While many had to work hard lives, many were also respected and loved by their owners, trusted with positions within the familial organizations.  Though they worked menial jobs and often worked their whole lives to pay off the debt their "owners" paid to those who transported them from Africa to America.  (Full disclosure:  While I find this practice abhorrent, my maternal ancestors worked as indentured servants (sold themselves into slavery) in order to purchase passage to America from Scotland.  I also don't care for the fact that Georgia was established as a debtors prison/colony, where those who accrued debts and could not pay them off were sent to work off their debt.  This practice was just one step above the debtor's prisons of England in the 1600 - 1700s.). 

So the question of "should black or dark skinned Americans be angry at the circumstances of how they arrived in America?"  Possibly, but what can the anger they feel do for them?  

• If it can be used as a motivation to achieve gainful status in life, without gloating, it will have been transformed from a negative to a positive.  
• If it can serve as a reminder of how not to treat others, it will have been transformed into a positive.  
• Even IF it can be rightly aimed at the Islamic tribes that first captured their ancestors as slaves, before selling them to traders, who made profits on their future labors over the cost of transporting them to a place where they could be sold, that can be a positive thing.  

But endless whining about how ones ancestors were mistreated by "white people, with privilege (in a white, European society, come to America)" and talk of reparations and payback is all that is achieved (as the poverty pimps would stoke them on to do), then we will become a country permanently divided and our current state is as good as it will ever get.