Autopsy: It Wasn't Comey, Hillary, it Was You

Everyone has a childhood memory that is so difficult to remember that it cannot be forgotten.

My father’s story is not unusual for a man born in 1919.  He was the youngest of nine children and left school at the end of eighth grade to help support his family.  Dad found work he loved in the dairy industry, and life happened.  He married and had children, lost and found jobs, worked his way up the ranks.  Then he had a heart attack.  After that “come to Jesus” moment my father did two things.  He stopped smoking (cold turkey from a two-packs-a-day habit) and he started looking for a less stressful job.   He applied for an opening as a state dairy inspector. 

Dad needed that job.  The money was better, the work more stable and less strenuous.  He had built up a legion of supporters and the job was his, but the law said he had to pass a competitive test.  The night before I remember my Dad pacing up and down the front porch.  He and Mom were talking in low voices, but I heard every word.  My father’s voice was high and taunt. 

“All those young guys have been to college.  What if I can’t beat them.  What if…”

He couldn’t finish those words.  My father was crying and my heart was broken.

Dad’s scores on the combined written and oral tests were the highest the state ever recorded.  It was a benchmark that lasted for over a decade—against all those college graduates. 

In trying to dissect last week’s frighteningly unexpected election, there are two things that I found persistently uncomfortable.  The first occurred when Clinton went to Williamsburg, West Virginia to try to make up for her March 13 comment in the CNN debate “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”  A miner asked a Clinton staffer what Hillary could offer the people of West Virginia after a comment like that and this snooty, spoiled brat said “Clinton IS the candidate who is trying to raise the minimum wage.”

This effete little snob had not even taken the time to learn that miners are some of the best paid people in that state.   They start work at $22/hour ($52,000/year) and with any advancement at all can make from $76K to $96K a year.  Clinton’s toady was sure that if you work with your hands you must make minimum wage.   That ignorant staffer was being dismissive and every working person who heard him knew it. 

The second nettling thing was the constant drumbeat of polls showing college educated voters were voting for Clinton.  The implication was that if you don’t have a college degree you aren’t smart enough to pick the right candidate.  There was almost a proprietary attitude of the smart guys having to protect the troglodytes from themselves.  Outside of the results proving the pollsters were wrong, there were a couple of other problems with this screed.  First, I have known too many college educated people who were clearly educated beyond their intelligence.  Second, there are legions of intelligent, skilled, discerning, honorable and capable people who neither want nor need a college degree. They are successful without it.  They are people like my father.  They vote. 

The working-class voter has been ignored, over-looked, marginalized, and treated like chattel to be guided, guarded and chastised by “their betters” for close to 40 years.  Well, they aren’t being ignored any more. 

Pain is a good teacher.  But I keep the faith.