Sunday, March 5, 2017

Increasing violence in American Politics

When I came to this country in 2001 Feb, economy was doing good-and violence in politics, riots were almost unheard. I remember the guy who was giving me driving lesson in NJ, an unemployed law grad-even he didn't know the name of NJ Governor. It was a time, when political polarization was almost absent.

What happened then since? China joined WTO and started dumping all of their products in USA. By 2005-6, no product made-in-USA can be found in Wallmart. During the same period, thousands of Call Center and customer service jobs have been outsourced to India. Also, thanks to automation, many Americans were losing jobs. And benefit of automation, which is increasing IT jobs didn't to go to American middleclass. Again, it has been outsourced to IT majors in India.

Results of all of these have been devastating on small American towns which relied heavily on manufacturing jobs.  I can bring example of Allentown, a small model town in Pennsylvania which used to be home for many manufacturing units. I used to visit this city for my job in 2001. It was a bustling town then. When I last visited them in 2015, the city has lost much of its manufacturing jobs.  

And when people are deprived of their basic means of living, there will be political consequence. Trump is fallout of that consequence.  We, Indians are unfortunate victim of the situation now.

Obviously American politics is no more about civilized mainstream politicians of yesteryear. It is becoming violent and polarized. Since I have grown up in India, specially in WB, violent politics is nothing new to me. But unfortunately, I never ever imagined, I had to see the same in my adopted country.

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