{"id":135,"date":"2017-01-16T01:08:50","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T01:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/?p=135"},"modified":"2026-06-24T05:45:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T05:45:43","slug":"against-mike-rowes-folksy-facebook-rants-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/?p=135","title":{"rendered":"Against Mike Rowe\u2019s Folksy Facebook Rants | The Daily Dot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Against Mike Rowe\u2019s Folksy Facebook Rants | The Daily Dot<\/a><\/p>\n

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A curious read. I\u2019ve always like the Television personality of Mike Rowe, and while he is certainly entitled to his political opinion, I\u2019m entitled to disagree with it, and I do, to a degree. First and foremost, I come from a family of laborers, union members. All of them hands on, skilled workers who worked hard to etch their livings, and it worked for them, so I have this almost romanticized notion that if I continue to work hard (well beyond my bodies already taxed limits) that I too can achieve a modicum of success, my own piece of financial happiness. The rational part of me tells me I am deluding and lying to myself. The numbers just don\u2019t add up. <\/p>\n

I\u2019d have to work 100hrs\/wk, between both of my jobs just to break even (this precludes sleep, it\u2019s apparently not necessary). I work 60hrs\/wk now, 70hrs\/wk in the summer and that\u2019s still not enough. I have to sacrifice still, make hard choice. At what point have I put in my time at work, of busting my ass, day in, and day out. <\/p>\n

Shit hurts every day that shouldn\u2019t hurt, and I push on anyway, cause it\u2019s what I have to do. That same rationale that is telling me I am wasting my time working hard, is also telling me I shouldn\u2019t take my vacation time. Yes, I know, I\u2019m a union member in good standing, and I earned that time, and you are right, I did. But I know that if I take the vacation time, something I want to do, something I probably need to do, I know I will spent money I just don\u2019t have. A bill won\u2019t get paid, or I\u2019ll come up short on rent. This is the shit I think about, day in and day out, while I\u2019m at work, so I\u2019ve become torn, almost disenfranchised by the very notion of vacation time. And yet, I have this blue-collar ideal stuck in my head, from my Grandfather, from my Uncles, older cousins. I\u2019m stuck in between eras, wanting to belong to the past and not fitting into the future. <\/p>\n

I did\u2019t vote for that overrated gasbag. He wasn\u2019t a politician, he\u2019s a failed businessman and an overrated reality TV star. Surprisingly, I met him, twice, long before he was on TV or interested in politics. He was cruel, mean, and treated everyone around him poorly. I got a bad impression from him then and I have one now. I see a dystopic fusion for us if he\u2019s allowed to continue in office, I fear for the future of all. This is why I have a hard time buying into Trump and his economic plans, he\u2019s very far removed from reality, and too rich to care. No one put him in check as a child and no one will stand up to him now. <\/p>\n

Our own intelligence communities and our own federal police has stated that a foreign nation interfered in our election. Every business venture of his has failed, he is in debt to other nations, and other businesses. He\u2019s admitted to sexual assault. He\u2019s clearly a fan of nepotism. Millions voted for him, millions more voted for someone else. At what point will the people pull the wool from their eyes? What\u2019s the point if a wall on our Southern boarder? All that does is to serve as alienation of our Southern neighbor. What message does that send to our friendly Northern neighbors? <\/p>\n

I spent a month in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico about 10 years ago, it was a very enlightening experience. The nights I spent in my motel room, I fended for myself, mostly takeout. But the days and nights I spent across the border were far different. Don\u2019t get me wrong, Juarez is a dangerous town (one of the most dangerous in the world), hell, I got pick pocketed in my first day (luckily they didn\u2019t get anything important)! When I was with my driving partner, I was in good hands, he steered me clear of the more dangerous parts of town and showed me an old world hospitality I had never seen before, perfect strangers sharing food with me, authentic home cooking (some of it even a little too spicy for me) every night). I always had a safe place to sleep. They made me feel like I belonged. But I also learned why the company didn\u2019t want drivers taking their equipment over the boarder, it wouldn\u2019t have come back. <\/p>\n

Inversely, I spent a week on the other side of the Continent, in Edmonton, Canada. This was for the same job, and I saw similarities as well as differences. Driving in Canada was far different, no one was in the same kind of hurry as they are here. People were very polite to me, everywhere I went (with the exception of Qu\u00e9b\u00e9c). 99% of the time, I even got help with currency issues. Here I learned patience. <\/p>\n

Seriously, I can go on and on as to what\u2019s wrong with Trump, but that\u2019s already been done, and I can\u2019t say it any better then anyone else has already. We all should be scared for our futures. I just don\u2019t have the trust in a repeated conman trying to sell shit to a pig farmer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Against Mike Rowe\u2019s Folksy Facebook Rants | The Daily Dot A curious read. I\u2019ve always like the Television personality of Mike Rowe, and while he is certainly entitled to his political opinion, I\u2019m entitled to disagree with it, and I do, to a degree. First and foremost, I come from a family of laborers, union […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,30,32,27,26,28,29],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blue-collar","tag-blue-collar-america","tag-blue-collar-jobs","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-president-elect-donald-trump","tag-working-class","tag-working-poor","post_format-post-format-link"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2275,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}