This actually makes sense.

It is interesting to witness the huge blind spot that anti capitalists have where they can’t seem to see the government as the exact same self serving human organism that business is. Instead it’s viewed as some panacea for social inequity.

It creates the same set of haves and have nots. The only difference is metrics.

People are the same regardless of what political or social system you impose on them. Personality characteristics are far more indicative of people’s belief systems than whether the systems actually work for them or not.

@2. It’s true. In some cases they’re hateful, ignorant assholes.

But there’s truth in the adage that you hate in others what you can’t face in yourself.

Charles,
This analysis fails. The exporting of jobs is a long trend, and while Trump may support it, Chairman Mao himself couldn't have stopped these jobs going to South and Southeast Asia.

From the perspective of a Trump worker, you're exhorting them to trade their self-respect and dignity for a job. That's a losing proposition and I know you know exactly why.

@muffy You should apply for a job with the N.Y. Times Opinion page! You're a perfect fit!

On the one hand, I agree with Charles that buying-back stock and firing workers after receiving a massive tax cut is unseemly (even deplorable) and represents the worst of capitalism.

On the other hand, it’s hard to take seriously his grousing about unproductive workers, given that he’s writing this article in order to draw eyeballs to ad copy like “Get SMOKED! at Nordo’s Culinarium in Historic Pioneer Square.”

Blue-collar manufacturing jobs for thee, not for me.

Many of today's Americans, indulging in the modern luxury of censoring their own intake of news and history, are oblivious to the deep-rooted and ongoing subculture of black motorcycle gangs.

It is regrettable to find we must count our beloved Charles Mudede among these oblivious fellow-cititizens, but I suppose it is not entirely surprising.

He is, when viewed in the right light, the most American of all Americans.

F*ck motorcycles. My 1980 Pontiac Bonneville Safari Station Wagon still drives like a boss.

@8

Have fun with that gas bill, hipster.

Even 25 years ago it was painful to fill the tank oif one of those mid-series Grand-Prix-platform freighters. I'd wager a '93 Blazer with a rusted-out catalytic converter gets significantly better mileage, and with lower emissions, than that ecological disaster-blaster you're so proud of...

@9 - I've been driving that car since it was brand new. I'm hardly a hipster, but thanks for the laugh. And I've never worried about the cost of gasoline. If you need it, you need it.

President Lyndon B. Johnson said it 50 years ago. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

I remember when people on the left would complain about iniquity and those on the right would tell us that unfettered markets would benefit everybody. That rising tides would lift all boats.

Now they tells us "what are you gonna do? people are horrible". Something, something, metrics.

At least they've dropped the pretense.

Came here to for some fresh insight into how Harley-Davidson fucked over its workers, found yet another undercooked Mudede thought-omelet instead.

Carping about racism and class iniquity is old news, kids. Why not do a little digging into the subject you say you're writing about? There are very specific, newsworthy things happening here. Seems like this would be a great opportunity to unpack how we arrived at this strange and unfortunate juncture.

Oh, wait – Mudede tells us, complete with another brain-omelet from a noted French economist as evidence. The world is an incredibly simple place, with two opposing forces at work. A black and white world, if you will. Huge sigh of relief – I was beginning to worry that it might be more complicated than that.

Listen, everyone's entitled to their own voice. If Mudede is incapable of seeing the world through any lens other than his seething hatred for white men, that's his problem. But is so hard to at least put in a token effort, rather than offering up entrenched, half-baked opinions? Investigate the subject a little, maybe talk to a few people?

If there's one thing worse than right-wing anti-intellectualism, it's the gormless neo-Maoist thoughtlessness like this that dominates today's leftist hashtag culture. Diversity of optics is paramount. Diversity of opinion...not so much.

Oh Stranger, how far you have fallen.

@7. That “Harley’s are for white men” BS threw me a little too. I personally/professionally know 4 black dudes with Harley’s. It’s a blue collar “I want a loud toy to drive around on the weekends” thing more than a race thing anymore.

@10. That Charles is “pro worker” is the funniest thing I’ve read in these comments in awhile. He is an elitist intellectual whose contempt for working people is only surpassed by his hatred (and failure to achieve) the status of the rich.

Not a big shocker. This is a group that has no real individual identity other than a couple t-shirt logos.

It's all they know.

@16. What’s not a big shocker is that you think you’re better than other people, speak of and to them condescendingly, and then wonder why their “self interest” doesn’t make them see the world the same way you do.

Your a snob, and feeling like you’re better/smarter than other people doesn’t actually make it so. It’s actually a pretty good case to the contrary.

White trash is gonna white trash.

If one were to draw a picture of the US, it would be a dead black man lying on the ground and a white man with a gun to his head standing next to him. It's our ongoing national murder-suicide powered by the racist revenge fantasies of the voters for the evil, illegimate Tr666mp regime.

FWIW, this "move" has way more to do with tariffs than wage costs. They're not moving production of the same models, it's just a coincidental closing of one plant and opening of another (although they are apparently reusing some of the equipment.)

The KC plant is closing because Harley's US sales have plummeted as the baby boomers are starting to age out of motorcycling and younger generations are going other directions with their midlife crises. The remaining plants are able to keep up with demand. Harleys sold in the US are still going to be all US made*.

The Thailand plant is opening because one of Harley's responses to the above sales plunge is going for more sales overseas. Southeast Asia is the biggest motorcycle market in the world by a pretty huge margin. Thailand in particular has a very high import tariff on motorcycles, and by building them there Harley gets to avoid that and take advantage of regional trade agreements that let them avoid other countries' high tariffs as well. Thailand is also a well established motorcycle manufacturing powerhouse-- a good portion of Japanese brand bikes are actually assembled there these days.

*Other than the smaller "Street" series bikes that are built in India. They're made there because they're primarily aimed at the Indian market and India has a HUGE tariff on imported motorcycles. The US-market Streets omit the sari guard though.

"A working-class white man or woman who continues to support a leader whose entire goal is to weaken and break the working classes as a whole must have accepted a working-class nativism as his or her final political solution. But why?"

Stigginit.

That's why.

@10 I understand Charles is advocating that these manufacturing jobs should be kept in the US rather than be performed in another country. My comment was in reference to this line:

“Goods manufactured in a low-income country are exported to one with much higher wages, but whose leading job sector consists of unproductive (Adam Smith's sterile) workers (they distribute or sell or service the imported cheap products)”

My point is Charles considers service jobs to be less desirable than manufacturing jobs, while his own contribution to the economy is writing for The Stranger in order to drive traffic to ads for ballet performances and restaurants. Like him, more Americans than in the past are choosing to provide services — writing, performing, coding, teaching, healing. Is that such a bad thing? Must we all be farmers and ironworkers?

@19: Thanks for the context

@19 living in Redmond I've seen my share of Indians driving Harleys around. Each time they were kitted out in full "vintage" leathers and helmet. Weirded me out at first, but makes sense if there's an existing market in India that buys into the Harley thing

@19 and @22, there is never not some kind of rationalization for these moves or relocations. this is why i do not look at what the company says it's doing, i look at what has happened in the past.

@24 Nothing I mentioned is really rationalization on the company's part, just what anyone who even casually follows the motorcycle industry knows. I'm sure Harley would love for its shareholders to think the KC plant was closed to offshore the work and save on labor as opposed to the truth, which is they closed it because sales are way down and are only going to get much, much worse in the near future.

@19 Thanks for reporting the news that Mudede did not. Ironically I do still read this paper for news. Or attempt to, anyway.

@25, i'm sorry, history still matters to me. @19, don't confuse trade laws with the laws of nature. lastly, @25 assumes the people who worked at that motorbike factory were also, like me, not even casually following the news "the motorbike industry knows."

The history that's specifically relevant to this situation is that Harley opened this plant in the late 90's when baby boomers nearing retirement age couldn't get enough giant noisy motorcycles (and banks couldn't stop lending them money to buy them.) Now those people are nearing retirement home age and the current crop of middle-aged people aren't interested. Harley is doing fine as a company at this moment, but that demographic timebomb is just starting to go off. Unless one of their overseas ventures really pays off (which in my opinion is pretty unlikely) they are going to have to become a much smaller company over the next 10 years, which means closing the plants they opened to keep up with boomer-fueled demand.

People who are rabid Harley loyalists do not understand this. They think the big heavy expensive bikes are objectively great and of course younger folks are going to start buying them once they figure that out. Until recent events, the workers at the KC plant were undoubtedly die-hard Harley loyalists and shared that view. They were only surprised because they had a myopic view of the industry.

And trade laws might as well be laws of nature in this instance. The tariffs in question are huge. Thailand's is about 60%. India's is over 100%. It's simply impossible to sell bikes in those markets unless you're also building them there, or in a country with a trade agreement that gets around the tariffs.

Why am I not the least bit surprised by this? Original Andrew said it best: "White trash is gonna white trash."
I nominate @2 German Sausage, @12 Traffic Spiral, and @18 Original Andrew for the win.
Thank you for so beautifully summing up what I was going to say and already saying it.

@10 if you define self-worth as cash value, sure. But it turns out people value liberty and dignity too.

@24

If history matters to you, why do you stop listening to to people explaining additional historical fact to you once you've taken the first few scraps you heard about, and found a way to fit them into your preconceived political ideology?

This is not a rhetorical question. We must learn why some history is important, but additional history must be swatted aside like an impudent child.

Trade laws may not be Laws Of Nature, but they certainly are Facts of nature, things with entirely real effects on the natural world, just like so many other human creations. Technology is not a law of nature. Agriculture is not a law of nature. Literacy is not a law of nature, and thus History is not a law of nature, either. Not one of these things has any "natural" existence, they are all entirely the work of Human Beings.

And they are very, very real.

@31: If you actually believe that a heartless born-rich, privileged neofascist white shithead real estate developer like Mein Trumpfy---who lives to blow smoke and screw the average U.S. citizen for its own spiteful shits and giggles---would really bring back 32nd U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and keep a campaign promise to help millions of us in need of good safe jobs, affordable healthcare, government safety nets, environmental protection, preservation of public lands and human rights and fix our crumbling infrastructure, I've got the title and deed to the Deception Pass Bridge on SR20 that I'd love to sell you.

The fact that money is global hasn't filtered down to most people's awareness yet. It's a genie that can't be stuffed back into its bottle and neither the left nor the right seem to realize that a notional government won't be how they can battle it. This situation benefits both governments and corporations. Corporations like it because they can move the money around relatively freely when citizens aren't being compliant with their wishes. Governments like it because they can use that anger and frustration to remain in power.

If you want to save Americans from their worst tendencies America itself must die. Only a global citizenry will be free from the corporate fascism we're heading towards.

" a poor person surrenders their human morality (make me equal to you) for the opportunity to participate in the robbery"

This may be but it is after the fact they have been betrayed repeatedly by social democracy that promoted neoliberal globalization at the expense of "lefty globalism" over the last 40 years. Why is this absent from you narrative when it is a critical piece to understand and avoid the descent toward fascism?

@31 - Your candidate was lying too.

Trump won 47% of the popular vote, but those districts comprised only about 40% of US GDP. If you break down to individual voters it may be that Charles and the French economist are right, but I'm always suspect of manipulating data to make a point.

BTW, Hear that hard drive whizzing in on your laptop? Made in Thailand. We're all sinners...:)

I think this is more a commentary on how terrible the cultures of the interior states are more than anything else. Celebrate stupid.

@34 ah yes, their dignity by your rules. It was awesome when people did that before the Civil War and it's just as awesome today!

This sounds potentially interesting. Could you find someone that can actually write to have a go at it?