Thread by @GREENESJ333

Roger Froikin @rlefraim wrote, "A New York State of Mind — and American Politics

If you take a close look at the differences between the Democratic Party backers and the Republican Party backers, what you see clearly is a split in policy preferences....
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that can be seen as the difference between New York (or the largest American cities & their lifestyle & views) versus the rest of the USA. This difference also illustrates the split on issues between Europeans & Americans, the former being closer to the New York State of Mind.
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You see, New York City and other large developed urban areas have certain things in common: apartment living that limits personal autonomy and makes someone’s interactions with neighbors and rules more important;
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availability of public transportation systems and dependence on them; a problem with owning and operating personal cars, which makes car ownership and operation less part of life; and denser populations, which mean more reliance on authorities and
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political structures to get anything done.

And the news media is concentrated in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston, and to a degree in San Francisco and Los Angeles—all cities with the highest costs of living and lifestyles more like New York than not.
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Many of those in government, in Congress, and in the Senate have had life experiences living in those cities, either for school or work at some point in their lives, and attitudes and beliefs typical of those cities are theirs.
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So what do we get? We have the mainstream media & the Democratic Party pushing issues that are essentially big-city issues, fitting lifestyles and attitudes of New York, Chicago, & San Francisco, along with New York cultural arrogance that looks down at the rest of the USA,
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at people farther west, at accents that are different. Anyone out in the rest of America is some sort of boorish hick who does not know what is best for them. Sounds like how the left talks? Of course.
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So they propose raising prices on fuel and electricity, telling people that it will force them to use “more efficient public mass transit,” ignoring the fact that in most of the USA there is virtually no public mass transit.
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Raising the cost of fuel and electricity means massive inflation, loss of jobs, and the spread of mass poverty for most Americans who live in suburbs, have larger personal living spaces, and commute by car, as well as the increased cost of everything else that comes by truck.
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And they propose bailing out irresponsible cities and states that have gotten into the habit of overtaxing their residents and still spending themselves into massive debt—and
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demand that the citizens of states that balance their budgets and tax their citizens less pay the bills for cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.
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Frankly, Americans have been bailing out New York for years (since the 1970s) while New York politicians keep spending irresponsibly.

What makes them think they have a right to demand that the whole country bail them out?
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Oh, they are New York and oh so important, and everyone should rush to solve their problems.

Frankly, most of the USA would do very well if New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago disappeared tomorrow.
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But the media and entertainment business give the impression that New York is the center of the world and that New York values, interests, and tastes should dominate the USA—for its own good.
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Back in 1964, I had a girlfriend that I met over the summer whose family lived in Brooklyn. I visited her in New York in the middle of winter and met her grandparents.
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Her grandmother, an immigrant from Europe years before, asked me, “Is life in Ohio dangerous?” I answered, “No.” So she asked me, “Do those Indians bother people very often?”

That says it all, I suppose."
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