Aberdeen Mayor-Elect Travis Schaunaman is still bleating his generic pap about overregulation somehow hampering the Hub City’s growth, but in a KELO-TV blip, he manages to extend his remarks to a more interesting socio-economic observation. Schanuaman tells Kelli Volk that Aberdeen has focused too much on blue-collar jobs and needs to get professional:
“We’ve had such a focus on manufacturing and that sort of job where it’s really blue collar and I think it’s time to turn our attention to white collar jobs, professional jobs, jobs that are going to excite the kids in college and in high school,” Schaunaman said [Kelli Volk, “Aberdeen Mayor-Elect Outlines Priorities,” KELO-TV, 2019.06.11].
Schaunaman himself is white-collar, running Web marketing and design and occasional Republican advertising company Production Monkeys. That actually makes him a fair clone of Sioux Falls mayor Paul TenHaken, who made his money doing Republican Web bidding with his Click Rain outfit.
I do have to wonder if the white-collar shift isn’t code to Schaunaman’s fans in Aberdeen’s racist anti-immigrant camp, who may think focusing on office jobs will somehow lessen the demand for immigrant labor in our fair city’s beef plant, wind turbine plant, and construction jobs, which survive on folks from elsewhere who come do the jobs that the locals are too old, too picky, or just too few to do.
You’re probably on the right track, Cory. Aberdeen’s racist anti-immigrant camp (At least the ones who actually DO think) surely believe focusing on office jobs will somehow lessen the demand for immigrant labor.
Hey, you … Immigrants (Muslims in particular) are better at white collar jobs than most of those who choose to remain in SD to work and raise kids. And, coming from Africa and the Middle East they love trees.
Here’s a job. Listen to this tomorrow, moderated by Mike Allen of Axios:
“Tomorrow in downtown D.C.: Please join me at 8 a.m. for an Axios News Shapers breakfast event exploring China, tariffs and trade.
“I’ll have one-on-one conversations with Arturo Sarukhán, Mexico’s former ambassador to the U.S.; Rep. Veronica Escobar (D) of El Paso, whose district relies on cross-border trade; Sen. Mike Rounds (R) of South Dakota, whose farming state has been hit by tariffs; and Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council.”
One of the smartest doctors I met recently at Sanford is from Syria. I’m all for bringing more talented immigrant doctors and other health care professionals to Aberdeen.
But practically speaking, what can city government do, especially when headed by a Republican who by philosophy shouldn’t want government to do much, to make Aberdeen somehow uniquely attractive to young professionals?
I suggest step one is to forcefully denounce the racism and bigotry with which some of Schaunaman’s base have stained this city.
Assuming the deep crap holing of bigotry, then these.
~ By building on the following key strengths to attract millennial talent, small to mid-sized cities have become better models for their peers than the nation’s largest economic hubs.
https://www.governing.com/commentary/col-how-smaller-cities-attract-keep-millennials.html?AMP
Ideas on attracting young professionals.
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/830955001
Republicans are throwing away the future of young people.
They are running up debt at a record level that they will have to pay off with their taxes. And they are refusing to take action the save the environment of the planet.
Keep the message clear and simple. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/6/12/1864367/-Conservative-columnist-GOP-is-doomed-because-young-people-see-it-as-the-dumb-party?utm_campaign=trending#comment_74126588
The GOP is not dumb, and people are foolish to think they are.
It’s just that “dumb” polls better than “corrupt and treasonous”.
By describing almost anything Democrats supported as “socialism,” the GOP did a pretty good job of unwittingly rehabilitating the brand. Affordable health care, progressive taxation, strong environmental, workplace and consumer protections, civil rights enforcement, a strong social safety net, addressing climate change. If that’s what they mean by socialism, no wonder lots of young people today are all for it. DK
Socialism=excitement for kids
The debt Leslie is talking about is a national issue, offering no comparative disadvantage for recruiting young professionals in the U.S.
We can offer young professionals safe haven from Republican tyranny. Let’s open an abortion clinic. Let’s offer women of child-bearing age safe haven from the GOP patriarchy. Cool thing is, women may leave Georgia and Alabama to go to places where they can enjoy their reproductive rights, but anti-choice women won’t move to radical misogynist states; abortion opponents can live in the most abortion-respecting community in the nation and suffer no harm to their autonomous choice not to ever have an abortion.
Offer comprehensive health care to women. They’ll move here.
Porter has an interesting link. It does point up a different strategy that might work, but it takes a much more liberal/tolerant attitude to accomplish.
I don’t know if you can keep them in Aberdeen. The money draw toward places that pay two or three times what a white collar job in Aberdeen would pay is often just too much for young singles. The young ones work hard for 10 or 15 years, switching jobs and climbing the ladder. What they don’t want at that point is a dead-end position with no opportunity for switching out to another company or another career. Unless you’ve got a lot of opportunities, you are unlikely to keep them in Aberdeen for long.
But after 10 or 15 years in a burnout career in a larger city, the “kids” have made enough money to put a good dent in the student loans, they’ve saved a bit for a down payment, they’ve probably paired up and they are looking for a family friendly area with good schools, decent health care and a place where they can do something entrepreneurial.
What they don’t want in a place to live is lack of diversity, lack of arts/entertainment, and an arrogant attitude that you have to fit in to extremist Republican ideas of how you must think and live. Many of these folks have great skills at this point in their lives. With good internet service, they can do a lot from a home-based business. Many are tired of doing what they’ve been doing, and want to open a bar or boutique.
A place that is unwelcoming, illiberal, and holier-than-thou just isn’t of interest to these folks. If someone comes up to them and professes they are a Bible Protestant, or whatever the hell Kurt says he is, these potential new South Dakotans will turn the U-Haul around and head for Minnesota or Colorado. These young folks have worked with blacks, Muslims and all sorts of immigrants, and they would be horrified by the hatefests. If they read Dakota Free Press, and most probably will do a lot of research on websites before setting out to find a smaller to medium sized city to relocate, they read about the hatefests and will not be moving to Aberdeen.
Schaunamann would do well to fix start by fixing the reputation for hate that has attached to Aberdeen. He should look toward Brookings for how a South Dakota city can become a welcoming place for the young ones to come back to.
Red Rooster plays a key role in helping young professionals feel at home in Aberdeen.
Thinking about Donald’s comment: we get people to retire here by offering them maybe slightly cheaper living that lets them stretch their accumulated wealth and easier traffic for older drivers to handle. We struggle to keep younger people because the wages we pay them don’t help clear their debts and build a big nest egg that gives them options. Our low wages make it harder to young professionals to consider moving to places where housing may cost more and saddles them with houses here that are harder to sell for prices that will help them move up in housing markets beyond our rural area.
I notice a twist here: to make Aberdeen inviting, we have to offer young professionals wages that will make it easier for them to move to other markets. We have to compete with that potential by making Aberdeen so awesome that more and more of those freer birds will say, “Even though I’m making enough money to move into bigger markets, I’m staying here.”
In the meantime, it will be hard to convince young professionals to stick around for lower wages and fewer opportunities when, on top of that sacrifice, they have to put up with racist jerks like Al Novstrup and Pati Koeniguer.
The real, significant issues for 2020 that touch every aspect of every person, are:
1. Wealth accumulation by the 1%
2. Immediate action on global warming
SIMPLE HONEST MESSAGING
Cory, that’s the PROBLEM: the view of government officials, like Aberdeen Mayor-Elect Travis Schaunaman, when it comes to “blue-collar” working people. According to a 2014 article by VOX reporter Nick Carnes, Schaunaman and his views represent the majority in government today. Most government officials in our own state Legislature and U.S. Congress are wealthy and come from white-collar backgrounds, not blue-collar backgrounds. It’s disheartening to think that the minority white-collar people are the majority in Congress and many state legislatures rather than the majority of blue-collar people who make up most of the population in South Dakota and the United States. The working class is grossly underrepresented in state and national government. This why you get the dismissive views of Mayor Schaunaman toward “blue collar” workers. So, the majority of citizens in this country truly live under a system that represents the interests of the wealthy few and why socialism projects seem to be for their benefit. Socio-economic class REALLY does matter in government and which socio-economic class is mostly represented will lead to the policies and laws that tend to favor their views based on their backgrounds. As the article in VOX states by Nick Carnes:
“And it’s not just Congress. States where the legislature has more working-class members tend to spend larger percentages of their budgets on social safety net programs. Cities, too. Other scholars who have analyzed the differences between more and less affluent politicians have reached the same conclusions. Members with more personal wealth are more likely to oppose the estate tax. Members who are more privileged care less about reducing economic inequality. It really matters that we have such a white-collar government.” From: “The class war in American politics is over. The rich won.”
By Nick Carnes Sep 3, 2014
Until we get more blue collar people to represent us in our legislature and Congress, sadly and unfortunately, we are going to continue to have policies and laws that benefit the wealthy over the interests of the blue collar worker. Their interests are often not the same as our interests as we have seen for far too long, yet we make up the majority of the population.