"What does Pennsylvania mean to me?"

 So...this was a question from the debate, where they asked "what does Michigan mean to you?" And of course, everyone gave politically correct answers that amounted to "oh gee, I sure like Michigan!" It's a stupid hugboxy thing that we sometimes expect from debates. But honestly? That's the problem with that debate, it's just a weird hugbox in which we had establishmenty candidates giving politically correct establishment answers, and honestly...it just made me sick. Even El Sayed kinda catered his answers to their framing. 

Anyway, one of the last questions was about Michigan. And I kinda wanted to answer it hypothetically. Except I'm not from Michigan, so I'm gonna do PA instead. And yeah, I'm gonna go the whole "newsroom" route on this one. So yeah, enjoy. 

What does pennsylvania mean to me? Not much, really. I mean, I was born here. I live here. I live in a city named (blank). It's kind of a craphole. It has high crime. A lot of poverty. Despite the metrics not being as bad as they were 10-20 years ago, it still pretty much sucks. I know it's politically correct to glaze the place you live and take pride in it, but I'm going to be honest, I'm not particularly proud to live there, and most people I know want out, if they haven't already found their way out. 

I feel like this is a problem with pennsylvania, and the rust belt in general. It sucks to live here. Economic opportunity is limited, things never seem to get any better, and things tend to get worse. In 2030, we're expected to lose at least one, if not two congressional representatives due to population loss here. The fact is, we're in a bit of a dead zone. As I said, nothing seems to get better, and the best thing many of us can do is leave. 

It's not that there's anything wrong with Pennsylvania inherently. It has a temperate climate, it's relatively free of natural disasters compared to other parts of the country. It's kind of the most middle of the road state you can get. It always seems to be about 25th at everything, except the roads which are terrible despite the high gas tax. But at the same time, it's also the state that's probably most like America as a whole. It has cities and rural populations. It has a mix of people and cultures. It's very diverse. It's northeastern, but also kind of midwestern and midatlantic at the same time. 

The biggest problem with it is the economy. As we know from Billy Joel's Allentown, we used to be big on our steelstacks, and our factories, and we lament the jobs that we once had, and how things once were. I think this is why Donald Trump won in 2016, and again in 2024 by the way. We are a state whose best days seem to be behind us, and we want someone who "makes America great again" by making Pennsylvania great again. 

With that said, let me explain the problem with the democratic party. In the modern era, it doesnt stand for anything. We always talk about job creation, but nothing ever seems to get better. We've had a lot of discussions on this stage tonight, about compromise, budgets, the economy, jobs, but at the end of the day, most candidates on this stage just gave the same ho hum answers. The same crap we've been hearing about for decades, and yet, at the end of the day, nothing ever seems to get better. The economy keeps growing but we don't share in that bounty. We keep talking about job creation until we're blue in the face but that doesn't stop my home town from having a median income at about roughly half of the national average, and one of the highest poverty rates in the country. Quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing about this crap, and I bet a lot of the audience is too. 

We need change. And that change can only come from the top down. Not from local action, but the federal government. That change involves doing something different than we've been doing. It involves embracing more state intervention in the economy on a level not seen since the New Deal era. It involves fighting the republicans and taking them on ideologically, not trying to play paddycakes with them as they obstruct us in every way that they can while stabbing us in the back. It involves not talk of job creation, but redistribution. 

Pennsylvania can be a great place to live if we rethink what our economy is supposed to look like. But that means a once in a generation paradigm shift not seen since the FDR days. It means embracing policies like universal basic income, medicare for all, free college, student debt forgiveness, public housing, a build back better-esque green new deal, and reducing the work week. 

We can keep trying to expect pennsylvanians to live up to a certain idea of what the economy should be, but that economic model is failing pennsylvanians and has been for decades. The fact is, jobs are not the answer and never will be. Jobs are tasks created by rich people to give poor people to do in exchange for money. But at the end of the day, businesses don't want to pay decent wages, and yet expect Americans to work and work and work their lives away. We keep talking about giving tax cuts to jeff bezos to sam walton or jeff bezos, expecting them to make jobs for us, and then we act surprised when these billionaires grow their fortunes while typical Americans work for something like $10-15 an hour. We expect people to work multiple jobs, and instead of seeing those people as victims and saying "this is horrible", we have presidents that just go on about how that's "uniquely American." I saw a guy who worked 99 hours a week for a grand total of $1150 or so, and was acting like it was a flex. No, "hustling" is not a good thing, you're being exploited and abused, you are a victim. But that's how many Pennsylvanians are expected to live in the modern era. Working our lives away for a pittance while those at the top get richer and richer. This needs to change.

So, sorry, I can't be prideful in living in a random place when quite frankly, my entire life has lived in an economic hellscape where all of this is considered "normal." It's sickening. And I'm running for office (I'm not, but I'm roleplaying being on the debate stage) so we can actually make Pennsylvania great again. So we can make it a good place to live. There's nothing inherently wrong with the state; the problems come from our economic model, and that's what I'm here to fix. If you want a status quo candidate who offers the same BS answers, feel free to vote for the other people on this stage. But if you want change, vote for me. Thank you for your time.