Micheal Moore has it wrong!

The death of the "Middle class" did not happen with the Reagan PATCO firings. It happened when the working class accepted the label "Middle Class". They were not middle class, they were simply the most affluent working class the world had ever seen. Once they accepted the tag "middle class" they were doomed. Why? A Middle Class is anti-union, tends to support wars, and votes Republican.

The timing of the rot really started in under Nixon. This was when Union hard hats sided with Nixon over the Vietnam war and beat up war protesters. To the cheers of this ersatz "middle class". This was also the time of the phony oil shortage when US Corporations found they could make more profit creating shortages than making products, and get away with it.

The non reaction of workers to the Reagan firings of PATCO firings was the inevitable consequence of a working class identifying themselves as middle class. And, just to remind you, PATCO actually supported Reagan in the election!

I couldn't agree more.

The working class was conned and didn't even know they were being conned. Too many still don't.

I was pretty young then and a lot more concerned about getting laid then politics so I can't really comment about "voter sentiment" but the history of the era certainly demonstrates how the country could panic

Many hippies did indeed drop out of the election because Humphrey was a war hawk. Hard hats were like teabaggers. Astroturfed. They would not have refused to vote for Humphrey since Humphry was prowar and not at all a HIPPY CANIDIDATE.

In addition Southern Dems became republicans over the civil rights movement.

The union hardhats jeering at the antiwar protestors trusted the President and Congress so much that any challenge to either institution was tantamount to being unpatriotic. And the nationalistic mantle was the price some of the the middle class accepted in exchange for the government continuing its economic policies that benefitted them. Nothing is for free after all. There were liberals in the middle class who still supported unions while being antiwar; they just didn't get the same publicity as the hardhats.

When the Vietnam War started, I was living in my native Alabama. I remember a fellow teacher saying that her career Army brother liked being in Vietnam because he got extra pay. About 1968, I remember talking with an Alabama career Army relative who totally supported the war. However, after the war dragged on, it was necessary to draft people. It is my firm belief, based on what I knew about my town, that in the South, blacks were the first to be drafted. It wasn't until later in the war that young white Southerners feared the draft.

I moved to Boston in 1967 and, with the huge student population, there was a lot of anti-war sentiment. I lived in an Irish-Italian blue-collar neighborhood. At first the older folks supported the war because they were so patriotic and so many of their relatives had fought in World War II. However, it was their sons and nephews who were getting killed in Vietnam, so their attitudes began to change.

government is the problem. the bizness is swell. union bad.