u/RandomGuy92x

Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK with a population of over 1 million people. Currently, around 30% of Birmingham's population are Muslims, a number that has more than doubled over the last 25 years. With Christians making up only 34% of Birmingham's population Islam will almost certainly become the plurality religion in Birmingham within the next couple of years. And beyond that it is actually realistic to assume that Birmingham will eventually become a Muslim-majority city within our lifetime.

Now, I am personally left-leaning. But what I absolutely hate is that a lot of people on the Islamist-aligned left will tell you that anyone who is concerned about this development must be a hateful bigot and a racist. Which I think is absolutely crazy. It's crazy that British people who grew up in Birmingham, and who lived there for generations and shaped the local culture would be called hateful bigots and racists simply for making their voice heard that they do not wish to live in a Muslim-majority city.

And to think that this would not radically change the local culture for the worse is absurd. According to a 2015 poll, for example, 39% of UK Muslims think wives must always obey their husband, 23% would like sharia to be introduced in parts of the UK and 31% think it's acceptable for British Muslim men to have more than one wife.

Also, the UK has already experience significant problems with Islamic extremism. There have been major Islamic terrorist attacks. Or a British teacher has been in hiding in their own country for several years after showing his students a drawing of the prophet Muhammed during their religion class and receiving countless death threats from British jihadists. Or, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood, a proscribed terrorist organization in several countries, is freely roaming college campuses in the UK and radicalizing British Islamic youth.

And of course there are countless jihadist extremist preachers freely preaching in mosques across the UK. People like the infamous Anjem Choudary who once advocated for the killing of apostates in a BBC interview live on national TV, and who founded the since banned jihadist organization Islam4UK which publicly advocated for sharia law in the UK. Choudary has thankfully since been jailed for life for directing a terrorist organization. But not before he was freely travelling the UK as a jihadist preacher for almost 3 decades, and being allowed to freely promote his batshit crazy jihadist version of Islam in mosques across the country. And many others like him will continue on with his work, and unlike Choudary will probably never face legal consequences for their promotion of jihad and sharia law in the British Islamic community.

So the fact that Europe will quite realistically see its first Muslim-majority city with 1 million+ population in the coming decades is very worrying. And it's crazy that some people will call those who grew up there, and who don't want to live in a Muslim-majority city hateful bigots and racists.

I know many people seem to disagree. But that's just a basic fact.

If you're an ordinary working class person in terms of actual standards of living you would almost certainly be better off in wealthy European countries like Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands etc. or other wealthy Western nations like Australia or New Zealand.

On the surface wages for regular working class jobs may not necessarily look quite that bad in the US.

But if you account for the cost of healthcare, childcare and higher education in the US, the need to have massive retirement savings, the lack of paid maternity leave, the lack of financial support in times of temporary unemployment, the lack of affordable and accessible public transportation and generally also much higher costs of living and rent/mortgage then you realize that working class people in the US are significantly worse off than their peers in Europe.

Highly qualified professionals on the other hand, e.g. doctors, engineers, lawyers, architects etc. are typically better off in the US though in terms of standards of living.

However, there can be no doubt that regular working class people, and especially lower class and blue collar working class people are worse off in the US in terms of standards of living compared to their peers in wealthy European nations.

I think Democrats are better than Republicans.

But they're still a neoconservative party that is very much pro war, pro Wall Street, pro Big Oil, pro military industrial complex, pro Israel, pro Big Tech, pro foreign meddling and that doesn't truly give a flying fk about working class people.

I think Republicans are worse. But I also believe that one of the many reasons why Trump is even a thing on the political arena is because of how badly Democrats suck, and how they're clearly in bed with the elites while pretending to care about the common man or woman.

To change this, working class people need to actually become politically active. And no, checking a box on a ballot every two to four years does not mean being politically active.

I think if working class people want to prevent the elites from continuing to fk them over eventually they're gonna have to organize and create their own party. And yes, there are already some third parties in the US. But the reason they are totally irrelevant is because at the moment clearly there are very very few people who are seriously invested in those parties.

But if working class people actually came together to create a new political party, and instead of accepting corporate donations ordinary people just donated a little bit every month or year, suddenly ordinary working class people could bring about enormous change.

Let's say 50 million working class people came together to create a pro working class party. And the average person chips in only $5 per month. Now you'd have a budget of $3 billion per year or around $12 billion every election cycle. Easily enough to actually have a shot to get an actual pro working class President elected who isn't compromised by the corporate lobby or the ultra-wealthy.

And I'm not even a socialist or a communist. So I'm not advocating for the creation of some radical Marxist extremist party like the "Communist Party USA" for instance. No, I just think the US needs a common sense pro working class party that actually GENUINELY advocates for the interests of ordinary people because it hasn't been bought and paid for by the elites.

But to do that people need to actually become politically active, and realize that they have to take things into their own hands and that checking a box on a ballot every couple years isn't nearly enough to bring about actual change.