Bulldozers Are Not Politically Correct

People have weird biases

Maria Shimizu Christensen
2 min readMay 6, 2022

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Photo by Zac Edmonds on Unsplash

Apparently, some political conservatives think that construction and heavy machinery are topics that liberals find distasteful, or want to cancel, or something. It’s a weird thought process to get to that opinion, considering that Democratic roots are thoroughly planted in working class soil.

So, what’s the basis for my claim? I write on NewsBreak. Yes, yes, I know, put that aside for a minute. I recently wrote an article about a local event that received exactly the comment I expected it to. It’s a very new article as of this writing, so I’m sure I’ll get more.

I write quick and formulaic articles for the site on specific topics — arts, entertainment, recreation, local events. The minimal time investment makes it worthwhile.

The event I wrote about is called “Dozer Day” and it’s a thing where kids and adults can get a chance to operate heavy machinery and construction equipment, among other things. I think it’s kind of cool. Most kids love construction sites, and the whole “look at that big truck!” kind of thing, and there’s next to no chance that outside of an event like this they would be able to climb all over those types of equipment.

You can talk about gentrification and the bulldozing of neighborhoods and the price of unchecked growth, but you can also talk about bridges and roads and green building. There’s nothing inherently wrong with construction.

Now, the commenter on the article wasn’t trying to be nasty. He thought the event sounded awesome and was a little surprised that it’s happening in an atmosphere of political correctness.

Another commenter did mean to be nasty and employed sarcasm to that end. Anyone who knows anything about NewsBreak knows this is common. I never engage with any comments, so, whatever.

Look, the building trades have historically skewed conservative. I worked in the industry for over 20 years and can attest to that. But that doesn’t mean that liberals hate the construction industry just because a lot of its workers are conservative. This is all very simplistic, of course, but so are the opinions of my commenters.

It’s really just an interesting look into an illogical mindset.

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Maria Shimizu Christensen

Writer. Maker. Featured in Medium’s 2021 list of Stories That Started Conversations. I write about life. https://www.mariashimizuchristensen.com