The Republican’s Old Divide-and-Conquer Strategy-Setting Working Class Against the Poor-Is Backfirin

[pampango]

For almost forty years Republicans have pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy intended to convince working-class whites that the poor were their enemies. The big news is it’s starting to backfire.

Republicans told the working class that its hard-earned tax dollars were being siphoned off to pay for “welfare queens” (as Ronald Reagan decorously dubbed a black single woman on welfare) and other nefarious loafers. The poor were “them” — lazy, dependent on government handouts, and overwhelmingly black — in sharp contrast to “us,” who were working ever harder, proudly independent (even sending wives and mothers to work, in order to prop up family incomes dragged down by shrinking male paychecks), and white.

Economic insecurity is endemic. Working-class whites who used to be cushioned against the vagaries of the market are now fully exposed to them. Trade unions that once bargained on behalf of employees and protected their contractual rights have withered. Informal expectations of lifelong employment with a single company are gone. Company loyalty has become a bad joke.

Which means Republican opposition to extended unemployment insurance, food stamps, jobs programs, and a higher minimum wage pose a real danger of backfiring on the GOP.

http://robertreich.org/post/72770488951

[liberalla]

1. Repubs have been worked long and hard to destroy the working class.

The working class and the poor are moving closer and closer. If not you personally, then likely members of your own family have entered "the poor" classification. Now you have to hate and blame your Mom, Dad, son, daughter, sister, brother for ruining the economy and taking your tax dollars. Of course it will backfire.

"This new face of poverty — a face that’s both poor, near-poor, and precarious working middle, and that’s simultaneously black, Latino, and white — renders the old Republican divide-and-conquer strategy obsolete. Most people are now on the same losing side of the divide."


[font size=3]"Most people are now on the same losing side of the divide."[/font]

[Bandit]

2. Yet Republicans still get people to vote for them in large numbers

A MAJOR part of the GOP's success in getting out the votes is "Absentee Voting" The GOP actually mails out absentee ballots to every registered Republican in their districts and that is HUGE. Democrats for some strange reason have fought against "Vote By Mail" for decades now even though places that have "Vote By Mail" such as Oregon have higher Democratic turnout than most other States. It is just so very much more convenient. No long lines, no worries about "early voting" or finding a parking spot, or missing some work, or running into that person you have been avoiding for quite some time. Simple, you have time to fully examine your ballot and then just let the mail man pick it up and it is done...Why would intelligent people oppose such a thing?