Why the Republican Strategy to Set Working Class Whites Against the Poor is Backfiring

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/why-republican-strategy-set-working-class-whites-against-poor-backfiring




For almost 40 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.

It was a cunning strategy designed to split the broad Democratic coalition that had supported the New Deal and Great Society, by using the cleavers of racial prejudice and economic anxiety. It also conveniently fueled resentment of government taxes and spending.

The strategy also served to distract attention from the real cause of the working class's shrinking paychecks -- corporations that were busily busting unions, outsourcing abroad, and replacing jobs with automated equipment and, subsequently, computers and robotics.

[Live and Learn]

1. Yep, we were against them until we were them.

Or at least began to believe we could become them.

[another_liberal]

2. You had it right the first time.

We are them.

[Live and Learn]

3. True, but not all of us realize it yet. nt

[Enthusiast]

7. And there lies the problem.

Nearly the entire media is united to maintain the false narrative. We are up against the greatest propaganda effort the world has ever seen.

[another_liberal]

11. True.

Not all, not by a long shot.

[el_bryanto]

12. So you believe there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats? nt

[another_liberal]

16. Don't be silly. I think no such thing, and I said no such thing.

Furthermore, I resent that you tried to put that meaning on what I did say. Your insinuation was both hurtful and unfounded.

[Warpy]

28. Reaganism beggared the lot of us

So a man with a job looks at a man in a doorway and now counts the number of paychecks that would land him right beside the guy in that doorway. That's why it's backfiring. We're now too poor to save for common emergencies, any one of which could land us on the street.

The rich have been pampered into becoming utterly ridiculous. The rest of us have been forced into a terrifying system with no way out.

Now the last decision they have to make is whether the revolution is peaceful or not.

[adirondacker]

31. +1000. Well stated!

[toby jo]

4. The welfare kings - Romney, Google, fb, big oil,etc. have been leaving a massive profile

of greed. Hard to get concerned about bubba and chico stealing a loaf of bread while these guys have walked off with the farm and the livestock, too.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Unfortunately, Democrats don't push a good alternative

Our party pushes a we-suck-less alternative instead. "Obama and the Clintons will cut your Social Security less than the Republicans will, suckers!"

So there is no message from a major political party that appeals to most voters. And nature abhors a vacuum. So either we Democrats start actually trying to help Americans (a la Elizabeth Warren and the handful of other FDR Democrats), or someone else will capture them. And that someone else might not be very good for us.

[xchrom]

6. ...

[Enthusiast]

8. Absolutely right on.

[99Forever]

9. My sentiments exactly.

I'll never hold my nose and vote for the less stinking of two stinking choices again, no matter what the phony letter following their name says.

Want my support? EARN IT.

[okaawhatever]

18. The Republicans thank you for your support. That is one of the reasons their primary goal is to

stop Obama from accomplishing anything. If they can't get the majority to agree with them, they can get the majority to get tired of nothing being done. Owning the media helps the effort. Don't bother responding, I won't read it.

[Fumesucker]

20. Go ahead and hold your breath until you turn blue

That's not going to make people who, rightly or wrongly, feel betrayed love those who they think betrayed them.

[99Forever]

21. Fuck the Republicans...

... and anyone fool enough to think that by expecting Democrats to ACT like Democrats, instead of a watered down version of Republican, is "supporting Republicans" quite frankly, doesn't likely have the reading skills to understand reality anyway.

Have fun not reading this.

[Doctor_J]

13. They give it lip service though

Obama is supposedly making "income inequality" the focus of this year's midterms. But people have seen from his first five years in office that he and the Dems don't deliver.

[VanillaRhapsody]

27. Then run for office Manny!

there's always that...

It's as if we can just ***wish*** better candidates to be available..."its like good people don't want the job" or something!


So...when are you putting in your hat Manny?

[MannyGoldstein]

30. Warren, Markey and Kennedy are my Congressional representatives

My state and local representatives in government are cut from the same cloth.

Not much I could really do to improve things.

[VanillaRhapsody]

32. Need more than three to run a country Manny...

sorry...Just complaining about "the field" changes nothing....in fact quite the opposite. I am sure there are Republican's in your state in some office that needs to be "changed"

As Ed Schultz would say "get after it"!

[MannyGoldstein]

33. In Mass, more seats contested by Green Party than by Republicans

It's actually frustrating to me that there's little to be done unless I move pretty far away.

[VanillaRhapsody]

34. Bully for you....the rest of us live elsewhere AND most HAVE to deal with

Republicans...like it or not.

So easy for YOU to criticize from your bastion of liberal politics.

[ctsnowman]

10. I agree

with the overall message of the article but not the projected outcome. I saw Kansas City get hollowed out back in the 70s through 90s. The people are still blaming illegals and gubment regulations and high taxes and... everything except the people they voted for.

TFTP

[Doctor_J]

14. Yeah, the "backfire" meme is BS

they will pick up seats hits November and probably again in 2016. As noted above the Dems could probably MAKE this backfire, but it would require acting like Dems, which they refuse to do.

[ctsnowman]

15. Exactly!

[Johonny]

24. I agree

hard to feel the backfiring when the Republicans hold 1 house of congress and have strong numbers in the other house. We all know what Republicans do but sadly they do it because it has and continues to work.

[okaawhatever]

17. A fantastic story about the "welfare queen" of Reagan came out recently and she was white, likely

Indian ancestry, and was probably a murderer, kidnapper, sold kidnapped children, multiple counts of identity theft among other charges. She was a sociopath of the highest order. Fascinating story, I put a link and excerpts in good reads.

[jwirr]

19. Quite simple - because the middle class is just finding out what the poor knew all along. They have

always been one step away from the bread lines even if they did not know it.

[Populist_Prole]

22. Bingo!

Still it's dismaying to know they are getting wise ( at least those are ARE getting wise ) to the PTB not out of some new found empathy for the poor, but rather fear of becoming one of them.

[Populist_Prole]

23. If only

I'm still seeing people ( friends, family, co-workers ) continuing to bark up the wrong tree; even as the evidence mounts that they are. A couple of people are actually moving in the wrong direction and becoming more conservative. Bigotry and gun banning paranoia is a HUGE obstacle to rational thought.

"Kiss Up & Kick Down" has become KICK up and Kick Down: Even when or if they realize the PTB is screwing them, they refuse to identify with those poorer than they. Among my unionized coworkers, some were scoffing and full of contempt for the fast-food or retail workers striking or demonstrating for a $15.00/Hour minimum wage. It's like they themselves can't make more, then everyone else should make less.

[Kurovski]

25. K&R& thanks, xchrom.

Happy new year.

[Skittles]

26. setting younger generations against Boomers seems to be working though

I've seen that on DU

[uriel1972]

29. The middle class has become the working poor...

What we do with that knowledge shall become interesting. Will we see a strategy of a living wage/welfare state or will we see the fall of an empire into petty squabbling robber baronies? I hope for the best, expect the worst.