Twitter just obliterated a Republican Congressman for accusing poor people of being lazy [View all]
Perhaps the most odious part of modern American conservatism is the sanctimonious bootstraps-and-grit fantasies they constantly invoke to condescendingly excuse their utter disdain for anybody who isn’t pouring money into their campaign war chests.
Sadly, the noble ideals of the American Dream have been twisted and perverted for a most heinous task. They now function as a convenient way to shift blame for the deliberate cruelty of today’s exploitative and abusive political economy away from the wealth-hoarding oligarchs that control access to the majority of society’s resources back on to the victims of said capitalistic excess.
That insidious narrative was put on full display this afternoon when Rep. Stephen Meeks (R-AR) took to Twitter to engage in some preposterous and delusional poor-shaming.
A homeless man can go to school, get a job driving a truck making $70k per year and in 20 years become a millionaire.
In America you can work hard and change your future – if you chose. https://t.co/lFGqZA53ao
— Rep. Stephen Meeks (@RepStephenMeeks) November 17, 2018
It’s their own fault, cry the Republicans. It’s their fault that that wages have been stagnant for decades while worker productivity skyrockets. It’s their fault that nearly all the jobs created since the recession are part-time, insecure gig economy or contract jobs that deny workers the stability and the security they need.
Read more: https://washingtonpress.com/2018/11/17/a-republican-congressman-just-tried-to-blame-poor-americans-for-their-own-poverty-and-it-immediately-backfired-2/
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