Resenting the poor (cont'd.)

August 25, 2011 By Fred Clark 86 Comments

Ed Kilgore notes that a vicious resentment of the working poor is fast becoming the central organizing principle for America’s right wing:

The transformation is widely observable across the conservative landscape, with Republican fiscal proposals in the states and in Washington going after a host of other key support systems for the working poor with a vengeance: state-level EITCs, job training programs, unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid, you name it. It’s also no coincidence that, in the agitation against the Affordable Care Act, many conservatives deliberately stoked resentment towards alleged redistribution of federal largesse from virtuous Medicare beneficiaries to the uninsured, who are, by definition, working individuals and families who don’t qualify for Medicaid for one reason or another.

Underlying this assault, there seems to be a current of genuine anger at the working families who no longer receive “welfare as we knew it,” but remain beneficiaries of some form of redistribution, even if it’s only progressive tax rates. … The social peace so many anticipated in 1996 — after it had been established that no one receiving public assistance could be accused of refusing to work — has now been broken. Work is no longer enough, it seems, to avoid the moral taint of being a “welfare bum.”

Paul Waldman adds to this, noting that the dishonest vogue talking point for everybody from Michelle Bachmann to Bill O’Reilly to Rick Warren and Rush Limbaugh is an attack on the progressive income-tax structure.

There’s no reason to suspect these folks are  arguing in good faith this time any more than they were in 1996. If we got rid of the progressive income tax and crushed working class families under a regressive flat rate and they would move the goalposts yet again, switching to complaints about those freeloading mooching working poor families who pay less in taxes in absolute terms.

Waldman notes that this scapegoating of working people is unavoidable for a political movement aiming to serve the needs of the wealthiest:

This argument about the leeches at the bottom, and in particular the misleading argument about taxes, is becoming central to Republican rhetoric. Not only are the presidential candidates and GOP members of Congress repeating it, it’s in heavy rotation on Fox News, conservative talk radio, and outlets like the Wall Street Journal.

As the party of the wealthy, the GOP has to continuously stoke the politics of resentment, making sure that the finger of accusation is always pointed downward and never up. People could put blame for our problems on banks, corporations, the wealthy, and those who represent the interests of all three. But that would never do. So you have to convince them that if the economy is bad, it’s because of poor people. If there’s a big deficit, it isn’t because of the Bush tax cuts, it’s because poor people aren’t paying their share. …

I understand the vampiric choice of attaining power by preying on others, so I’m not confused by the barons who choose the lucrative path of oppressing the poor.

Nor am I confused by their lackeys — the Fox News hosts and pundits-for-hire whom Clement would have called “servile flatterers” chasing after “the hope of a large return.”

The people I don’t understand are those in their target audience — those who have nothing to gain from that downward-pointing finger of accusation and that foolish nonsense about the “leeches at the bottom.”

The barons are selling their souls for worldly gain, but these folks are just giving theirs away in exchange for nothing but an empty hole where their souls used to be. The barons have their estates, but these poor bastards get nothing but the bitter taste of perpetual, impotent, misdirected resentment.

Filed Under: class warfare Tagged With: , , 86 Comments
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  • Sgt. Pepper’s Bleeding Heart

    So when any of them bash the “poor,” I start listening for the dog whistles.

    Having grown up poor in a poor area where the large majority of the poor were white: sometimes people just hate the poor because they’re the poor. It’s not always a cover for pure racism.

  • Anonymous

    As depressing as this is, the frequency with which this attack is now being mounted makes me (the littlest bit) optimistic. They see poll after incontrovertible poll calling for an increase in taxes so they lash out with, “Oh yeah? Higher taxes? Here’s an idea!” At least they are being forced to acknowledge the need for taxes, even if they are still trying to wave shiny, jangly, resentful keys in front of our eyes instead of responding like adults.

    See also the hilariously hypocritical opposition to extending lowered payroll taxes because they were supposed to be temporary.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1154247277 Kingtycoon Methuselah

    Hand in hand with this breed of resentment there is the uninformed half-optimistic view of capitalism that prevails among the middle classes.  The notion not that some people can overcome whatever odds, whatever hurdles and become a success – but rather that Everyone can do so.  Capitalism in many essential ways is a race- a competition – the thing about competitions – most people lose a race and just one wins.  Not everyone can have vast financial success and the sooner the mainstream realizes this – the sooner they’ll start to make rational decisions. 

    Why hate on the poor?  Because of the sneaking feeling that you’re one of them.  Why hate the rich?  Because you finally accept you’re never going to be one of them. 

  • Anonymous

    Arizona had a move on to make their EBT cards dayglo orange so they
    could be better identified in the checkout line. What they can be used
    for can be handled in software — this had no purpose beyond spite.

    Oh, lord.  Why didn’t they just tattoo a giant “P” on the foreheads of people below a certain income level, already?

  • Anonymous

    Arizona had a move on to make their EBT cards dayglo orange so they
    could be better identified in the checkout line. What they can be used
    for can be handled in software — this had no purpose beyond spite.

    Oh, lord.  Why didn’t they just tattoo a giant “P” on the foreheads of people below a certain income level, already?

  • Anonymous

    “but these poor bastards get nothing but the bitter taste of perpetual, impotent, misdirected resentment.”

    Let’s remember that most of them aren’t poor. If you look at the demographics of tea partiers, they are doing better than average in this recession so it’s not surprising that they’re willing to give more and more power to the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

    Sure, there are poor people who have misdirected resentment but they aren’t the ones controlling an entire political party and working in the primary organizations in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — those folks are middle and upper middle class. And they are convinced that the ravings of Ayn Rand (Queen of the sociopaths) are true and that hard working real Americans like themselves should not have to support leeches who are unwilling to work. Never mind that those “leeches” quite often have the same skin color they do and believe in Jesus Christ as they claim to do.

    Poor is the new gay in 2012 which was the new black in 2004. Poor is the group du jour to demonize to galvanize the resentful to vote republican in the next election.

  • Michael Cule

    “The wealthy and powerful have declared open war on the poor and the weak. Not all of the poor and weak, they assure us – but we never can seem to nail down exactly whom is exempt.”

    Why the Deserving Poor of course! Who will turn out to be  anyone whose story of being denied benefits is embarassing when repeated in the press.

    In the UK I am still seeing headlines about how Unfair it is that we are still paying Civil Servants. And that Civil Servants still get pay deals that the government honours. And that Civil Servants are wicked because they still have unions. I used to be a lowly Civil Servant and the resentment has spread to those who still have a little of what used to be regarded as basic for everyone before the Reagan/Thatcher years.

  • Michael Cule

    “The wealthy and powerful have declared open war on the poor and the weak. Not all of the poor and weak, they assure us – but we never can seem to nail down exactly whom is exempt.”

    Why the Deserving Poor of course! Who will turn out to be  anyone whose story of being denied benefits is embarassing when repeated in the press.

    In the UK I am still seeing headlines about how Unfair it is that we are still paying Civil Servants. And that Civil Servants still get pay deals that the government honours. And that Civil Servants are wicked because they still have unions. I used to be a lowly Civil Servant and the resentment has spread to those who still have a little of what used to be regarded as basic for everyone before the Reagan/Thatcher years.

  • http://apocalypsereview.wordpress.com/ Invisible Neutrino

    As I understand it, you live in Australia. The ethnic and racial composition of Australia is different from the USA, where in that country being poor is something whites don’t do, in the coded subtext of American poor-bashing.

  • Evilkate

    Privilege. Say it with me. Privilege.

    That is the core of what is tapped in any politics of resentment.

    On the confusion that often arises as to why many people would vote for a party that damages their interests – the question has to asked … ‘what interests’ – because people are not just one-dimensional. If you are poor, that does not conclude the whole of how you identify.

    Someone can be poor and have white privilege. Or they can have heterosexual privilege. Or, any number of different classes of privilege.

    The question then becomes identifying what aspect of identity matters most to someone. From there, it seems likely that, surely a threat to the privilege a person clings to will matter more than the  privilege someone else has. That is, a person strongly against gays infringing on marriage will be motivated by that far more than they would be by someone else being more wealthy than they are.

    If you lack a privilege, you can still aspire to attain it. However, if you have a privilege and are invested in it, stongly attached to maintaining it – well,  then someone else can aspire to it .. and a privilege clung to doesn’t like to be shared.

    If you examine the politics of resentment – actual cases of it in play – you can see this dynamic in action. The saddest part is many politicians don’t believe in the fears they are stoking … they’re just using them for their own political gratification.

  • Evilkate

    Privilege. Say it with me. Privilege.

    That is the core of what is tapped in any politics of resentment.

    On the confusion that often arises as to why many people would vote for a party that damages their interests – the question has to asked … ‘what interests’ – because people are not just one-dimensional. If you are poor, that does not conclude the whole of how you identify.

    Someone can be poor and have white privilege. Or they can have heterosexual privilege. Or, any number of different classes of privilege.

    The question then becomes identifying what aspect of identity matters most to someone. From there, it seems likely that, surely a threat to the privilege a person clings to will matter more than the  privilege someone else has. That is, a person strongly against gays infringing on marriage will be motivated by that far more than they would be by someone else being more wealthy than they are.

    If you lack a privilege, you can still aspire to attain it. However, if you have a privilege and are invested in it, stongly attached to maintaining it – well,  then someone else can aspire to it .. and a privilege clung to doesn’t like to be shared.

    If you examine the politics of resentment – actual cases of it in play – you can see this dynamic in action. The saddest part is many politicians don’t believe in the fears they are stoking … they’re just using them for their own political gratification.

  • Anonymous

    depizan: ER visits are still subsidized even if they try to bill you and even if you pay it. The costs of that service are spread out to other patients and insurance. It’s kind of a loss leader.

  • http://www.nightphoenix.com Amaranth

    There might be an element of outright fear to it. People are fed an image of the greedy, grasping poor person, who doesn’t go away when you give them a dime, but rather clings to your shirt sleeves, begs using every sob story in the book…and then slits your purse and steals your car for good measure.

    Fox News is perpetuating this notion that if you give said greedy unwashed masses so much of a sliver of charity, this will only galvanize the ungrateful wretches into stealing everything you have. I can imagine, for people who despite not being technically “poor” don’t have all that much to spare, this could be a frightening notion.

    It’s a combination of fear of having everything you have taken away from you, and the fear of being suckered.

  • http://willbikeforchange.wordpress.com/ storiteller

    I think those areas are where you start hearing nasty terms like “trailer trash” – as if to indicate, “We like white people, just not those white people.” Yeesh.

  • http://willbikeforchange.wordpress.com/ storiteller

    When I read the article about the payroll tax thing in the newspaper on the way home from work, it was really hard for me not to start yelling on the Metro.

  • Daughter

    OK,  my comments keep getting lost.  I posted in response to Tonio about a post that appeared yesterday on Balloon Juice called,”The depravity of the poor.”  The post described an article that cited a study that indicates that poor people are less likely to attend church than wealthier  people.  The article then laments the “depravity” of the poor, with lost of dog whistles about “those people.”

    Some Balloon Juice commenters noted the insidious racism of the article.  Because the study the article cites? Is about church attendance among whites.  Because the “poor don’t go to church” thesis doesn’t hold true for non-whites.   So the article was using a study only about whites to label poor people of color as “depraved.”

  • Anonymous

    That article — or rather an article that quotes an article that quotes an article — has been making the rounds of the blogosphere today.  The original article is just as jaw-dropping as the quotes from it.  It really reads like something out of the Onion.

    Worse, most of the comments seem to agree with him.

  • http://heartfout.typepad.com/blog/ Heartfout

     It wasn’t this was it?

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2011/08/22/our-depraved-poor/

    Because that made me rage.

  • http://apocalypsereview.wordpress.com/ Invisible Neutrino

    Hospitals can also take the loss and write it off in taxes, so even if nobody coughs up, they get subsidized.

  • Ann the Mad

    How is Lawson supposed to start his own life and family when he’s carrying his parents family on his back? Does Lawson not get to have his own life until enough of his siblings (i.e. his parents’ children) have gone out to work that the folks can finally support their own choices? That perspective makes sense within a post-Enlightenment, individualist worldview, where the default assumption is that adulthood means leaving the parental nest, being self-supporting, and establishing not just a separate household but eventually a separate family (the new adult, spouse(s), kids, very close friends and pets.)In that model, you have the family you grew up in, and the family you build and choose. It’s that building and choosing that can be the most wonderful and joyous part of, as you put it, having your own life.In the frame of reference of the Quiverfull world, though — as in a huge number of traditional cultures where the extended family is strong — your question is almost incomprehensible. Of course his parents’ family is his family. So’s his sister’s family. So’s his uncle’s, and his cousin’s. That’s what family means there — a permanent interconnection of obligation, duty, and authority. This is a worldview where going off to college is suspect and moving out of town is an act of deep betrayal. For a grown son to go off and “have his own life” is questionable in itself; usng that desire as a justification for not contributing to the family finances would be unconscionable. Banancat asks, “How can they brag about being debt-free when they are in debt to their son?” It’s the family that’s debt-free. Their son’s in their family, under their authority, caught in the web of obligation and duty. What’s his is theirs.

  • Ann the Mad

    How is Lawson supposed to start his own life and family when he’s carrying his parents family on his back? Does Lawson not get to have his own life until enough of his siblings (i.e. his parents’ children) have gone out to work that the folks can finally support their own choices? That perspective makes sense within a post-Enlightenment, individualist worldview, where the default assumption is that adulthood means leaving the parental nest, being self-supporting, and establishing not just a separate household but eventually a separate family (the new adult, spouse(s), kids, very close friends and pets.)In that model, you have the family you grew up in, and the family you build and choose. It’s that building and choosing that can be the most wonderful and joyous part of, as you put it, having your own life.In the frame of reference of the Quiverfull world, though — as in a huge number of traditional cultures where the extended family is strong — your question is almost incomprehensible. Of course his parents’ family is his family. So’s his sister’s family. So’s his uncle’s, and his cousin’s. That’s what family means there — a permanent interconnection of obligation, duty, and authority. This is a worldview where going off to college is suspect and moving out of town is an act of deep betrayal. For a grown son to go off and “have his own life” is questionable in itself; usng that desire as a justification for not contributing to the family finances would be unconscionable. Banancat asks, “How can they brag about being debt-free when they are in debt to their son?” It’s the family that’s debt-free. Their son’s in their family, under their authority, caught in the web of obligation and duty. What’s his is theirs.

  • Ann the Mad

    How is Lawson supposed to start his own life and family when he’s carrying his parents family on his back? Does Lawson not get to have his own life until enough of his siblings (i.e. his parents’ children) have gone out to work that the folks can finally support their own choices? That perspective makes sense within a post-Enlightenment, individualist worldview, where the default assumption is that adulthood means leaving the parental nest, being self-supporting, and establishing not just a separate household but eventually a separate family (the new adult, spouse(s), kids, very close friends and pets.)In that model, you have the family you grew up in, and the family you build and choose. It’s that building and choosing that can be the most wonderful and joyous part of, as you put it, having your own life.In the frame of reference of the Quiverfull world, though — as in a huge number of traditional cultures where the extended family is strong — your question is almost incomprehensible. Of course his parents’ family is his family. So’s his sister’s family. So’s his uncle’s, and his cousin’s. That’s what family means there — a permanent interconnection of obligation, duty, and authority. This is a worldview where going off to college is suspect and moving out of town is an act of deep betrayal. For a grown son to go off and “have his own life” is questionable in itself; usng that desire as a justification for not contributing to the family finances would be unconscionable. Banancat asks, “How can they brag about being debt-free when they are in debt to their son?” It’s the family that’s debt-free. Their son’s in their family, under their authority, caught in the web of obligation and duty. What’s his is theirs.

  • Anonymous

    I have to disagree with you here.  When Josh Duggar got married, his parents made a giant deal about “leave and cleave” and claimed that he was completely independent of them.  Of course it’s all a steaming pile of lies, but in QF, they do like to pretend that their children are financially independent once they grow up.

  • Anonymous

    I have to disagree with you here.  When Josh Duggar got married, his parents made a giant deal about “leave and cleave” and claimed that he was completely independent of them.  Of course it’s all a steaming pile of lies, but in QF, they do like to pretend that their children are financially independent once they grow up.

  • Anonymous

    I have to disagree with you here.  When Josh Duggar got married, his parents made a giant deal about “leave and cleave” and claimed that he was completely independent of them.  Of course it’s all a steaming pile of lies, but in QF, they do like to pretend that their children are financially independent once they grow up.

  • Ann the Mad

    oops. I hate Disqus.

  • Ann the Mad

    I stand corrected.
    And it absolutely makes sense that wingnuts would refuse to give any financial support to a healthy, young, able-bodied adult. Even one they gave birth to. Moocher.
    The Duggars give me the heebie-jeebies, so I’m grateful that somebody else is watching them so I don’t have to. Do you know if Josh was contributing financially to the family before he married?
    Were they losing income by letting him go, or were they saving money on the grocery bill? I’m cynical enough to think that makes a difference.

  • Anonymous

    Josh Duggar comes across as lazy and spoiled, and his nickname is Smuggar for a reason.  I can’t be too hard on him because his horrible joke of an education really failed him.  But he was definitely not contributing financially to the household before he left.

    However, for all their “leave and cleave” bragging, his parents are still supporting him.  He lives in a house owned by his grandma, and if he pays rent at all, it’s massively discounted.  His father gave him a used car lot and may still own the title for the property.  Josh generally waltzes into work around 10 a.m., although to be fair, I doubt many people are buying used cars at 8 a.m.  He is known for being consistently late for everything though.

    But the Duggars are Evangalists first, and they have a lifestyle to sell.  They want others to believe that if you just have as many kids as possible, if you just give up tv, if you just stop wearing pants (for women), if you just homeschool, if you just follow this very long list of rules, it’s a perfect formula that will produce perfect children who will never go through teenage rebellion and will turn into hard-working adults who will be able to have only one income and still support a family that increases in size almost every year.

    I actually don’t begrudge all the help Josh is getting.  I just wish they wouldn’t all be so smug and holier-than-thou about it.  Lying is a sin except when it helps you to lure people in.

    The Bateses are a very different story though.  They aren’t nearly rich enough to give all their sons and sons-in-laws their own houses and businesses.  They still subscribe to the QF rule of “leave and cleave”, but they’ll have to actually do it out of necessity.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the sons continued to give money to the parents though.

  • Anonymous

    Josh Duggar comes across as lazy and spoiled, and his nickname is Smuggar for a reason.  I can’t be too hard on him because his horrible joke of an education really failed him.  But he was definitely not contributing financially to the household before he left.

    However, for all their “leave and cleave” bragging, his parents are still supporting him.  He lives in a house owned by his grandma, and if he pays rent at all, it’s massively discounted.  His father gave him a used car lot and may still own the title for the property.  Josh generally waltzes into work around 10 a.m., although to be fair, I doubt many people are buying used cars at 8 a.m.  He is known for being consistently late for everything though.

    But the Duggars are Evangalists first, and they have a lifestyle to sell.  They want others to believe that if you just have as many kids as possible, if you just give up tv, if you just stop wearing pants (for women), if you just homeschool, if you just follow this very long list of rules, it’s a perfect formula that will produce perfect children who will never go through teenage rebellion and will turn into hard-working adults who will be able to have only one income and still support a family that increases in size almost every year.

    I actually don’t begrudge all the help Josh is getting.  I just wish they wouldn’t all be so smug and holier-than-thou about it.  Lying is a sin except when it helps you to lure people in.

    The Bateses are a very different story though.  They aren’t nearly rich enough to give all their sons and sons-in-laws their own houses and businesses.  They still subscribe to the QF rule of “leave and cleave”, but they’ll have to actually do it out of necessity.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the sons continued to give money to the parents though.

  • Lori

     I actually don’t begrudge all the help Josh is getting. 

     

    I don’t begrudge it all that much either. The education they provided him was a total joke. The functional reality is that they raised him to be stupid. After leaving him so ill-equipped to deal with the real world I figure hooking him up is the least they can do since they’re able. Of course, from here on out the boy needs to be responsible for himself and smarten up. 

    Yeah, like that’s going to happen. 

      I just wish they wouldn’t all be so smug and holier-than-thou about it.  Lying is a sin except when it helps you to lure people in. 

     

    Or when it’;s the only way for you to live with yourself and the choices you’ve made and the way you’ve totally f’ed up you (very large number of) children. 

  • Daughter

    Heartfout, I think so. I read the Balloon Juice post that quotes from it, but the quotes sound familiar.

  • Sgt. Pepper’s Bleeding Heart

    As I understand it, you live in Australia. The ethnic and racial composition of Australia is different from the USA, where in that country being poor is something whites don’t do, in the coded subtext of American poor-bashing.

    Yeah, I do and it is* and I get that, which is why I haven’t said anything about this before. But for quite a while now there have been discussions here about class issues which have many commonalities with my experience. And (it seems to me anyway) that every time Tonio says something along the lines of “I think this is really fundamentally about race, not class”. Which says to me that all the crap that’s been loaded on my family for decades is not real, because it’s definitely not about race in our case, nor are we likely to have been caught in the crossfire of a conflict about race. It’s been really bothering me–increasingly so, and maybe more than it should. But there you go.

    *We definitely have race issues, but they’re different–at least in part because Aboriginal people make up only 2.5% of the population, and in many areas much less than that. In my experience, race-based resentment in Australia is out in the open, not couched in terms of something else.

  • Woodsider

     Yes, the ER has to treat the EMERGENCY; it doesn’t have to provide ongoing, continuing treatment for the health problem. It won’t give you a prescription for 30 days worth of a diabetic drug, just that day’s doses. ERs do not do cancer treatment — the pain you’re in right now, this minute, yes; the continuing chemo you need, no.

    So the quiverfull family is headed by an ignorant, willfully stupid fool; and they do not love their children.

  • Tonio

    I doubt there is such a thing as “pure racism.” What I’m describing is not a cover for racism but a mentality of resentment, where the line between the poor and non-whites becomes blurred to one degree or another in their minds. Frequently they insist on a distinction between poor people who “work hard” and those who are “welfare bums.”

  • RickRS

    Adding to Woodsider’s comment that ER treat the EMERGENCY; my wife works for an agency that help the homeless get shelter and care.  One of the saddest story she brought home from work was of the only local hospital, a “for profit” business. One of her persons she had gotten an apartment for was having complications from diabetes and went to the ER.  They gave him minimum they were required to for someone without insurance or means; a check of vitial signs and then pushed him out without any treatment.  To ensure he didn’t come back for a while, they payed a cab to drive him ~ 4 miles home.  He died in the cab.

  • Jeremy

    There was some speculation the other day that it was the “I don’t want to be last” phenomenon. There was a study (sorry, I’ve lost the link, but it was in the last week) which seemed to indicate that people just up from the very bottom oppose policy that would make them better off but ALSO help those below them, particularly if those below them might catch up.

    Having someone even worse off than you means you haven’t “lost” the great American game of capitalism, in which wealth is how you keep score.

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