Asked to repost. Rural people see themselves as hard working, tax paying Christians

[Horse with no Name]

Even in areas of high non-white areas.
As I tried to point out, the white establishment still rules (I can speak here in this part of the south). Interestingly, many of those that are poverty stricken are classed as such too, regardless of ethnicity.
Most of the time, they are ruled by the iron fist of the police and courts to keep them oppressed.
We saw a great example of this in Ferguson. My town is a mirror image of Ferguson.
So then the next logical step is that NONE of the people that actually oppress these people THINK that they do.
The oppression is done through work and schools and enforced by the heavy legal presence.
We don't have a Food Stamp office....but, we have a heavily staffed probation office.
Our town doesn't have a day care facility but has multiple pay day loan/signature loan offices.
So...if you ask these people what they think about themselves.
They will tell you that they are hard working, tax paying Christians.
They will tell you what THEY need....which is better jobs with better benefits.
What they won't tell you is that they are under the impression that the "others" are all receiving lots of food stamps, free healthcare and paychecks on THEIR tax dollar and that is the SOLE reason that they are stuck in their rut because they are paying for the "lazy welfare queens". They are also under the false belief that the ones receiving these benefits live in nicer houses, drive better cars, get better healthcare and eat better than they do.
So instead of working to promote unions and higher wages and more benefits for themselves, they truly believe the only solution is to TAKE BACK those benefits that these others have as if in so doing, it will increase THEIR take home pay, which it won't.
They can't understand that this is a very small amount of their taxes.
They don't want to hear that the military budget and tax cuts to billionaires are killing them because of the pervasive nationalistic message that invades the local conversation.
They trip over themselves to buy a veteran a sandwich so that they can pat themselves on the back and post on Facebook what a great person they are. However, they don't blink twice when republicans cut the budget to the veterans.
There is an incredible lack of ignorance or understanding on how federal budgets work and what the function of a government is.
So....here is an insight to this. They don't think THEY are the problem. They think THEY are the solution to the problem.
How do you fix that?

[Horse with no Name]

1. Interestingly, in our area

"single moms" (of any color) are now the "lazy welfare queens".

Regardless of if the Mom works full time or not....the child support that the baby daddy pays is looked upon as welfare.

[TexasProgresive]

3. Is that a new aspect of "slut shaming"?

I wish people would just get a little nicer to each other. Any move in that direction would be heartening.

[Horse with no Name]

5. I think so

in the local TOPIX.....there was a cesspool thread calling out single Mom's by names--this appeared to be done by the baby daddy and new step moms.
The single mom's typically get to claim Head of Household and since this is an area of low wage jobs, they almost all get Earned Income Credits.
The dad's think that they deserve the big income tax checks because THEY PAY (many time state minimum of $200 month) for their kids. Not only does that $200 pay for housing, child care, food, clothing....they also strongly feel that they pay for any luxury that the mom does for herself.
It is sickening.

[Horse with no Name]

8. From the same post (the post that preceded this one)

I have lived in rural America most of my life. For polite society, they are going to tell you that it is economic and it is to an extent. But....that is a simple soundbite answer for a very complex situation.
In rural areas, THE social activity is church. These are conservative churches who preach social issues and intolerance from the pulpit during the service and at the potluck the men are going to talk about the "real reasons" they don't have good paying jobs. The uppity negroes and libril wimmen who are stealing the jobs.
The messicans who are crossing the border and clogging up the ER's and stealing food stamps and healthcare--making these things unobtainable for hard-working folks like themselves.
There are very few rural people you are going to be able to pull in to vote for a Democrat. There might be a few that don't attend church (but they usually don't vote either).
I live in a town that is almost 60% black.
The government is 100% white.
The school is 80% black.
The School Board is 100% white.
The school is falling down. The town will NOT support a bond to upgrade or build the school--even though the surrounding districts (where all of the white kids go to school out of district) all enjoy new schools and facilities.
We have to quit chasing something we can't get unless we want to give up the core of who WE are.
We need to quit holding grudges after primary fights and pull together around the candidate. THAT is why the pubbies win elections.

[phylny]

14. I work with many poor, single mothers of all races.

The baby daddy doesn't pay child support in many cases I'm familiar with. Or, baby mama and daddy live together, but won't get married because they'll lose support. Or baby daddy has several children strewn throughout the county/region.

They can't go to work because their wages at Walmart or a convenience store are crap but they are wages, so since there's money coming in they'll lose benefits. They can't go to work because by the time they lose benefits and pay for childcare, they're in the hole. Or they work off the books, which hurts us all and will hurt them if, God willing, we still have Social Security when they're ready to retire.

The stress of day-to-day living is etched into their young faces. There are no good-paying jobs (crap Internet, so they can't even try a cottage industry or work on the Internet) so most young women graduate from high school, look around, and WHOOPS! they're pregnant - that'll give them something to do and someone to love who'll love them back.

Generational poverty is an interesting thing. I took a course on it and basically, it's such a difficult thing to change. It's different, too, from situational poverty (Situational: immigrants come to this country and start at the bottom rung and are poor, but that doesn't usually last for a variety of reasons or woman gets divorced and she's suddenly in poverty, but it doesn't usually last because she sees her situation as different, not a life-long sentence).

[guillaumeb]

2. All that has to be done to start changing this:

First, to replace the current corporate controlled media with an actual investigative media.
Second, to rewrite the textbooks that reinforce what these people have been taught about US history,
Third, make progressive radio as omnipresent as is Limbaugh.
Fourth, we need a progressive tax code with at least a 75% top marginal tax rate levied on earned and unearned income.

Of course all of that would take billions, and years to undo what the rich have been doing since the 1970's.

[LisaM]

6. I don't think progressive radio will work.

I listened to Air America and all the progressive shows when they aired, but the sameness got to me. I think it's a whole different mindset that makes right wingers listen to a POV forced on them all day. It's like sports radio. No matter how much the hosts try to talk about anything but the NFL, they have trouble getting the audience to talk about other sports. The phones stop lighting up. I think it's the same with right-wing radio. They have their audience and the audience will talk about the same thing and the same perceived grievances with the same terminology for years. Progressives need more diversity and nuance and variety.

[guillaumeb]

7. In Chicago, WCPT took over when Air America went off the air.

And the right wing has invested billions and years in cultivating an audience. The left by contrast does not have the money to subsidize a media network, and we are 50 years behind the 1% in working to change the conversation.

[Wounded Bear]

4. You may want to edit the 3rd from last statement...

There certainly is no "lack of ignorance" on their part.

[bravenak]

9. You cannot fix it

You can only redirect their anger elsewhere for a short time. These people are living with intergenerational beliefs about how this nation is. This has been a belief since the plantation, that the 'white man's burden' is taking 'care' of everybody else. Rudyard Kipling even wrote a poem about it...

White folks back in slave times believed that the people doing ALLL THE DAMN WORK ON THE PLANTATIONS, were LAZY NWORDS who they had to take care of and boy was it hard to write all that paperwork and drink mint Juleps while those lazy negroes were picking cotton!

That is AMERICA. Nothing you can do to change that. Not so long as we keep pandering and making excuses for them. They just bought the whole nation a very hard lesson in reality. We cannot save them from the effect of their actions this time. But we can let them know they did this. And we are angry too now. Angrier than we ever have been before.

[Horse with no Name]

10. Agreed.

These are ingrained beliefs from people who might have attended High School and may have taken a test or two in Civics but definitely didn't study the material and didn't retain it.
I worked at a local festival for our State Representative a few years ago and was continually and verbally assaulted.
They were blaming the federal government for state government responsibilities and have no idea that so much of this is NOT intertwined.
They are angry but so much of it is because they are ignorant of the process.

[mnhtnbb]

18. Ignorant and proud of it.

[libtodeath]

11. They are backwards haters and racists that think they are oppressed.

Fuck em.

[tblue37]

12. I think you mean incredible ignorance and lack of understanding, not

incredible lack of ignorance. . . .

[Horse with no Name]

13. Yes....this is what happens when I do these things when I am tired. :) n/t

[progressoid]

15. There is an edit tab.

Regardless, your post sums up a lot of the Trump voters I know. And, no, I don't know how to fix it.

[ileus]

16. How do you fix it...you don't, you crush them at the ballot box.

and make their deplorable asses suffer...

[Volaris]

24. Oh, I think they're about to suffer IMMENSELY,

In ways they can't yet begin to understand.

[KT2000]

17. tell them to turn off FOX

and educate their ministers who are likely teaching them resentment.
What you wrote is the crux of the RW brainwashing. Every time they see an "other" they see someone taking from them because that is what they have been told to deflect from the theft of the 1%. The brainwashing is constantly being reinforced.

[roamer65]

19. You can't fix stupid.

You just have to wait for it to die off. The demographics are in favor of progressivism.

If all the voters were 35 and under, Hillary would have won just about every state.

[LWolf]

20. Some in my rural area think like that.

Not all, though. Most are very, very aware of the lack of jobs that lead to poverty around them. They don't blame poorer people for the lack of jobs, but the economic crash in '08, which we haven't really recovered from.

That's one place to start: they voted for Obama, and saw the rich recover and the poor continue to struggle. They saw wages, benefits, and hours reduced for the working class. If you want to gain their attention and support, offer them ways to reduce economic inequalities. As long as that gap continues to widen, you aren't going to win them with more of the same. That's one reason WHY they think the way they do.

[Horse with no Name]

21. my area is different

It goes 90% for the republican brand...no matter how odious.

[Initech]

22. "it will increase THEIR take home pay, which it won't. "

People who say that clearly have no concept of how payroll works.

[Volaris]

23. 'How do you fix that'?

By letting them have exactly what they want.
They're about to get it in spades.

Yes it will hurt us.
But when it hurts them, they will learn.
Other than that
I'm done caring about their pain. We tried, and they told us smart people to go get bent.

I hope it hurts like hell. They asked for it.