Why Does the GOP Want the Middle Class to be Poor?

[McCamy Taylor]

I don't need to write one of my usual epic posts to answer this one. They want us poor, because then we will vote (or better yet, not vote) based upon immediate fear--Will my kids go to bed hungry? Will I be homeless tomorrow? Will someone else do my job for less money?--- rather than long term good sense. And they fear our vote more than they fear anything else. So, it you want to screw with the 1%, never vote out of fear, always vote using reason.

The corollary is that many ordinarily sensible people voted for Trump out of fear. He told them he would fix all their problems. He lied. They were desperate and so they wanted to believe him.

[pnwest]

1. But also so that we're too busy trying

to make ends meet to have time for critical thinking about what they're doing, or to do anything about it, or to afford college for our kids. They want us poor, and uneducated.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

2. I agree. Especially voting using reason

The problem,though, is that almost half the voting public have shown themselves,repeatedly, to be totally devoid of anything resembling reason.

[Turbineguy]

3. It's a good strategy

and it seems to already work.

As long as you have anything for the rich to take away, you protest against losing it.

[WinkyDink]

4. This isn't their mind-set. What the GOPols want is $$$, ours, anyone's. The results aren't in their

thoughts.

THEY ARE IN POLITICS TO GET OBSCENELY WEALTHY. Not from their salaries, of course, but from their insider knowledge, their bribes, their selling of access, etc.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

11. Yup. It's greed and a lust for power.

[Phoenix61]

5. It's a delicate balance

You want people to have enough so they are afraid of losing what they have but not so much they have the time or resources to effectively resist. If they have nothing left to lose they will take to the streets, just look at Venezuela. If they have too much you get things like Indivisible, financial support for the ACLU and Democratic candidates.

[NutmegYankee]

6. In Europe before the wars, civil liberties were often referred to as "middle class civil liberties".

Because that class had become economically stable enough to pay attention and get involved in governmental affairs. And there-in lies the goal - a people struggling to survive is a people without time to meddle in politics.

[Worktodo]

13. Bingo!

this is the right answer.

[Freethinker65]

7. Perhaps with a global economy, the wealthy do not feel they need an American middle class anymore

There seems to be a rush to disenfranchise and undereducate by those in power. They have always been about privatizing the gains/resources and socializing the losses/waste/clean up costs. With Trump and almost no checks and balances they have their first real chance in years to take away most, if not all, of the gains made.

[dem4decades]

8. That's where the last pot of money there is to steal.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Because desperate people will work for whatever pittance is offered.

[marybourg]

28. Yes. I think this is the main reason. nt

[democratisphere]

10. When the broad middle class has no money, who will continue to drive

the 70% consumer based economy? Most of the Wealthiest aren't thinking about that day which is coming soon. Idiots blinded by greedmongering.

[Cirque du So-What]

12. They want the middle class to have less influence

than the guilds that first acquired a modicum of it during the middle ages. Can't abide the hoi polloi defying the divine rights of nobility, yunno.

[Blue Meany]

14. I don't think that they want them to be poor, it's just that they no

longer care if they are. During the Cold War, it was necessary, for the purposes of propaganda, to show that capitalism was better than socialism for masses of people, so salaries rose, rich folk and corporations paid high tax rates, and there were government subsidies for the middle-class (the GI bill, subsidized housing loans, highways to the suburbs, etc.). It was also believed that by social scientests of the 1950s that the middle-class was essential for social stability (i.e., to stave of a socialist revolution).

But the 1% are not even tied to any particular country any more, so if the US falls into chaos or becomes socialist they'll just go somewhere else.

[Voltaire2]

30. Exactly right. The elites no longer fear socialism.

So they have been unconstrained by the fear in their pursuit of ever more wealth.

[WinstonSmith00]

15. They want a two class society.

The rich owner class and the poor slave labor class.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

16. re: "He lied."

There's a great line from the movie 'The Hunt for Red October' by the character Jeffrey Pelt: "Listen, I'm a politician which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open."

One who is a politician more than he is a good candidate will do whatever it takes to win an election and secure his position. Maybe HRC wasn't quite that ruthless.

To those who voted for him because they were afraid and wanted what they wanted in the worst way: "If you want something in the worst way, that's usually how you'll get it."

[tblue37]

17. Cheap labor--and with the safety net destroyed, they won't have to worry

that social programs will cut into their obscene profits.

[ananda]

18. First, they want their money ..

.. and secondly, they want a large, permanent slave-labor force.

[politicat]

19. Sick Systems Syndrome. H/t to Issendai, who wrote this document

Sick systems: How to keep someone with you forever
So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they've ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they've ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and professional development, an excellent work/life balance, and good pay. But both of those options demand a lot from you. Besides, your lover (or employee) will stay only as long as she wants to under those systems, and you want to keep her even when she doesn't want to stay. How do you pin her to your side, irrevocably, permanently, and perfectly legally?

You create a sick system.

A sick system has four basic rules:

Rule 1: Keep them too busy to think. Thinking is dangerous. If people can stop and think about their situation logically, they might realize how crazy things are.

Rule 2: Keep them tired. Exhaustion is the perfect defense against any good thinking that might slip through. Fixing the system requires change, and change requires effort, and effort requires energy that just isn't there. No energy, and your lover's dangerous epiphany is converted into nothing but a couple of boring fights.

This is also a corollary to keeping them too busy to think. Of course you can't turn off anyone's thought processes completely—but you can keep them too tired to do any original thinking. The decision center in the brain tires out just like a muscle, and when it's exhausted, people start making certain predictable types of logic mistakes. Found a system based on those mistakes, and you're golden.

Rule 3: Keep them emotionally involved. Make them love you if you can, or if you're a company, foster a company culture of extreme loyalty. Otherwise, tie their success to yours, so if you do well, they do well, and if you fail, they fail. If you're working in an industry where failure isn't a possibility (the government, utilities), establish a status system where workers do better or worse based on seniority. (This also works in bad relationships if you're polyamorous.)

Full document: http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html

This is the basic operating system for every dysfunctional organization, from a friend group or family to a marriage to a small business to a not-for-profit to a multinational corporation. There are process variations, but Sick Systems are a refutation of Tolstoy -- All unhappy families are alike in the means by which they express, perpetuate, and display their dysfunction.

Too many people don't have a bright line boundary between affection and control, or camaraderie and power. When they reach a level of authority, they cross the boundaries and seek control and power to compensate for the lack of egalitarian affection and camaraderie, and because any egalitarian relationship takes more emotional labor than one based in coercive control.

[leftstreet]

20. Most people are working class, not 'middle'

I doubt many surgeons or hedge fund managers voted for Trump

The 'GOPers' want the working classes impoverished, disenfranchised, and busy searching for food, shelter and healthcare because there are so many of us

[NastyRiffraff]

21. It's zero sum to them

Not only do they have to win, we have to lose. They don't feel rich enough unless everyone else is poor.

[CrispyQ]

22. They want a slave class.

A class of people with restricted rights, defined by them. A class of people that they exploit & control. The GOP is loathsome. I'm having a harder & harder time being civil to people who identify as republican.

[alittlelark]

23. The Feudal System was the most stable economic sytem...

I think they yearn for a return to it.

[rufus dog]

24. Conservatives look at everything through the same filters

Black and white, good and evil, it is why they use the word "nuanced" as a slam against liberals.

So they can only see a zero sum game, where as a liberal see the possibility of making the pie bigger through growth and advancements in new technologies, a conservative sees only a pie. Can't comprehend how to make the pie bigger, thus to get more someone has to get less.

It is how idiotic memes like bringing back coal mining works. Liberals see that is a ridiculous proposition (factually based) while conservatives see that as something that did work for a region and if those nasty liberals would get out of our way it would work again.

[Calculating]

25. Because the middle class get involved politically

The poor are too busy surviving to get involved much in politics. The wealthy pay them off and are significant political donors. The middle class are just a thorn in their sides because they want things like 'fair wages' and 'environmental accountability'.

[KeepItReal]

27. That's right.

If you're worried about working hard and long enough to paying for food, shelter and health care, you won't have much bandwidth for political activity.

[SHRED]

26. Middle class equals lost profits

Money they want instead of us.

[PdxSean]

29. Redistribution of wealth.

The middle class is a source of wealth which can be redistributed to the ultra rich.