Why Does the (White) Lower Middle Class Vote Republican? [View all]

[applegrove]

Why Does the (White) Lower Middle Class Vote Republican?

by Leon Friedman at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-friedman/why-does-the-white-lower-_b_8442162.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

"SNIP.............


This paranoid style in American politics is still alive today. We have a questioner of Donald Trump telling him that we have to get rid of all the Muslims in the United States. Almost all of the Republican candidates for President seem to support the idea - similar to the platform of the Know-Nothing party -- that immigrants are the true source of evil in our society. They do not speak our language, take away our jobs, pollute our neighborhoods with their dirty ways, spread diseases, murder our children and rape our wives and daughters.

The Tea Party is the true successors of the Know Nothing Party. The origins of the name came when a correspondent on CNBC, Rick Santelli, complained about a government program to make payments to homeowners who could no longer make mortgage payments. He condemned the idea that the government would "subsidize the losers" and asked for a tea party to be formed to object to government social programs. So the "losers" the poor, the racial minorities, the immigrants, the 47% are the problem, not the owners and bosses who demand and receive the biggest cut of the pie and refuse to share their wealth with the middle class.

But all of this plays into Republican hands. Rather than accurately explain the true economic issues facing the middle class, they invent bogus tax plans that have no basis in reality -- shrinking the tax code to three pages and reducing taxes to everyone (mostly those on top) which will somehow trim down the national debt and bring untold benefits to everyone. When these benefits do not emerge, Republican leaders barrage the lower middle class with attacks on the bad people (immigrants, Muslims) who do not look or talk like them and threaten their lives and jobs. They play on the lower middle class' impulse to believe themselves better than some other group which becomes the basis for their own self-esteem. The Republicans insist that the presence of Latino immigrants and Muslims are the reasons for the lower class' dissatisfaction with their life. Such arguments divert the middle class from insisting on higher wages and better programs that will adversely affect the rich supporters of the Party.

The Democrats must counter this nonsense with concrete programs that would improve the lives of the lower middle class. Since family values count very much for this group, Democrats should emphasize how the social programs supported by them - health care, free college education - would improve the lives of their children. And they must counter the paranoia that is so much a part of the Republican program.


..............SNIP"