[rfg34te4]

This essay certainly corresponds with the sentiment in this article:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-white-blu...

"You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants, Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this unmoving line, you’re being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He’s on their side. In fact, isn’t he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the shame from taking. The government has become an instrument for redistributing your money to the undeserving. It’s not your government anymore; it’s theirs."

I think this sentiment explains why so many poor whites are against programs that would ultimately help them. To them, minorities are the competition in a zero sum game.

[mbfg]

The line is so long and non moving not because of these supposed line cutters, but because the people at the front of the line managing it are so slow and stingy processing the people in the line.

[rfg34te4]

That could be part of it. If you are convinced by the Picketty idea where the rich have captured a greater part of the economy and rig the game in their favor (I am personally convinced by this) then you can see why things don't seem to be getting better for most Americans. But why do those same American's not focus their rage against the 1%? I think racism plays a role. And certainly, some members of the 1% stoke these flames.

[mbfg]

>> But why do those same American's not focus their rage against the 1%

The %1 aren't stupid after all. They have done what they could to pit one group of poor people against another group of poor people. They have convinced a large group of poor white people that poor brown people are the cause of their problems, as if the most disadvantaged people in the country could possibly have any power over anyone. The power players in Washington have been doing this quasi-covertly for a long time, it's only in this latest term of presidency where the actions are explicit, obvious, overt and relentless.

[bm1362]

I don’t think it’s referring to immigration but rather the economic success associated with the American Dream- owning a house, a car and having a plan for retirement.

[mbfg]

My statement still applies. The 1% owns more than the rest of society. That is a failed state.

[aeternus]

How do you decide what level of wealth inequality is acceptable?

[mbfg]

What a perfect society looks like is of course an incredibly hard question to answer. But not knowing the exact ideals does not discount our ability to recognize a bad state. We can move in a better direction, and yes, it's possible that we make a mistake in the other direction. But the chances of that happening are so laughable as to not even consider it.

[eutropia]

It corresponds, but its interesting to note how they portray rather opposite judgmental tones on the people in question -- TFA betrays the now-popoular left-leaning view of "seeking comfort in irrational things", a.k.a conservatism as a pathology of stupid people. It's not respectful and it's not a good way to really gain an understanding of people; simply writing them off as incapable out-group members.

On the other hand, the motherjones paragraph quoted by parent portrays the people in question as basically being forced to pit their desire to help people against their desire to see proportional rewards for proportional work, the classic "personal responsibility mantra" (ignoring of course the situations those 'line-cutters' were in before they got helped. Two different kinds of "fairness" being pitted against one-another).

The jump that TFA makes between "America has a lot of poverty" and "Therefore, that's the only reason people could choose Trump (a.k.a nazi germany)" doesn't really make any sense. The author just says "people sought comfort in myths". That's pretty weak.

Not really sure what the point of this article was, was it group signaling? Was it trying to convince people of something? Does the author care to hear from people who don't view conservatism as a pathology?

I don't think poor whites think purely with their wallet in Homo-Economicus terms. I think they just have a different set of values, one of which might be worded as "getting what you deserve/earn", which ironically, the author does touch on, but he writes this as a broad-swaths American thing: "You see, in America, poverty was seen — and still is — as a kind of just dessert. A form of deserved punishment, for being lazy, for being foolish, for being slow. For being, above all, weak — because only the strong should survive." He writes it as if brutal social-darwinists designed our economy, but really I think it's less malevolent than that. Self-reliance is a strong tenet of american culture, but it has some predictable outcomes when pushed as the solution to everything.