And yet the part of the white middle class that is
free-falling towards poverty wants to put a former vulture capitalist in charge
of the nation’s economy.
A Washington Post-ABC
poll released earlier this week found that white voters who are struggling
financially or experiencing job loss believe that Mitt Romney will do more to
advance their economic interests than President Obama will, by a landslide
margin of 58% for Romney to 32% for Obama.
It’s just crazy to think that so many more people would
trust Romney over any Democrat with their future economic well-being. Say what
you will about President Obama’s economic track record as president, Mitt
Romney has for decades displayed an enormous disregard for the economic
interests of anyone but the super wealthy.
It starts with his profession, investment banker who
specialized in buying companies, squeezing costs—often through layoffs—and
taking enormous profits. Bain Capital
was never meant to be a job or a wealth creator, but rather a wealth transfer
agent that would transfer the value of companies into its bank account. Sometimes the companies Bain bought and sold
thrived and often they went under. Didn’t matter. Romney and his associates got theirs.
While Romney claims that while he was governor Massachusetts
was a job creation machine, the Democrats have released reliable figures that
show that Massachusetts was 47th in job creation during Mitt’s years in office,
while state debt grew. That sounds like
a Republican, from Reagan to Bush II: slow job growth (or in Bush II’s case,
job losses) with an increase in debt.
Now let’s take a look at Romney’s economic ideas:
- He wants to reduce taxes even more than the current low tax regime that has people with high incomes paying the lowest rates of at least the last 70 years. When rich people don’t pay taxes, they spend some of the extra money, but some gets hidden from the economy in investments that don’t produce jobs. But when the government gets the money, it either spends it or gives it to someone who is going to spend it. Spending money creates demand for goods and services which creates more jobs. Create enough jobs and the demand for labor grows and wages increase. In a profound way, lowering taxes on the wealthy, as Bush II did, activates a transfer of wealth from middle class and poor people to the wealthy.
- He wants to make it harder for unions to organize, which means that there will be fewer good paying jobs around, since unionization tends to increase the wages not both of the unionized workers and of other employees at the same company and in the same industry.
- Romney wants to cut spending on programs that help the middle class and near poor and are making things bearable for the white middle class that has lost jobs. Unemployment, food stamps, health care—you name it, if it’s money that’s going directly to people, Romney doesn’t like it., except of course when it’s tax cuts giving more money to his fellow country-clubbers.
The objective of the strategy was to pry southern states
from the Democratic column by taking stands against busing to achieve
integration, affirmative action and other steps to give African-Americans equal
rights. The strategy also had Republicans making accusations that the
government under Democrats gave away money and jobs to the undeserving (code
for minorities). That message resonated
with whites who felt that giving minorities (and women) greater access to the
workplace threatened their jobs and who were beginning to lose ground
economically as the United States pursued policies that favored its
multi-national corporations and banks over maintenance of a strong domestic
manufacturing capability. It was classic
“divide and conquer” in which the ruling elite divided the middle class against
itself.
Reagan refined the Southern Strategy by adding the white
knight of the private sector and unrestrained free enterprise who would save
the American people from the wasteful giveaways of the federal government. The
coded language defined the undeserving who ended up with “our hard earned
money” as minorities, thus playing on old racist myths while strengthening
them.
After some 40 years of this brainwashing, it’s no wonder
that a large part of the population resents the government and doesn’t realize
that the so-called “undeserving” getting government benefits are for the most
part very much like themselves—white, uneducated and either poor or struggling.
I can understand their frustration (but
not the racism) and I also understand that a lack of education often denies
them not just the training to succeed in a technologically driven economy, but
also the tools to analyze in depth the absurd claims of right wing
politicians. It doesn’t help matters
that there is a large right wing media feeding nonsense to the public and a
mainstream media that looks to the right to define the issues on the political
agenda.
The result is this grotesque situation in which the
oppressed throw their support to a man who symbolizes the oppressors and their
techniques of oppression.