The stories white guys tell themselves

[cali]

By Robyn E. Blumner, Times Columnist


Joan Didion wrote, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." I'd modify that slightly for this presidential election year and say, we tell ourselves stories in order to vote. Which is why Mitt Romney maintains a huge lead in the polls among blue-collar white men.

The differential is staggering. Non-college-educated white men give Romney a 37-point advantage over President Barack Obama according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll. Why would struggling wage earners support a candidate who would give tax cuts to the top 1 percent, a group that controls 43 percent of the wealth in the country, while adding to the tax burdens of people at the lower end of the income scale? Racial issues aside — and I'm not discounting the significant "black president" factor, it comes down to the power of myth and story.

White men have been fed the myth of the rags-to-riches, self-made man, the quintessential American narrative that says hard work and perseverance will equate to success. The idea cemented in the male cerebral cortex is that people who start from nothing can work themselves from the Horatio Alger mailroom to the corner office.

The unflattering flip side of this is that failure is a character flaw. If you don't succeed, you didn't work hard enough. As the story goes, anyone who takes government help falls into this category.

<snip>

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/the-stories-white-guys-tell-themselves/1245017

[hifiguy]

1. So many believe so much delusional bullshit

that is demonstrably untrue. Yet they vote. WTF is to be done with these ignoramuses? They are absolutely immune to facts and rational arguments. These cave dwellers are going to drag everyone but the one percent back to the Middle Ages if they get their way.

[kctim]

2. BS

Some people do not believe money and desire trumps their rights so they vote for the Party that tells them they will take less of their money and leave them alone.

Refusing to acknowledge that simple fact is exactly why the Republican Party isn't just another irrelevent minority based only on religion.

Acknowledging that makes us Democrats the permanent majority.

[cali]

3. and that fits in with the author's premise

I think she makes some excellent points.

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. Great OP ...

and I'm not saying that because I have long made that exact argument, including the fact that this belief in the "self-made man" myth is, largely, nonexistent in women and other american "minorities."

[olegramps]

5. Unfortunately, the majority of white workers are delusional.

I kid you not. I was talking to a young guy about sports and some how he made some disparaging remarks about Obama and Democrats. I had learned earlier in the conversation that he worked at the local 7/11 and needed a better car. It is beyond me how delusional these people are when they believe that the ultra-wealthy who totally control the Republican Party has the slightest interest in their plight. They fail to realize that all those good paying jobs have been outsourced by the greedy oligarchs to make them billionaires without any regard for the plight of the struggling working class. They will only wakeup when they are desperate and it is far too late.

The fact of the matter is there is absolutely no hope that the situation will get any better. The only way that it would improve is to impose tariffs on goods that have been outsourced and rescind the tax breaks and loopholes that the wealthy who control congress have awarded themselves. The chances of that happening any time soon are nonexistent. It will be as the song went, I sold my soul to the company store and I am another day older and deeper in debt. Their chances of catching the golden ring will be likely as a 1920's sharecropper becoming a millionaire. Just keep your nose to the grind stone son and you will be rewarded for your diligence. Pathetic, isn't it?

[YoungDemCA]

6. Eh, white-collar white guys are often just as bad, if not worse...

Try taking the political temperature in a commercial bank or among a local Chamber of Commerce.

[MicaelS]

7. Another story they tell themselves is that they...

Work very very hard, but everyone else is just a lazy bastard.

[WinkyDink]

8. AKA: "The Protestant [Work] Ethic," coined by Max Weber.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism

[redqueen]

9. K&R

[RobertEarl]

10. Two remarks

First is that Germany before WWII had the same mentality as our white male workers.

Second, Obama is proof that in America someone can start at the bottom and rise all the way to the top via hard work.