Middle-Class Shame Will Decide Where America Is Headed

[applegrove]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/opinion/sunday/middle-class-shame-american-politics.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

By Alissa Quart at the New York Times

Ms. Quart is the author of “Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America.”


"SNIP.....

As a result, what the electorate doesn’t need to hear are Horatio Alger stories of how candidates worked their way up from humble origins, with the implied moral that anyone can make it in America with enough hard work. These kinds of tales can insidiously lead middle-class people today to blame themselves more for not flourishing.

Instead, the new Congress and candidates of the future should tell voters that it’s O.K. to be mad about being in debt, that this is a savage society we now live in. They could talk about their own experience of debt, be it student or medical, or the debt of someone in their family. (What makes this a bit harder is how unrelatable, and depressing, the wealth of our Congress still is: in 2015, it was majority millionaire.)

To win the anxious middle-class vote, politicians must offer real solutions for the challenges in the lives of these voters, especially on health care and education. One example of this is the scholarship program that Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York put in place: 940,000 middle-class families and individuals making up to $125,000 per year will qualify to attend tuition-free at colleges in the New York State and New York City public university systems. Though not perfect, it’s a step in the right direction.

It is important to get these voters beyond the shame of debt, perhaps by allowing student debtors to be able to declare bankruptcy related to student loans, something that is nearly impossible to do now, and obtain debt forgiveness.

....SNIP"

[TDale313]

1. The dark side of the American Dream...

If you’re not wealthy, if you struggle financially, it’s your fault for not working harder (and by way too many even seen as a moral failing)

[applegrove]

2. Didn't used to be that way. Under FDR people had compassion for

those people who were struggling. Why the New Deal. Now a good portion of tax cut money is probably going to automate jobs and make people struggle even more.

[violetpastille]

7. The New Deal initially left out African Americans

Most New Deal programs discriminated against blacks. The NRA, for example, not only offered whites the first crack at jobs, but authorized separate and lower pay scales for blacks. The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) refused to guarantee mortgages for blacks who tried to buy in white neighborhoods, and the CCC maintained segregated camps. Furthermore, the Social Security Act excluded those job categories blacks traditionally filled.

The story in agriculture was particularly grim. Since 40 percent of all black workers made their living as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) acreage reduction hit blacks hard. White landlords could make more money by leaving land untilled than by putting land back into production. As a result, the AAA's policies forced more than 100,000 blacks off the land in 1933 and 1934. Even more galling to black leaders, the president failed to support an anti-lynching bill and a bill to abolish the poll tax. Roosevelt feared that conservative southern Democrats, who had seniority in Congress and controlled many committee chairmanships, would block his bills if he tried to fight them on the race question.

White people have always been for social programs for white people.

We know better now. We can do the New Deal right this time.

[applegrove]

8. Oh I did not know that. How awful. Terrible.

[violetpastille]

9. I didn't either until

I watched that Ken Burns "The Roosevelts" miniseries on PBS.

If you ever can, check it out. It's so well done.

[applegrove]

10. I did see that. But was not paying attention obviously. I play on my phone

half the time. In canada we've did like bad things. There are african canadian people in Nova Scotia who have lived on land for generations who are just now probably going to get the deed to their land. When white people got free land 200 years ago.

[RKP5637]

4. ... a brainwashed society!!! Yet many Americans still don't get it IMO. n/t

[RKP5637]

3. America, a savage society! Exactly what America has become. n/t

[brush]

5. Unfettered capitalism is so dog-eat-dog. It's a constant back and forth struggle...

where Dems get in power and impose some regulations to stop the raping of the environment and extreme exploitation of human capital vs when the repugs get back in and rescind the regulations on clean air, water etc.

Watching the shutdown news is so eye opening and depressing to hear the stories of so many families living paycheck to paycheck with hardly any savings. And many of the government jobs are good jobs yet people can't save because just living and getting to work and child care and healthcare takes all their money.

It is vicious, and the forces arrayed against a more democratic socialist society are the ones making it vicious and they are greedy, uncaring and unrelenting.

[RKP5637]

6. Well said!!! n/t

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. clear and concise. Thank you!