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TexasTowelie

(111,280 posts)
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 12:30 PM Apr 2013

Minority Voters Aren't Anti-Government

In his first inaugural address, the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan said that “government is not the solution, government is the problem,” and set out the conservative message that would prevail in Republican circles for the next 30 years.

Flying in the face of the Great Society and of the New Deal that preceded it, Reagan tapped into deeply held distrust of “big government” solutions and convinced people to reject the notion that government programs could help improve people’s lives.

Reagan’s philosophy claimed that government programs hindered the capacity of individuals to achieve their own successes. For the conservative movement, the social safety net espoused by Democrats was actually a set of ties that bind. This anti-government rhetoric resonated like a bell with many Americans.

Over the intervening decades we have seen this idea claim an increasing share of a diminishing market. Minorities and immigrant communities simply don’t see government as a hindrance. But according to Dr. Stephen Klinberg’s research for the Kinder Institute of Urban Research at Rice University, attitudes about government among Harris County’s racial and ethnic groups differ starkly.

More at http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/01/guest-column-minority-voters-arent-anti-government/ .

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