Bette Midler tweet: Trump told Fox News he was going to cut entitlements last night

[JHB]

32. Not necessarily them, but from the same conservative spin crowd

Last edited Fri Mar 6, 2020, 08:42 PM - Edit history (1)

I can't recall specifics, but back in the 80s conservative think tanks and other organizations would send people around on talking tours. They'd throw out big scary numbers about how much of the Federal budget went to entitlements, and then talk about welfare, with no mention that the by-far lion's share of those numbers was Social Security and Medicare.

Much as how the Bushies implied Saddam had a hand in 9/11 by interweaving mentions of him and the attack (but never directly connecting them), they implied that a huge part of the budget went to welfare cases. And stupid racism helped the audience swallow that unquestioningly.

It was a subtler, more sophisticated propaganda technique than the "Welfare Queen" talk, but that made it all the more effective. Look at how often you have people here distinguishing between "earned benefits" and "entitlements".