Jealousy of the impoverished cohesiveness: revolutionaries and democratic antagonism of the poor (Fromm, 82)
The working class has gradually turned conservative. Voting for right wingers in the elections. For many this seems anachronistic. If liberals are pushing for more welfare, why vote against material interests? The answer is simple antagonism to urban liberals.
The middle class has notoriously despised the poor. Seeing themselves as either harder workers or god-given talent. The poor are those who are bringing this country down. The homeless are scorned and shouted at for requesting a donation. Even liberal jargonists will shove them aside to get to their esteem profession. The middle class sees the capitalist nation as a land of opportunity, thus anyone who doesn’t make it, it is on them. The middle class demands the poor be assisted by the rich. They should have to do nothing. The poor are not their problem. The rich have enough so they can deal with it. The middle class desires the rich be pulled down a rung. So they can feel like the rich. The poor make them a weird middleman between the rich and the poor. Liberals may believe that poverty is beyond someone’s control but that doesn’t mean they wish to associate or assist them. On the conservative side the lack of hard work dooms you and any correlation between the two.
There is a good Game of Thrones line that sums it up quite well. To paraphrase, the middle class are the poor without their American apparel. If not for the extra few bucks the middle class wouldn’t be able to adorn itself. It would look poor. The difference between the poor and the middle class is shorter to rich. More so emotionally than practically. More so intellectually than economically. To be of the middle class is to be on the cusp of poverty. Perpetual income does pay the bills but without would sink to the depths of homelessness. Middle class individuals know that they can be poor with a slight misstep. The rich have trust funds and investments. The bare minimum of the million will provide. Annoyed at the seeming close quarters, the middle class rages against the vulnerable. Those they wish to separate from. To disassociate from. The middle class has money recognise that, they are not poor they should be in the streets for validation.
Someone commented that right wing propaganda inciting racist rhetoric is the rationale for voting against best interests. Yet, such a comment fails to explain what these interests are. It was white people who were redirected to undeserving minorities. While some of this may be genuine there are numerous other factors. It wasn’t as if left wing candidates were supplying the aid to the working class. Their racial programs and minority preoccupation left them in the dust. For most middle classmen, poverty is beyond circumstances but that is for certain people. Not all poor are created equal. Minority poor are subject to circumstances beyond their control. Immigration and discrimination. Yet the native white folk who are poor are just screw ups. They had their chance and let it slip. The middle class sympathises with sectors of the poor. So helping out Detroit but not Kansas. It is a matter of focus and interpretation. The overt concentration on other material interests over recognising the working classes’ difficulties pushed them right.
Originally, they were on the bandwagon for more welfare. Seeking opportunity to attain more money and protections. Yet in the seventies society shifted. Civil rights and the sexual revolution opened the door for other stragglers to be compensated. Blacks and gays who had been traditionally alienated were to be marshalled into better areas. Those who fell through would be paid for by the government. The government was taking on a lifetime’s guilty conscience to repent for past mistakes. A good idea but this left people angry. This being the case, rhetoric easily shifted to discriminatory conclusions. The government was placing more disadvantaged folk according to their position over native folk. Writing a wrong ignored others struggling in the midwest. The working class were left to fend for themselves. It is no shock that with Reagan the numbers began climbing. Through the years they have yet to understand only calling them racists. Obama and Hillary both lambasted the working poor as bitter, gun hungry and deplorable.
The liberal argument is that these people are just racist people without considering the context. They created the racism and animosity toward minorities if that is even a factual claim. More so, they lost their vote not due to culture but to abandonment. They dug their own hole and have been shifting propaganda against them. It is the liberals who are two-faced. It is them who have attempted to dehumanise and deceive the public about a particular group. They gave rise to their right wing populism. Since the populists listened to them. Heard their cries and prophesied aid. No wonder Trump won many of their votes. Democrats also did the same with latinos. They mocked any minority who voted conservative with socialistic ideals which latinos despise given their history. Are many racists? Potentially. Yet what is the cause of their racism? Is it entrenched in history or a recent reaction to liberal prioritisation.
Modern democrats vile fit for the working poor is not a new phenomenon. Locke and Marx both hated the poor. Neither the renaissance nor the revolutions assisted the poor. If anything they only furthered the issue. Beginning with the renaissance, the incumbent revolutions were middle class driven. They were for the sake of the middle class’ growth. Even after assisting the middle class to power they were left in the dust. Marx’s ideas came true and the poor were left in the dust. To some extent the American revolution differs in its nationalist agenda but the idea that when the proletariat takes hold he will undo the shackles of class formation is quite idealistic and throughout the past half century has yet to happen. Even in Napoleons’ tyranny the middle class became a beacon of hierarchical power. Ironically, the Russian revolution caused the same grief to the poor who had land but didn’t have resources that the government then owned similar to the Renaissance capitalist who quasi-occupied the poor’s own land.
Seemingly the poor are always screwed. No wonder populists find a crevasse to exploit. Think about it this way, the middle class overtly wishes to move to green house gasses for a better tomorrow. Since none of their jobs weigh on such aspects they are likely to approve on the other hand working class who bank on fossil fuel in mining or truck driving are at a lost. The problem with the middle class is less the good intentions and more the lacking awareness of affecting others. The working class matter but most of government fails to represent them. The focus on diversity hires is progress but these candidates come from fortunate households. While they can attest to their respective communities, this leaves out and heavily deserts the white working class. This is not solely an American issue. One that occupies many multicultural western democracies. It is the middle class rhetoric that shields them from actually endorsing working class life. To see them as worthy countrymen to assist.
There is faint jealousy that exists. The working class is a group to their own. For many the homeless in Manhattan and dilapidated house in Kansas are the same. At times, the latter is worse. He is part of a cult. A group of fanatic racists. While there are some racial issues, they also are strongly religious and collectivists. They may live in rural areas miles from one another but they all know one another. They all shop at the same Walmart and eat at the same diner. Middle class personnel live in suburbs or urban cities and have never spoken to their neighbour once. Have different beliefs and background. It is a place of change and development. Vibrant discontinuity in the hopes of diversification. The poor have always banded together. Using culture and religion to tie them together. There are many working class who are generational miners. It is a legacy. In their fated religiosity they find comfort in their will. Farmers pass on their estates to their children. Country boys sing lullabies of their energetic youth. While not entirely perfect it is quite cohesive.
The renaissance emboldened individuality. People sought to exit the poverty life. Newly secularists or devolving religiosities attempted to grab at the new life. Democracy provided new possibilities. Many took the plunge. Others weren’t as lucky or stuck to what they were good at. Industrialisation was promising but also leaving the familial tent. Heritage is strong and many stayed true to their family’s lifestyle. Content with their methods and gift. Whether this was particularly religiosity motivated is beyond but there is a cohesive and calming feeling of a small town. The urban life wasn’t one that was necessary. Many small towns had important professions. Skilled workers to develop the country. Prior to the social changes in the post-WWII era many were voting for better economic aid. Prior to their apparent racialising they were still the same exclusivist inclusive small town. The middle class doesn’t understand this. They have lost connections rarely speak to their parents and live amongst millions of people who they couldn’t single out ten. It is a different world.
Shameless also showed this to a degree. South Side Chicago is dangerous and deplorable. Yet they all banded together like a community no matter which skin colour. They were all poor and assisted one another with Kev for the poor or with Liam for the racism. It was the middle class woman who demonstrated a superiority complex. She was in the wrong. She looked down on them as hoodlums. Shameless is a television show but there is a certain attitude to the poor that the poor do not have for one another. Though that doesn’t mean the poor aren’t at fault. The poor have camaraderie as a familial framework that is not correlated in middle class areas (except cultural areas like Jews, Koreans, Lebanese). There is a disdain for the isolated nuance that compels angst against the poor. The middle class seemingly made it out but could easily return to the hole they dug out of. They are wannabe rich and for the time being antagonise those they agonise over.
The west has consistently pushed to help the downtrodden. Yet many of the peasantry have been left behind. Each revolution. Many peasants didn’t participate in the revolutions and for those who did assist were not compensated post-victory. The oppressed class that being the egotistical middle class took power for themselves at the expense of the peasants. The poor remained poor through years. Industrialisation provided an outlet for many peasants but those who were generational workers or family tied stayed to their models. With the democratic disregard for the lower class, many siphoned their connections to the apparent helper for the charismatic populists. Especially with the growing focus on diversity, many natives/whites were overlooked and even ridiculed for existing. It was the abuse they endured that switched their vote. This only furthered united their social bond. Rural groups became even more centralised. Finding more commonality than progressive division hoped. Now liberals are looking back wondering where did it all go wrong. Maybe mockery and jealousy weren’t worthwhile appeals.
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