Arlie Russell Hochschild writes,
You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants, Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this unmoving line, you’re being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He’s on their side. In fact, isn’t he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the shame from taking. The government has become an instrument for redistributing your money to the undeserving. It’s not your government anymore; it’s theirs.
Pointer indirectly from Tyler Cowen.
She sees this as a narrative that explains Trump. Perhaps she is correct. But it is suspiciously self-serving to the sociologist-author who is proud to be more properly attuned to the oppression of minorities) and uncharitable to the Trump supporters.
I am not the first person to notice that many economists came up with books after the financial crisis of 2008 that purported to show how the crisis confirmed their worldview. Yet none of these economists predicted the crisis. For example, Joseph Stiglitz will gladly tell you that the crisis confirmed his worldview, even though he notoriously co-authored a paper which concluded that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were completely sound.
So with the unexpected emergence of Donald Trump, I get very suspicious of “explanations” that flatter the author and members of the author’s intended audience.
Instead, I again recommend the Martin Gurri explanation, which he wrote before Trump became a candidate.
As a Trump supporter, I think she nails it right on the head. They are cutting in line, and Obama is on their side. That may seem uncharitable but there is a distinction between charity and being a sucker and we passed that point a long time ago.
There are different groups of people supporting Trump, but the one thing that by definition unites them is that they don’t trust the establishment repudiation of Trump – because it is self-serving. This creates a problematic hermeneutic.
Normally, Republicans opposing a Republican would be a death sentence, but only now, it is clear that the significant difference is between the established journalists, politicians, economists, etc and most everybody else. This makes it amazingly difficult to assess ANY critique of Trump; just as with Brexit, or any other ‘consensus.’ When the elites agreed, it used to be taken as settled. Now what?
“You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward… As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the shame from taking. ”
Flattery or not this is the most honest assessment I have seen by a non “conservative” pundit of what motivates anti-Obama sentiment. There is growing awareness in the American population that government welfare has been transformed from a necessary program to help the truly unfortunate to a massive industry that aims to keep adding as many customer as it can find. Anyone can become a customer but at the cost of one’s self-esteem.
I imagine that the most ardent anti-Obamas are those who feel most tempted by the attraction of becoming a taker. These “angry Americans” don’t want to lower themselves to the status of “taker” but they are increasingly frustrated by the idea that they are expected to work as hard as they do so an ever greater number of people can take advantage of them.
Indeed. What’s uncharitable about this picture. I can see blacks lined up for welfare all the time in Baltimore. Statistically my view is the correct one. Let’s just call a spade a spade.
The leftist goal is to create a permanent underclass it can buy off in exchange for giving them government power. Loot the middle class and split it 90% elites 10% underclass.
Respectability and empathy have been weaponized by the left in order to exploit the middle class. It should be no surprise this has worn down peoples empathy and desire to appear respectable to elites.
Unfortunately, middle class voters’ empathy and “desire to appear respectable to elites” (a/k/a status anxiety) have not been worn down enough to endanger the status quo, even in the (still) unlikely event Trump is elected (and even in the still more unlikely event that Trump, if elected, has any serious policy agenda). The Democrats still draw a large chunk of middle class votes, people who are voting, wittingly or not, for their own expropriation and loss of status. If the Democrats received votes only from the elites, the underclass, employees of government and government contractors ,and favored minorities, their agenda would not have advanced as far as it has.
I would rather focus on the attention that working class wages have completely stagnated since 1974 and there must a reason. (Please note this is something libertarians are cheering!) We did have Ross Perot run in 1992 when wages were near the lowest point in the last 40 years but the job market turned around to cut his movement down by 1996. Frankly, I am very surprised by the level of minority nastiness this election though.
Oddly enough, real wages are creeping up so Trumpism might diminish the next five years.
I didn’t realize racists and Republicans needed excuses to vote. Substituting establishment Republicans and Wall Street for blacks and liberals and this would be much closer to the truth.