3 ms·

So how does that explain the poor people on the right who don't want to change the situation in the way the left wants are what?

danans 7y ago
Because among people's worst traits is the pleasure in knowing someone is worse off than you, especially if they are from an identifiable group you already dislike. Your life might be miserable due to poverty, but you might still view that as a preferable situation compared to another even poorer group getting the same universal benefit as you, even if that universal benefit would make both of you better off.
- Frondo 7y ago
  This is also the strategy that white former slave owners used to disrupt a more equitable reconstruction in the South after the civil war. They took all the poor white folks who were feeling a certain class alliance with the former slaves and said, "look, we know you're dirt poor, but at least you're not like those people." And created the race divide that's still, of course, prevalent in the US.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Sure the wealthy fostered those feelings but I think the fact that a war was just waged on their land and lead to their economy being upended and blacks were the only ones who seemed to benefit probably had something to do with it. White southerners weren't going to instantly give up all the beliefs that they used to justify slavery just because they lost a war.
  - Frondo 7y ago
    For anyone who'd like to read more, W.E.B. DuBois was the first person to write about it, and this is a nice little jumping-off point: https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-democracy-and-du-bois https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-d...
asdff 7y ago
It's useful for a politician working for wealthy interests to have the lower class population fragmented and a portion actively voting against their own shared economic interests, rather than a united and motivated voting block. The only war is the class war, and racism is the tool politicians use to mask that fact from the masses. Sadly all to many people on the right buy into racist rhetoric as the substance and fail to see it as the facade that it is.

danans 7y ago

Because among people's worst traits is the pleasure in knowing someone is worse off than you, especially if they are from an identifiable group you already dislike. Your life might be miserable due to poverty, but you might still view that as a preferable situation compared to another even poorer group getting the same universal benefit as you, even if that universal benefit would make both of you better off.

Frondo 7y ago
This is also the strategy that white former slave owners used to disrupt a more equitable reconstruction in the South after the civil war. They took all the poor white folks who were feeling a certain class alliance with the former slaves and said, "look, we know you're dirt poor, but at least you're not like those people." And created the race divide that's still, of course, prevalent in the US.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Sure the wealthy fostered those feelings but I think the fact that a war was just waged on their land and lead to their economy being upended and blacks were the only ones who seemed to benefit probably had something to do with it. White southerners weren't going to instantly give up all the beliefs that they used to justify slavery just because they lost a war.
- Frondo 7y ago
  For anyone who'd like to read more, W.E.B. DuBois was the first person to write about it, and this is a nice little jumping-off point: https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-democracy-and-du-bois https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-d...

asdff 7y ago

It's useful for a politician working for wealthy interests to have the lower class population fragmented and a portion actively voting against their own shared economic interests, rather than a united and motivated voting block. The only war is the class war, and racism is the tool politicians use to mask that fact from the masses. Sadly all to many people on the right buy into racist rhetoric as the substance and fail to see it as the facade that it is.