An acquaintance on Facebook posted her family’s economic hardships on her profile. Her husband is unemployed. She vouched for his desire to work, but his valient efforts have gone unrewarded so far. Thus, her family has a great need for income and benefits. The latter would address rising costs from health issues. I knew she had conservative political leanings, but the language she used in the post was blatant.
As you can see, she is livid that her family can not make the minimum cost of living income. Her actions have also told her that her family fails to meet requirements for aid from the social safety net. Finally, she explicitly blames “The Democrats" for the state her family has found itself in. The government helps “other people”, but not “U.S. citizens”. I can only gather from this coded, dog-whistle phrasing that she’s implying immigrants siphon off the aid to which she’s entitled. Entitled, as in, the local, state, and federal government agencies owe her assistance.
She isn’t the only citizen who has this entitlement mentality. There is ample evidence of this mentality in urban cities like Chicago. In this case, the trigger is the same busloads of migrants from South America being dropped off in designated sanctuary cities of “democratic states” at the urging of Republican governors of border states. The migrants are being used as pawns to make political statements about the Biden administration’s “weak" border policies. Urban city destinations are forced to provide humanitarian aid to the migrants since they often arrive with only the clothes on their backs. This urgent distribution of resources has disturbed the African-American community in Chicago. In one instance, the city closed down a neighborhood elementary school in 2013 despite objections from the community. However, the city opened the building in 2023 to provide shelter to the influx of migrants. The indifference to address decade-long African-American community needs but respond so quickly to the needs of migrants frustrates Black citizens. This has an additional layer of context regarding the government’s historical neglect of African-American citizens.
That context can legitimize the case of entitlement of African-Americans, but life in the U.S. is hardly fair. The foundation of life in the USA is capitalism, with a sliding scale of inequity based on skin color and gender ingrained in the operations of that economic system. Generational wealth is less available to those who have darker features in relation to European descendants. Sometimes, Caucasian people, such as my Facebook acquaintance, are caught in the downside of capitalism. This is by design. No political party in power will be able to blunt the inertia built up through decades of preferential treatment of white citizens, if helping out poor people is even a goal of the party’s agenda.
In this design, it is clearly seen that migrants are the target of displeasure, if not rage, from American born citizens, both white and Black. All want to be treated with humanity but prefer to have first access to those resources due to entitlement. Who would ever design such a system that pits financially struggling people against each other? Who would receive abundant benefits from that dynamic? Wealthy white people, which is the one group that is overlooked too often in this socioeconomic tension. This group inherited generational wealth from centuries of affirmative action policies implemented in their favor. These policies include the enslavement of Africans and their American descendants, Jim Crow laws, redlining and racially-restrictive covenants, and more government-sanctioned policies that insulated the white community from legal and financial injustices that people of color experienced. Why would this demographic want the socioeconomic advantage to slip away? Many struggling whites see this expressway to comfort, and desire to plug into it regardless of the disparities caused by race-based capitalism.
Despite the projection of an “everyman” demeanor, (Trump) has no qualms with using bullying tactics to achieve his goals.
This aspiration is probably why they vote against their current interests by supporting Donald Trump. He certainly falls into the wealthy demographic that doesn’t mind seeing infighting on lower income levels. Throughout his private business dealings and personal life, Trump has screwed over working-class people by defaulting on invoices for work done that is due to small businesses. Despite the projection of an “everyman" demeanor, he has no qualms with using bullying tactics to achieve his goals. He tried those tactics with the Georgia Secretary-Of-State to demand 11,000+ votes to be changed so that he could win that state. This action is documented on tape, so there should be valid concerns with Trump trying to sidestep democracy. Yet people like my acquaintance on Facebook still blame “the Democrats" for policies that leave her husband unemployed and are upset with the immigrants for receiving basic humanitarian aid. They do not seethe about the wealthy manipulating the state and federal legislatures to do their bidding through lobbying and other tactics. They aren’t protesting the wealthy for maintaining their wealth by cutting expenses, such as labor, while raising prices on goods and services.
In this video, Trump laments over paying overtime to his employees. He’d rather hire someone who’d work without demanding overtime. How much of a leap is it to believe that he’d layoff labor to save money? He’s not a champion of the “everyman”.
Still, it’s simply easier for conservative whites, both wealthy and struggling, to target the poor and downtrodden as well as target the political party that has pledged to help this demographic in their political platform. Despite the fact that the U.S. Congress has been deadlocked on passing critical bills that can make life better for the country it represents (see Trump bullying Congress to kill the bipartisan border bill because he wanted the border to be an issue in the presidential campaign), the average white conservative blames “the Democrats” for America’s plight. The Federal Reserve primarily regulates the economy through adjusting interest rates, but no president thankfully has desired dictator-level control over that executive branch entity. For this reason, the president cannot be solely blamed for prices at the cash register. Wealthy business owners, however, should be held accountable more often by the American public.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Joel A. Johnson's work on Medium.