tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/working-class-americans-37258/articlesworking class Americans – The Conversation2019-08-05T12:56:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1212322019-08-05T12:56:57Z2019-08-05T12:56:57ZWhy do so many working class Americans feel politics is pointless?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286658/original/file-20190801-169684-19ag93n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Of Jennifer Silva's sample of 108 working-class people, over two-thirds didn't even vote in the 2016 election.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Pennsylvania-Uni-/b81387d49de5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/151/0">AP Photo/Keith Srakocic</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In sociologist Jennifer Silva’s first book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Coming_Up_Short.html?id=5iI53Z1w6p4C">Coming Up Short</a>,” she interviewed working-class young adults in Lowell, Mass., and Richmond, Virginia.</em></p>
<p><em>Most had a tough time earning decent wages. Many felt like they were in a perpetual state of limbo, unable to reach the traditional markers of adulthood: job, marriage, house, and kids. But Silva was surprised to learn that many blamed themselves for their situations and believed that relying on others could only result in disappointment.</em> </p>
<p><em>After the book was published, it bothered Silva that she never pressed her subjects further on their politics to see how they might be connected to their worldview.</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286659/original/file-20190801-169706-c6pn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286659/original/file-20190801-169706-c6pn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286659/original/file-20190801-169706-c6pn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286659/original/file-20190801-169706-c6pn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286659/original/file-20190801-169706-c6pn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286659/original/file-20190801-169706-c6pn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286659/original/file-20190801-169706-c6pn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Jennifer Silva.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bucknell.edu/images/Depts/Profiles2014/SilvaJennifer400.jpg">Bucknell</a></span>
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<p><em>Now, in a new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/were-still-here-9780190888046?cc=us&lang=en&">We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America</a>,” she has made working-class politics her focus.</em> </p>
<p><em>Beginning in May 2015, Silva started conducting interviews in a once-thriving coal town in central Pennsylvania, which she calls “Coal Brook.” The timing was prescient: A month after she began her research, Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower and announced his candidacy for president.</em></p>
<p><em>Silva spent over a year interviewing townspeople. She gained their trust, forged relationships, and spent time in their homes and at community meetings. After years of declining prospects under both political parties, some of the townspeople she interviewed were drawn to Trump’s anti-establishment message. But for most, their politics had devolved into an abyss of cynicism that couldn’t even be penetrated by a politician <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/trump-rnc-speech-alone-fix-it/492557/">who promised to “fix” everything</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>In an interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Silva describes a community that is racially diverse, hardworking and politically aware. But its residents are also deeply distrustful and shoulder immense amounts of pain and alienation.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Can you talk a little bit about what inspired you to study working-class Americans?</strong> </p>
<p>I was the first person in my family to graduate from college, and I experienced some self-doubt and discomfort when I tried to integrate into the world of academia. </p>
<p>In my position between two worlds – growing up with more working-class roots, and then building a professional middle-class life – I would cringe whenever I saw upper middle-class people treat working-class people with casual condescension or indifference. It sometimes seemed like the very colleagues who most loudly proclaimed their commitment to social justice were the ones treating the administrative assistant like their personal secretary or complaining about the cost of their housekeeper. It made me really skeptical of whether people’s stated political beliefs were even a good predictor of how they treat people with less power and status. </p>
<p><strong>What was the hardest part of the research?</strong></p>
<p>Getting people to open up to me. I wasn’t from the area. This is the kind of place where if you knock on someone’s door, they’re not going to let you in. I started off talking to white people. I’d go to football games and addiction meetings to try to meet people, and I was able to get to be known as “so-and-so’s friend.” Then I realized I wanted to have a non-white group in my book, because there’s been an increase in Latino and black people in the area. So I had to find out how to get this population to trust me, because the white population and the minority population don’t overlap very much.</p>
<p><strong>You spent months conducting interviews. Then the election happened, and Trump won. All of a sudden, there was a lot of interest in the very sort of community you had just spent time in. What’s your take on the ensuing media coverage of these small towns?</strong></p>
<p>It seemed like there was one dominant story: older white men, angry and in pain, were feeling bad about not having jobs and blaming racial minorities or foreigners. </p>
<p>And an element of that certainly emerged in my research. But the overall picture was just so much more complex. One of the things that was very striking to me was how much distrust there was. Among everyone I interviewed – white, Latino, and black – there was a fierce distrust and hatred of politicians, a suspicion that politicians and big business were basically working together to take away the American Dream. Everyone was very critical of inequality. </p>
<p>So it wasn’t this idea of “dumb white people voting for billionaires because they don’t understand it’s against their interests.” Almost everyone was aware that the system is rigged against poor people. They blamed politicians for refusing to raise wages to a level people can live on. Many wanted higher taxes to support education. I heard a lot of that, across all of the different groups, and I didn’t read a lot of that in the articles about these communities. </p>
<p><strong>You interviewed 108 people and only 37 of them actually voted, with 26 voting for Trump. Of the 41 black or Latino people you spoke with, only four voted. So to me, one of the major stories wasn’t necessarily support for Trump. It was a refusal to participate in politics altogether.</strong></p>
<p>Two-thirds of the sample were nonvoters. They knew the election was happening but they just viewed political participation as pointless. They thought of it as a joke. And they said, “Look at what’s happened in my lifetime, it doesn’t really matter who’s been president.” </p>
<p>One of the critiques I heard a lot was that everything’s about money now. If you have money, your life is good. You can buy anything. But if you don’t have money, the system is stacked against you. I heard that from old white men. I heard that from young black women. And it was interesting, because it’s not untrue, right? If you kill someone and you’re rich you’re more likely to get off. </p>
<p>So I think for them it was almost like, “Well, if we participate, we’re just playing along and pretending. But we’re not naive. We know already that politicians are bought off by corporations. No one actually cares about us.”</p>
<p><strong>There’s that great story in the book where you showed up to an interview wearing your “I voted” sticker.</strong></p>
<p>He laughed at me! Like, “Why would you vote? Are you crazy?”</p>
<p><strong>And yet of those who voted, Trump did emerge as the clear favorite.</strong></p>
<p>Well, Trump and Bernie Sanders. But Sanders wasn’t an option in the end. The general take on Trump was, “We like Trump’s personality, we like his aggressiveness, we like how he doesn’t care about the rules.” And then they liked Bernie Sanders for his authenticity and his heart. But for many who even ended up voting for Trump, they still didn’t think it would matter if they voted.</p>
<p><strong>Where does this disillusionment come from?</strong></p>
<p>There’s a sense of betrayal by a number of social institutions – education, the workplace, the military – all of these things that they thought they could trust, but, for one reason or another, ended up disappointing them.</p>
<p>So they turned inward. No one was really looking for external collective strategies changing the world. Many wanted to simply prove that they didn’t have to rely on other people. There was this sense that any kind of redemption is only going to come out of your own efforts. And then you’ll see some blame other people who don’t seem to support themselves.</p>
<p><strong>Before and after the 2016 election, J.D. Vance, with the publication of his memoir, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Hillbilly_Elegy.html?id=bKmpCgAAQBAJ">Hillbilly Elegy</a>,” was held up in the mainstream media as an oracle for dispossessed rural Americans. But in your book, you vehemently disagree with his worldview.</strong></p>
<p>Vance seemed to look at other people in his community and think that the reason they were suffering was because of their own choices – that they weren’t really strong enough to face the truth about themselves, that they had to stop blaming the government and corporations and actually take responsibility. </p>
<p>And that just wasn’t the story that I heard. I heard a lot of self-blame and a lot of people who wanted to take responsibility for their own fate. There was a lot of soul searching and a lot of pain. Vance makes it seem like everyone just needs to be like him – a lone hero who escapes his difficult past on his own. It’s not that simple or easy. </p>
<p>Can the pain people feel be used as a bridge to bring people together? That’s how I end my book. And I saw signs of it. Families suffering from addiction were coming together and wondering, how can we change the ways that doctors prescribe medicine? Or how can we challenge pharmaceutical companies to stop making these medications that get our children addicted? Can we get the police to help addicts instead of arresting them?</p>
<p><strong>That sounds like the stirrings of political mobilization. But what’s the biggest obstacle that’s preventing working class voters from organizing en masse?</strong></p>
<p>I think that it’s the absence of what you could call “mediating institutions.” The people in my book have a lot of critical and smart ideas. But they don’t have a lot of ways to actually connect their individual voices. So they don’t have a church group or a club that they would join that would then give them political tools or a louder voice. And I don’t even know if they would join one if these did exist, because of their distrust of institutions. So it just ends up being turned inward rather than outward.</p>
<p><strong>Within academia, what are some of the most common misconceptions you encounter when it comes to working-class politics?</strong> </p>
<p>I have heard some liberal academics talk about how self-defeating and misinformed working-class white people are. They seem to believe that if these people just knew the facts, they would change their votes immediately. Or they dismiss all working-class white people as angry and racist.</p>
<p>The working-class people I met were often radically critical of inequality and deeply skeptical about whether we live in a meritocracy. It was important to me to show that the people in my book of all races are creative and thoughtful – that they arrive at their positions by piecing together their histories and experiences in meaningful ways. </p>
<p>Sometimes these ways are destructive and divisive, and sometimes they have the potential to be transformative and healing. </p>
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A sociologist spent over a year interviewing black, white and Latino residents of a declining coal town in central Pennsylvania, plumbing the sources of their political disillusionment.Nick Lehr, Arts + Culture EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1126012019-03-01T11:40:28Z2019-03-01T11:40:28ZWhy Congress needs to make child care more affordable – 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261171/original/file-20190227-150688-12i77ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new bill to provide affordable child care for working families faces an uphill battle in Congress.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-kids-playing-toys-learning-center-1240406644?src=eIbnLXsA5dp8_CMormsK5w-1-2">Rawpixel from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., recently reintroduced their Child Care for Working Families Act – a bill they say will “ensure affordable, high-quality child care for working middle class families and those living paycheck to paycheck.”</em> </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.american.edu/spa/faculty/morrisse.cfm">Taryn Morrissey</a>, author of “<a href="http://www.russellsage.org/publications/cradle-kindergarten">Cradle to Kindergarten: A New Plan to Combat Inequality</a>,” and a former senior adviser on early childhood policy during the Obama administration, explains how far the bill would go in achieving that goal – and also whether it has a chance of passing.</em> </p>
<h2>1. How big of a deal is this bill and why?</h2>
<p>It’s a big deal because in 2016, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tca.asp">about 60 percent</a> of kids under age 6 were in some type of nonparental child care if they weren’t in kindergarten.</p>
<p>The Child Care for Working Families Act would enhance our existing <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/fact-sheet-occ">public child care subsidy program</a> by nearly <a href="https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CCFWFA%20Fact%20Sheet%20116th%20Congress%20FINAL.pdf">doubling</a> the number of children eligible. In 2012, <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/153591/ChildEligibility.pdf">14.2 million</a> children were eligible for child care subsidies under federal rules.</p>
<p>It’s important to point out that child care is more than a place for children to spend time while their parents work. Child care should also provide opportunities for children to learn. If teachers are well-trained and adequately paid, and provide enriching experiences and activities, early education can have <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.1.3.111">lasting</a>, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/events/pre-k-consensus/">positive impacts</a> on children’s <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12099">educational</a>, <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6178/1478">health</a> and <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.97.2.31">economic outcomes</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, much of the care families use today is of <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006043.pdf">low or mediocre quality</a>. High-quality care is <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/cradle-kindergarten">more expensive than most parents can afford</a>. Child care expenditures make up about <a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf">11 percent</a> of families’ annual income, but that reflects families’ use of a mix of licensed centers or child care homes and informal arrangements with friends or relatives.</p>
<p>If a family wants to use center-based care for an infant, that costs much more – a whopping <a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/3957809/costofcare2018.pdf?__hstc=&__hssc=&hsCtaTracking=b4367fa6-f3b9-4e6c-acf4-b5d01d0dc570%7C94d3f065-e4fc-4250-a163-bafc3defaf20">27 percent of median income for single-parent households</a>. And in most regions of the U.S., families with young children are <a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/3957809/costofcare2018.pdf?__hstc=&__hssc=&hsCtaTracking=b4367fa6-f3b9-4e6c-acf4-b5d01d0dc570%7C94d3f065-e4fc-4250-a163-bafc3defaf20">spending more on child care</a> than they are on housing, food or health care.</p>
<h2>2. Will working families and the poor be able to feel or see the difference? If so, how?</h2>
<p>Yes, parents with young children – and who are typically earning <a href="https://www.demos.org/publication/parent-trap-economic-insecurity-families-young-children">less now</a> than they will when they are further along in their careers – would have more money for housing, health care and the many other expenses that come with raising children. Further, if they choose, parents who left the workforce due to the high costs of child care will be able to return to work without having to spend a <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2016/06/21/139731/calculating-the-hidden-cost-of-interrupting-a-career-for-child-care/">sizable portion</a> of their paychecks on child care.</p>
<p>Families with infants and toddlers will likely find it easier to find and pay for child care. High-quality infant-toddler care is currently <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2018/11/15/460970/understanding-true-cost-child-care-infants-toddlers/">very expensive and hard to find</a>, even though it’s <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/9824/from-neurons-to-neighborhoods-the-science-of-early-childhood-development">important for children’s development</a>. The bill will also provide funds for states to expand their preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-old children.</p>
<h2>3. Making child care affordable is one thing. Providing quality child care is another. Can this bill really do both?</h2>
<p>Yes, and one of the ways it will do that is by increasing workforce training and pay.</p>
<p>In 2013, child care teachers <a href="http://cscce.berkeley.edu/files/2014/ReportFINAL.pdf">earned US$10.33</a> per hour, compared to $15.11 and $25.40 per hour for preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers, respectively. Consequently, 40 percent of child care workers <a href="http://cscce.berkeley.edu/files/2014/ReportFINAL.pdf">rely on public assistance</a> at some point in their careers.</p>
<p>It should come as little surprise that <a href="http://cscce.berkeley.edu/files/2014/ReportFINAL.pdf">turnover rates</a> among preschool and child care teachers are high. This turnover is associated with <a href="https://appam.confex.com/appam/2018/webprogram/Paper27153.html">poorer child outcomes</a>.</p>
<p>More skilled and consistent caregivers will translate to higher-quality early learning experiences.</p>
<h2>4. Where will this bill place America among other advanced nations in terms of providing affordable child care?</h2>
<p>If passed, America’s spending on early childhood education would be closer to those of our peer nations. For instance, in 2013, the United States spent less than <a href="https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF3_1_Public_spending_on_childcare_and_early_education.pdf">0.5 percent</a> of GDP on early childhood education, while France, New Zealand and the Nordic countries spent more than <a href="https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF3_1_Public_spending_on_childcare_and_early_education.pdf">1 percent of GDP</a>. The average for nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, is 0.8 percent.</p>
<p>Research has shown that high-quality early learning experiences <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/cradle-kindergarten">promote children’s school readiness</a>. Children who don’t have these experiences fall behind early and have a more difficult time <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/whither-opportunity">catching up</a>. Expanding access to early educational experiences would promote America’s <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/want-to-make-america-great-again-make-our-kids-globally-competitive_us_58f9fb95e4b018a9ce5a5d75">global competitiveness</a> by ensuring that young children are best prepared for school their first day of kindergarten. </p>
<h2>5. How much will this bill cost and how likely is this bill to become law?</h2>
<p>No public cost analyses have been done. The bill itself appropriates $20 billion in fiscal 2020, $30 billion in fiscal 2021, and $40 billion in fiscal 2022, and whatever is needed after that for child care subsidy expansions.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this bill is unlikely to become law – at least anytime in the next two years. Although the Trump administration has supported <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-23/ivanka-trump-is-pushing-her-500-billion-child-care-plan-on-hill">child care</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/ivanka-trump-paid-family-leave/index.html">paid family leave</a> policies, independent <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/138781/2001170-who-benefits-from-president-trumps-child-care-proposals.pdf">analyses</a> indicate their proposals would do little to help low- and middle-income families. The child care subsidy program received a substantial <a href="https://www.ffyf.org/congress-passes-historic-funding-increases-federal-early-learning-care-programs/">boost in funding</a> following the bipartisan budget deal in February 2018, but Congress has not acted on other early childhood policy proposals.</p>
<p>In the absence of federal action, cities and states like the <a href="http://lims.dccouncil.us/Legislation/B22-0203">District of Columbia</a>, <a href="https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/2019/01/06/newsom-propose-nearly-2-billion-early-childhood-programs/2470300002/">California</a> and <a href="https://www.ktvz.com/news/governor-state-agencies-unveil-early-learning-plan/1002533536">Oregon</a> are passing or considering sweeping improvements to their early childhood systems. </p>
<p>These state and local efforts, the Child Care for Working Families Act and other proposals, such as <a href="https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-for-universal-child-care-762535e6c20a">Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s child care plan</a>, would help <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/cradle-kindergarten'">reduce inequality</a> in the short term by putting more money in the hands of families struggling to make ends meet. In the long term, these efforts will help better prepare America’s children for the workforce of tomorrow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taryn Morrissey has received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson, Ford, Peterson, Gates, Heising-Simons, and the Bainum Family Foundations and the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture. She is a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute. </span></em></p>Working class families have struggled for years to afford quality child care. Could the newly proposed Child Care for Working Families Act make a difference? A child care policy scholar weighs in.Taryn Morrissey, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/890482017-12-13T11:22:37Z2017-12-13T11:22:37Z3 myths about the poor that Republicans are using to support slashing US safety net<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198817/original/file-20171212-9451-1baw0sz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sen. Chuck Grassley recently seemed to suggest some poor people spend all their money on "booze or women or movies."</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Republicans continue to use long-debunked myths about the poor as they defend <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2017/12/02/economists-say-the-trump-tax-plan-will-have-disastrous-consequences/#207ea56c4209">lower taxes for the rich</a> and <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363642-ryan-pledges-entitlement-reform-in-2018">deep cuts to the social safety net</a> to pay for them. In so doing, they are essentially <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/12/04/two-ugly-quotes-from-republicans-reveal-the-truth-about-their-tax-plan/?utm_term=.07ba3f41345c">expressing scorn</a> for working class and low-income Americans. </p>
<p>Sen. Chuck Grassley, for example, recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/12/04/grassley-explains-why-people-dont-invest-booze-or-women-or-movies/">justified</a> reducing the number of wealthy families exposed to the estate tax as a way to recognize “the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”</p>
<p>Similarly, Sen. Orrin Hatch <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/dec/05/context-orrin-hatchs-comments-about-chip-people-wh/">raised concerns</a> about funding certain entitlement programs. “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything,” he said.</p>
<p>These statements, the likes of which I expect we’ll all hear more of in coming months, reinforce three harmful narratives about low-income Americans: People who receive benefits don’t work, they don’t deserve help and the money spent on the social safety net is a waste of money. </p>
<p>Based on my <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2423540">research</a> and 20 years of experience as a clinical law professor representing low-income clients, I know that these statements are false and only serve to reinforce misconceptions about working class and poor Americans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198811/original/file-20171212-9451-1gx6e1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198811/original/file-20171212-9451-1gx6e1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198811/original/file-20171212-9451-1gx6e1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198811/original/file-20171212-9451-1gx6e1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198811/original/file-20171212-9451-1gx6e1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198811/original/file-20171212-9451-1gx6e1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198811/original/file-20171212-9451-1gx6e1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Food participants get an average of $125 a month, hardly enough to feed a family without earning money as well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Most welfare recipients are makers not takers</h2>
<p>The first myth, that people who receive public benefits are “takers” rather than “makers,” is flatly untrue for the vast majority of working-age recipients.</p>
<p>Consider Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, which currently serve about <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/people-food-stamps-snap-decline-participation-640500">42 million Americans</a>. At least one adult in more than half of SNAP-recipient households <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-introduction-to-the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap">are working</a>. And the average SNAP subsidy is $125 per month, or $1.40 per meal – hardly enough to justify quitting a job.</p>
<p>As for Medicaid, nearly <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/understanding-the-intersection-of-medicaid-and-work/">80 percent of adults</a> receiving Medicaid live in families where someone works, and more than half are working themselves.</p>
<p>In early December, House Speaker <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/paul-ryan-entitlement-reform/index.html">Paul Ryan said</a>, “We have a welfare system that’s trapping people in poverty and effectively paying people not to work.” </p>
<p>Not true. Welfare – officially called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families – has <a href="http://www.aphsa.org/content/dam/NASTA/PDF/CRS-RPT_R44751_2017-02-01.pdf">required work</a> as a condition of eligibility since then-President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law in 1996. And the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-income-tax-credit/do-i-qualify-for-earned-income-tax-credit-eitc">earned income tax credit</a>, a tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers, by definition, supports only people who work.</p>
<p>Workers apply for public benefits because they need assistance to make ends meet. American workers are among <a href="http://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/">the most productive in the world</a>, but over the last 40 years the bottom half of income earners have seen <a href="http://equitablegrowth.org/research-analysis/republican-tax-plan-slams-workers-and-job-creators-in-favor-of-the-rich-and-inherited-wealth/">no income growth</a>. As a result, since 1973, worker productivity has <a href="http://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/">grown almost six times</a> faster than wages. </p>
<p>In addition to wage stagnation, most Americans are spending more than <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm">one-third of their income</a> on housing, which is increasingly unaffordable. There are 11 million renter households paying more than <a href="http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/harvard_jchs_state_of_the_nations_housing_2017_chap1.pdf.">half their income</a> on housing. And there is <a href="http://nlihc.org/oor">no county</a> in America where a minimum wage worker can afford a two-bedroom home. Still, only <a href="http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/OOR_2017.pdf">1 in 4</a> eligible households receive any form of government housing assistance.</p>
<p>To be sure, there are recipients of public benefits who do not work. They are primarily children, the disabled and the elderly – in other words, <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/who-really-receives-welfare-4126592">people who cannot or should not work.</a> These groups constitute the majority of public benefits recipients.</p>
<p>Society should support these people out of basic decency, but there are self-interested reasons as well. To begin with, all working adults have been children, will someday be old and, at any time, might face calamities that take them out of the workforce. The safety net exists to rescue people during these vulnerable periods. Indeed, most people who receive public benefits leave the programs within <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-97.html">three years</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, many public benefits pay for themselves over time, as healthier and financially secure people are more productive and contribute to the overall economy. For example, <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-introduction-to-the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap">every dollar in SNAP spending</a> is estimated to generate more than $1.70 in economic activity. </p>
<p>Similarly, Medicaid benefits are associated with enhancing <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/understanding-the-intersection-of-medicaid-and-work/">work</a> opportunities. The <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/eitc-and-child-tax-credit-promote-work-reduce-poverty-and-support-childrens">earned income tax credit</a> contributes to work rates, improves the health of recipient families and has long-term educational and earnings benefits for children. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199016/original/file-20171213-27588-15tfh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199016/original/file-20171213-27588-15tfh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199016/original/file-20171213-27588-15tfh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199016/original/file-20171213-27588-15tfh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199016/original/file-20171213-27588-15tfh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199016/original/file-20171213-27588-15tfh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199016/original/file-20171213-27588-15tfh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The current federal minimum wage is hardly enough to feed a family.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What the needy deserve</h2>
<p>The second myth is that low-income Americans do not deserve a helping hand. </p>
<p>This idea derives from our belief that the U.S. is a meritocracy where the most deserving rise to the top. Yet where a person ends up on the income ladder is tied to where they started out. </p>
<p>Indeed, America is not nearly as socially mobile as we like to think. Forty percent of Americans born into the bottom-income quintile – the poorest 20 percent – will stay there. And the same “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/06/striking-new-research-on-inequality-whatever-you-thought-its-worse/?utm_term=.074d818b5336">stickiness</a>” exists in the top quintile. </p>
<p>As for people born into the middle class, only 20 percent will ascend to the top <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/the-mobility-myth">quintile</a> in their lifetimes.</p>
<p>The third myth is that government assistance is a waste of money and doesn’t accomplish its goals. </p>
<p>In fact, poverty rates would <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/safety-net-cut-poverty-nearly-in-half-last-year;">double</a> without the safety net, to say nothing of human suffering. Last year, the safety net lifted <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/chart-book-accomplishments-of-the-safety-net">38 million</a> people, including 8 million children, out of poverty.</p>
<h2>The facts of welfare</h2>
<p>In trotting out these myths, Republican lawmakers are also tapping into long-standing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/12/08/republicans-are-bringing-welfare-queen-politics-to-the-tax-cut-fight/?utm_term=.8d360a5ce417">racist stereotypes</a> about who receives support. For instance, the “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2423540">welfare queen</a>” – a code word for an African-American woman with too many children who refuses to work – is a fiction.</p>
<p>The facts of welfare are that most recipients are white, families that receive aid are smaller on average than other families and the program requires recipients to work and is tiny in relation to the overall federal budget – <a href="http://econofact.org/welfare-and-the-federal-budget">about half a percent</a>. Yet, the welfare queen is an archetype invoked to generate public antagonism against the safety net. Expect her to make frequent appearances in the months to come.</p>
<p>Americans should demand fact-based justifications for tax and entitlement reforms. It is time to retire the welfare queen and related tropes that paint needy Americans as undeserving.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele Gilman is affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the Women's Law Center of Maryland.
</span></em></p>As the GOP prepares to slash spending to pay for tax cuts, lawmakers have been bringing up claims about the poor that don’t stand up to scrutiny.Michele Gilman, Venable Professor of Law, University of BaltimoreLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/747392017-04-04T00:45:08Z2017-04-04T00:45:08ZHow Ayn Rand’s ‘elitism’ lives on in the Trump administration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163680/original/image-20170403-21966-1htznjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective/481293482/in/photolist-JwKMu-87NNJY-5ToRGh-d2Km-dYfsLP-9i65p1-awi32Z-33n1-qDJMhf-cQr1zL-cRKrr3-9udLYw-9uanSc-fJNyMY-4f5ndt-ej2RKo-6kxddV-6wZ2cQ-bX3PQ6-cRJUtJ-9TFPqQ-dVCDt8-cz2LHq-4MxMwY-6cL529-5ZAUwn-v8k1A-SdLY8z-52JCH5-ej2XW3-5ghwDp-5ghcTv-ej2BWA-cTWSxy-eiVUHP-fvEQjw-eaB6Uy-fvEPX1-eiW2NT-4zxmoy-ej2Rro-7rZRD-5ghJBR-7bAZzJ-5gmxoE-5gnfiY-5gmzBo-JQ9ww-bBkuwZ-2mHuTc">Elvert Barnes</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/13/daily-202-ayn-rand-acolyte-donald-trump-stacks-his-cabinet-with-fellow-objectivists/584f5cdfe9b69b36fcfeaf3b/?utm_term=.7bc706cd74aa">said</a> Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” is his favorite book. Mike Pompeo, head of the CIA, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/13/daily-202-ayn-rand-acolyte-donald-trump-stacks-his-cabinet-with-fellow-objectivists/584f5cdfe9b69b36fcfeaf3b/?utm_term=.7bc706cd74aa">cited</a> Rand as a major inspiration. Before he withdrew his nomination, Trump’s pick to head the Labor Department, Andrew Puzder, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/13/daily-202-ayn-rand-acolyte-donald-trump-stacks-his-cabinet-with-fellow-objectivists/584f5cdfe9b69b36fcfeaf3b/?utm_term=.7bc706cd74aa">revealed</a> that he devotes much free time to reading Rand.</p>
<p>Such is the case with many other Trump advisers and allies: The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, famously <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/7-ways-paul-ryan-revealed-his-love-for-ayn-rand.html">made</a> his staff members read Ayn Rand. Trump himself has said that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/13/daily-202-ayn-rand-acolyte-donald-trump-stacks-his-cabinet-with-fellow-objectivists/584f5cdfe9b69b36fcfeaf3b/?utm_term=.2c86b5d9fc9e">he’s a “fan” of Rand</a> and “identifies” with Howard Roark, the protagonist of Rand’s novel, “The Fountainhead,” “an architect who dynamites a housing project he designed because the builders did not precisely follow his blueprints.”</p>
<p>As a philosopher, I have often wondered at the remarkable endurance and popularity of Ayn Rand’s influence on American politics. Even by earlier standards, however, Rand’s dominance over the current administration looks especially strong.</p>
<h2>What’s in common with Ayn Rand?</h2>
<p>Recently, historian and Rand expert <a href="https://history.stanford.edu/people/jennifer-burns">Jennifer Burns</a> wrote how Rand’s sway over the Republican Party is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/03/ayn-rand-is-dead-liberals-are-going-to-miss-her/?utm_term=.3753ff7d205c">diminishing</a>. Burns says the promises of government largesse and economic nationalism under Trump would repel Rand. </p>
<p>That was before the president unveiled his proposed federal budget that <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-budget-20170315-story.html">greatly slashes</a> nonmilitary government spending – and before Paul Ryan’s Obamacare reform, which promised to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/13/budget-office-republican-healthcare-coverage-deficit-costs">strip health coverage</a> from 24 million low-income Americans and grant the rich a generous tax cut instead. Now, Trump looks to be zeroing in on a significant tax cut for the rich and corporations. </p>
<p>These all sound like measures Rand would enthusiastically support, in so far as they assist the capitalists and so-called job creators, instead of the poor. </p>
<p>Though the Trump administration looks quite steeped in Rand’s thought, there is one curious discrepancy. Ayn Rand exudes a robust elitism, unlike any I have observed elsewhere in the tomes of political philosophy. But this runs counter to the narrative of the Trump phenomenon: <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/445255/thoughts-about-spinning-our-president">Central</a> to the Trump’s ascendancy is a rejection of elites reigning from urban centers and the coasts, overrepresented at universities and in Hollywood, apparently.</p>
<p>Liberals despair over the fact that they are branded elitists, while, as former television host Jon Stewart <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/jon-stewart-shreds-gop-hypocrites-who-overlook-trumps-flaws-i-see-you-and-i-see-your-bullsht/">put</a> it, Republicans backed a man who takes every chance to tout his superiority, and lords over creation from a gilded penthouse apartment, in a skyscraper that bears his own name.</p>
<p>Clearly, liberals lost this rhetorical battle.</p>
<h2>What is Ayn Rand’s philosophy?</h2>
<p>How shall we make sense of the gross elitism at the heart of the Trump administration, embodied in its devotion to Ayn Rand – elitism that its supporters overlook or ignore, and happily ascribe to the left instead?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163685/original/image-20170403-21976-1a3qgo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163685/original/image-20170403-21976-1a3qgo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163685/original/image-20170403-21976-1a3qgo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163685/original/image-20170403-21976-1a3qgo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163685/original/image-20170403-21976-1a3qgo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163685/original/image-20170403-21976-1a3qgo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163685/original/image-20170403-21976-1a3qgo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1962 file photo Ayn Rand, Russian-born American novelist, is photographed in New York with Grand Central Terminal in the background.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ayn Rand’s philosophy is quite straightforward. Rand sees the world divided into “makers” and “takers.” But, in her view, the real makers are a select few – a real elite, on whom we would do well to rely, and for whom we should clear the way, by reducing or removing taxes and government regulations, among other things.</p>
<p>Rand’s thought is intellectually digestible, unnuanced, easily translated into policy approaches and statements.</p>
<p>Small government is in order because it lets the great people soar to great heights, and they will drag the rest with them. Rand <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=eWZbq29waP8C&pg=PT23&lpg=PT23&dq=the+exceptional+men,+the+innovators,+the+intellectual+giants,+are+not+held+down+by+the+majority.+In+fact,+it+is+the+members+of+this+exceptional+minority+who+lift+the+whole+of+a+fre">says</a> we must ensure that “the exceptional men, the innovators, the intellectual giants, are not held down by the majority. In fact, it is the members of this exceptional minority who lift the whole of a free society to the level of their own achievements, while rising further and ever further.”</p>
<p>Mitt Romney <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/03/04/why-mitt-romneys-47-percent-comment-was-so-bad/?utm_term=.feb0071af4be">captured</a> Rand’s philosophy well during the 2012 campaign when he spoke of the 47 percent of Americans who do not work, vote Democrat and are happy to be supported by hardworking, conservative Americans.</p>
<h2>No sympathy for the poor</h2>
<p>In laying out her dualistic vision of society, divided into good and evil, Rand’s language is often starker and harsher. In her 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” she <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=bVyCd7da8OcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=atlas+shrugged&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-j46L6O_SAhUIbiYKHaNtBkAQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=brains&f=false">says</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all their brains.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rand’s is the opposite of a charitable view of humankind, and can, in fact, be quite cruel. Consider her attack on Pope Paul VI, who, in his 1967 encyclical <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_populorum.html">Progressio Populorum</a>, argued that the West has a duty to help developing nations, and called for its sympathy for the global poor.</p>
<p>Rand was appalled; instead of feeling sympathy for the poor, she <a href="http://en.liberpedia.org/Requiem_for_Man">says</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When [Western Man] discovered entire populations rotting alive in such conditions [in the developing world], is he not to acknowledge, with a burning stab of pride – or pride and gratitude – the achievements of his nation and his culture, of the men who created them and left him a nobler heritage to carry forward?”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Telling it like it is</h2>
<p>Why doesn’t Rand’s elitism turn off Republican voters? – or turn them against their leaders who, apparently, ought to disdain lower and middle class folk? If anyone – like Trump – identifies with Rand’s protagonists, they must think themselves truly excellent, while the muddling masses, they are beyond hope. </p>
<p>Why hasn’t news of this disdain then trickled down to the voters yet?</p>
<p>The neoconservatives, who held sway under President George W. Bush, were also quite elitist, but figured out how to speak to the Republican base, in their language. Bush himself, despite his Andover-Yale upbringing, was <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/benedetto/2004-09-17-benedetto_x.htm">lauded</a> as “someone you could have a beer with.”</p>
<p>Trump has succeeded even better in this respect – he famously “tells it like it is,” his supporters like to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/halim-shebaya/trump-tells-it-like-it-is_b_9836974.html">say</a>. Of course, as judged by fact-checkers, Trump’s relationship to the truth is embattled and tenuous; what his supporters seem to appreciate, rather, is his willingness to voice their suspicions and prejudices without worrying about recriminations of critics. Trump says things people are reluctant or shy to voice loudly – if at all.</p>
<h2>Building one’s fortune</h2>
<p>This gets us closer to what’s going on. Rand is decidedly cynical about the said masses: There is little point in preaching to them; they won’t change or improve, at least of their own accord; nor will they offer assistance to the capitalists. The masses just need to stay out of the way. </p>
<p>The principal virtue of a free market, Rand <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=bVyCd7da8OcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=atlas+shrugged&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-j46L6O_SAhUIbiYKHaNtBkAQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=brains&f=false">explains</a>, is “that the exceptional men, the innovators, the intellectual giants, are not held down by the majority. In fact, it is the members of this exceptional minority who lift the whole of a free society to the level of their own achievements…” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163677/original/image-20170403-21960-ll8pim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163677/original/image-20170403-21960-ll8pim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163677/original/image-20170403-21960-ll8pim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163677/original/image-20170403-21960-ll8pim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163677/original/image-20170403-21960-ll8pim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163677/original/image-20170403-21960-ll8pim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163677/original/image-20170403-21960-ll8pim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ayn Rand opposed welfare for the poor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rationalthought/3447039194/in/photolist-6fAYEf-2LHfox-q2pXTF-gjjhVJ-bWWqA2-nRiJhR-5mVuLy-5XzZGN-nNgues-9uc559-9hctvL-vEQuL-7XApuC-cmAR6m-auGb3Q-aw56pr-9u8hac-q1RAFX-5VoL8M-9uauU6-7NfTkX-dX6zSh-8kjZ2o-87pbGm-6GjTr5-iGKia-fn4ft-6tn5y1-9u9Djg-5gn7jS-9hC4Li-6uZdMo-azhFHE-7AZbBp-dhh6C5-dfrMXk-aE7n5T-2n1eo-99TH2K-gZkBS-9amayy-5xdaz6-W2J7F-4pezyh-dhfTxr-qXDjr8-8FL8C3-rU6n6h-7vWBwJ-qnWmD">Kevin Copps</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But they don’t lift the masses willingly or easily, she <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=bVyCd7da8OcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=atlas+shrugged&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-j46L6O_SAhUIbiYKHaNtBkAQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=brains&f=false">says</a>: “While the majority have barely assimilated the value of the automobile, the creative minority introduces the airplane. The majority learn by demonstration, the minority are free to demonstrate.”</p>
<p>Like Rand, her followers – who populate the Trump administration – are largely indifferent to the progress of the masses. They will let people be. Rand believes, quite simply, most people are hapless on their own, and we simply cannot expect much of them. There are only a few on whom we should pin our hopes; the rest are simply irrelevant. Which is why she <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=eWZbq29waP8C&pg=PT56&lpg=PT56&dq=while+those+who+produce+and+provided+it+had+not+The+welfare+and+rights+of+the+producers+were+not+regarded+as+worthy+of+consideration+or+recognition.+This+is+the+most+damning+indictment+of+the+present+state+of+our+culture&source=bl&ots=NSWzyE6H5d&sig=TsH0VITbSHkdNfJHeBnflN0_bBY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwij2PXcyoHTAhXD5CYKHXxSBWoQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=damning&f=false">complains</a> about our tendency to give welfare to the needy. She says,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The welfare and rights of the producers were not regarded as worthy of consideration or recognition. This is the most damning indictment of the present state of our culture.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, why do Republicans get away with eluding the title of elitist – despite their allegiance to Rand – while Democrats are stuck with this title?</p>
<p>I think part of the reason is that Democrats, among other things, are moralistic.
They are more <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/20/human-nature-politics-left-right">optimistic</a> about human nature – they are more optimistic about the capacity of humans to progress morally and live in harmony.</p>
<p>Thus, liberals judge: They call out our racism, our sexism, our xenophobia. They make people <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/political_correctness_as_a_tool_of_the_liberal_inquisition.html">feel bad</a> for harboring such prejudices, wittingly or not, and they warn us away from potentially offensive language, and phrases.</p>
<p>Many conservative opponents scorn liberals for their ill-founded naïve optimism. For in Rand’s world there is no hope for the vast majority of mankind. She <a href="http://en.liberpedia.org/Requiem_for_Man">heaps scorn</a> on the poor billions, whom “civilized men” are prodded to help.</p>
<p>The best they can hope for is that they might be lucky enough to enjoy the riches produced by the real innovators, which might eventually trickle down to them in their misery. </p>
<p>To the extent that Trump and his colleagues embrace Rand’s thought, they must share or approach some of her cynicism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Firmin DeBrabander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite promises to rural working class, a philosopher argues, the Republican Party is still under the influence of the elitism of novelist Ayn Rand.Firmin DeBrabander, Professor of Philosophy, Maryland Institute College of ArtLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750352017-03-29T01:44:14Z2017-03-29T01:44:14ZWhat motivates moral outrage?<p>When <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/01/30/all-travelers-detained-under-trump-ban-have-been-released/">109 travelers entering the United States were detained</a> by an executive order blocking citizens from seven Muslim majority countries, tens of thousands of Americans <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/travel-ban-protests-immigration/">gathered all over the country</a> to voice their anger. The policy had little to no direct effect on the protesters themselves.</p>
<p>Similarly, more than four decades after <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18">Roe v. Wade</a>, the Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized certain forms of abortion, people regularly gather to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hundreds-protests-planned-parenthood-set-today/story?id=45424516">voice their anger</a> at those providing abortion services. </p>
<p>Social psychologists refer to such displays of anger against a third party (such as a government) for perceived harm against someone as <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088868309343290">moral outrage</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162955/original/image-20170328-3812-1kgdr5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162955/original/image-20170328-3812-1kgdr5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162955/original/image-20170328-3812-1kgdr5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162955/original/image-20170328-3812-1kgdr5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162955/original/image-20170328-3812-1kgdr5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162955/original/image-20170328-3812-1kgdr5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162955/original/image-20170328-3812-1kgdr5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">March for Life 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/americanlifeleague/16187373038/in/photolist-qEqw3A-q118Qw-qWRvZX-qEqei3-qExALv-qU1Qai-qEqnVd-qErJM3-djtqR1-qUH9Qf-pXF5Gg-qErGkQ-qWRddV-wpKTT-FiCRCh-3j2p9R-9mXsLg-qTHdmq-qExL8r-qWVmdW-6ELEQc-T8DaMr-qWZWSv-qWRpGr-pZZN2o-qErMgG-nak1sW-qErxCQ-pofu3Q-qUHcZw-qExHzF-q1127G-QbbX6m-Rp77Sr-dQSjTK-rApoQF-qo1Jg7-q1dwje-pZZNBw-qEzjpg-qX1iUk-qErUiN-QSmVNN-qUHcrs-d7Ha8s-qUH3sq-RNcFQ6-pZZLrj-pZZKdh-qEqfxs">American Life League</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such moral outrage has taken on a new visibility thanks in part to social media platforms that allow people to effortlessly share their anger with the world. In an age of 24-hour news cycles, the issues can range from <a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/starbucks-new-green-cups-are-causing-outrage-w448553">coffee cups</a> to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/justice/california-iraq-trial/">war atrocities</a>. </p>
<p>As psychologists, we are particularly interested in understanding what research can tell us about the motives behind moral outrage.</p>
<h2>Does outrage indicate concern for justice?</h2>
<p>On the face of it, the willingness to express outrage could reflect an underlying concern with justice. Research has found that the more people are concerned with justice in general, <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11211-014-0202-x">the more moral outrage they express</a>. </p>
<p>Furthermore, research shows bystanders’ level of moral outrage can predict their willingness to pursue justice for a victimized group such as <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=032812069598855;res=IELHSS">supporting political action</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/casp.916/abstract;jsessionid=58D6976653E5EE50C18B0272F703289B.f04t02">engaging in protest</a> or <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2007.00563.x/abstract">punishing a perpetrator</a>. </p>
<p>From this perspective, outrage is driven by differing conceptions of what is just. For example, a recent <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/budweiser-super-bowl-commercial-trump-1201976846/">Super Bowl ad</a> featuring a Latino mother and young daughter making the long journey from Mexico to the United States – only to be confronted by a border wall – elicited very <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/06/mixed-message-84-lumbers-super-bowl-ad-spurs-outrage-confusion.html">different responses of outrage</a>. That’s because those who see the exclusion of immigrants as unjust and those who see maintaining a strict border as justified share a common desire to promote what they see as moral.</p>
<p>However, this does not explain why people sometimes engage in displays of outrage that, while highly visible, are unlikely to restore justice. For instance, it is unclear how injustice is rectified by tweeting one’s intention to <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/boycott-hawaii?utm_term=.wj1agxA9x#.qbqmWZOKZMc">boycott Hawaii</a> after a federal judge from the state blocked the president’s revised travel ban.</p>
<h2>Is outrage a signal to others?</h2>
<p>From our perspective, such public displays of outrage make more sense if they are viewed as a means of communicating information about oneself. While announcing one’s desire to punish Hawaii by withholding business has no appreciable effect on the judicial process, it does communicate one’s political and social allegiances.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v530/n7591/abs/nature16981.html">Researchers at Yale</a> tested the idea that punishing a third party may signal one’s virtue to observers. They found that bystanders were often willing to sacrifice their own resources to punish another for unfair behavior. Such bystanders, who were viewed as more honest and trustworthy, profited in subsequent interactions. </p>
<p>Researchers also found that bystanders were <a href="https://theconversation.com/evolution-of-moral-outrage-ill-punish-your-bad-behavior-to-make-me-look-good-55103">less likely to punish</a> people for their bad behavior if the bystanders could signal their virtuousness more easily, such as by helping someone.</p>
<p>However, a “virtue signaling perspective” of outrage does not explain outrage regularly seen on platforms such as Twitter, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBluePill/">TheBluePill on Reddit</a> or <a href="https://medium.com/@nuckable/on-the-manufacturing-of-outrage-17b9e810c358#.oqt8vjr82">4chan</a> where people commonly use anonymous handles to express outrage without being personally identified. </p>
<p>Furthermore, this research does not consider the fact that bystanders often contribute to, or at least benefit from, “illegitimate” harm-doing: Consumers may be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/12/19/the-outrage-of-child-labour-in-bangladeshs-sweatshops/#48c1c8746fe1">outraged</a> over the fact that garments are produced by sweatshop or child labor, yet still continue to support offending companies. In such cases, outrage is partially an attack on one’s own hypocrisy. </p>
<h2>Is it a reflection of guilt?</h2>
<p>So why do people express outrage even when a standard of justice is self-implicating or when they have no audience? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162956/original/image-20170328-3798-1nq0990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162956/original/image-20170328-3798-1nq0990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162956/original/image-20170328-3798-1nq0990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162956/original/image-20170328-3798-1nq0990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162956/original/image-20170328-3798-1nq0990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162956/original/image-20170328-3798-1nq0990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162956/original/image-20170328-3798-1nq0990.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is moral outrage about projecting an upright image?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nez/1181091743/in/photolist-2NnpqK-p3X3u2-pkmqGu-aCM5RL-2NvTmU-2NtR4L-p3TfS7-2NtQp7-2NscML-2NnHLT-2Nw4z3-2NvYvG-2NtdeS-5GD1i9-2NvoiE-2NvCsC-qz7E8z-2NnE2n-2NvGPU-qadTH4-caGW1u-2NnDkt-2Nnro8-2Nsqmd-2NnAyr-2NnJRv-79WZpf-2NpqmK-2NqwDa-2NswkN-2Nobst-5GyRZc-2Nri6t-2Nw2FN-2NojEV-2Ns5u3-2Nop9H-2NpugK-caGS8o-2Np144-regJdU-pkf1tR-oSzWTc-2FR3XM-7kFQLW-7rfK8U-7kS8t1-p4A85v-dJQn8w-p3JAfc">Andrew</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our work highlights a third motive that is based on people’s desire to <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/MONTDM-2">view themselves as morally upright people</a>. Threats to one’s moral self-image have been shown to elicit unpleasant feelings of guilt that can motivate efforts to restore a positive view of oneself. This is commonly expressed by issuing an <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/014466604X18974/full">apology</a> or <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167202238377">making amends</a>.</p>
<p>We wondered whether expressing moral outrage may be driven by these concerns. We tested this by manipulating and measuring people’s feelings of culpability for harm. We then assessed their outrage and desire to punish a third party for similar behavior.</p>
<p>Here’s how we did that.</p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103113001017">initial study</a> conducted in 2013, 133 college students came into the lab and read a fabricated news article that reminded them of how their choices harmed working-class Americans or not. Participants then read a second fabricated article implying that the financial gains of illegal immigrants were coming at a cost to working-class Americans.</p>
<p>We chose illegal immigrants as a target based on <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/august_2015/americans_think_illegals_are_taking_their_jobs">a fairly widespread belief</a> that immigrants steal jobs from working-class Americans. After reading the second article, participants reported their anger and desire to punish illegal immigrants for harming the interests of working-class Americans. </p>
<p>We found that those who thought about their own actions and how they caused harm expressed increased outrage and a greater desire to punish illegal immigrants. </p>
<p>More recently, we conducted a <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-017-9601-2">series of five studies</a> with over 1,000 American adults. We explored the relationship between guilt and outrage over labor exploitation and destructive environmental practices in corporations.</p>
<p>In one study, participants read a fabricated news article that either blamed the harmful effects of climate change on their own consumer behavior or on Chinese consumers. Participants then rated their guilt over their environmental impact either before or after completing a separate questionnaire allowing them to express outrage at multinational oil companies’ environmentally destructive practices. </p>
<p>We found that those exposed to information attributing climate change to their own behavior felt more guilt unless they had the opportunity to first express outrage at oil companies. Furthermore, we found that those who felt greater guilt subsequently expressed more outrage.</p>
<p>But how do we know that outrage is motivated by a desire to feel morally worthy? </p>
<p>In another study, participants rated their feelings of guilt about contributing to sweatshop labor conditions and their outrage at a corporation’s harmful sweatshop labor practices. However, between ratings of guilt and outrage we manipulated whether or not participants had the opportunity to affirm their own moral character. </p>
<p>Specifically, half of the participants were asked to write something about themselves that made them feel like a “good and decent person.” We found that guiltier participants were more outraged about sweatshop labor unless they had the opportunity to write about their own personal moral goodness beforehand. </p>
<p>In other words, bolstering their moral self-image diminished the amount of outrage expressed by those who initially reported high levels of guilt.</p>
<h2>More complicated than it seems</h2>
<p>The point is that outrage is much more than an obvious response to injustice. Our view is that outrage is not “merely” a concern with justice, a way to appear virtuous to others, nor even a way to cope with personal guilt. Rather, it is a culmination of many factors that may all play a role.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162963/original/image-20170328-3772-1mr4i1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162963/original/image-20170328-3772-1mr4i1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162963/original/image-20170328-3772-1mr4i1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162963/original/image-20170328-3772-1mr4i1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162963/original/image-20170328-3772-1mr4i1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162963/original/image-20170328-3772-1mr4i1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162963/original/image-20170328-3772-1mr4i1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What is moral outrage all about?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wisconsinjobsnow/7116629743/in/photolist-bQSA5P-9pLpG2-9pLq5i-auq3yw-auzUZ8-5W2VsV-PK386-eK4tVm-4W5YZ4-62AK8z-aFYbMT-aFgAr7-aunpM6-ocDJvR-8Khvpk-gDXxxc-6y2rNz-gDY7tR-8KkWC9-6y6A9s-8JnJGy-8Kkzkf-nVazMy-62ARzZ-7CK4A1-8Rpqpp-p897Ah-aw73fR-aFZ4Tc-aJpoY8-aw9yYL-fUPP9L-54qFGF-62ANck-6PZ3P3-aCgrC7-62ALQn-gjUQpr-aJphrz-aNdwhv-54m9Gu-54maLf-awf4sS-54m7k7-62AMaz-62EXQm-aw9vP5-PK38a-62AJXz-aNgNpp">Wisconsin Jobs Now</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our research confirms that not all outrage is “virtue signaling.” Participants completed an anonymous online survey where answers could not be traced back to them. Even if participants wanted to “look good” despite that anonymity, mere “virtue signaling” would not explain why we found that outrage increased as a function of guilt, nor why we found that allowing people to feel personally moral dampened expressions of outrage. </p>
<p>Secondly, research suggests that not all outrage is merely self-serving. While our work supports this idea, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/014466608X313774/abstract">other research</a> shows that outrage does fuel activism and motivates groups to promote social change. In other words, there is evidence to suggest that outrage can have genuinely moral motives and goals or that it can be driven by personal insecurities or, more likely, some combination thereof. </p>
<p>Third, our research shows that outrage works essentially the same way across the political spectrum. We found that reminding people of their own harmful behavior evoked outrage for both token conservative (e.g., illegal immigration) and liberal issues (e.g., climate change and sweatshop labor). Moreover, guilt predicted outrage regardless of whether participants identified as being politically liberal or conservative. </p>
<h2>Is outrage merely for show? Not so</h2>
<p>In trying to understand what motivates outrage, we would argue that concerns about injustice, social appearance and personal guilt all play a modest role.</p>
<p>To the extent that we value respectful politics, we should acknowledge that an individual’s outrage may in part be about their own needs rather than about the issue per se.</p>
<p>Does that mean that outrage is illegitimate or merely for show? Absolutely not. </p>
<p>Instead, we see the evolving science on outrage as highlighting motives and functions that competing groups share. Recognizing this psychological common ground may help to defuse some of today’s more intractable social and political conflicts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A lot of moral outrage has been expressed lately – over Trump’s travel ban and other issues. The expression of such outrage is more than a response to perceived injustice.Zachary K. Rothschild, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Bowdoin CollegeLucas A. Keefer, Assistant Professor in Psychology, The University of Southern MississippiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.