zorg1000 said:
You can’t go on about culture then also be like “don’t bring up history!†Culture & history are directly linked, you have to look at history in order to understand when, how and why something becomes a part of that culture. â€ÂMiddle America†does not have some long standing culture of not taking government “charity†like your previous post claims. The golden age of capitalism and the creation of the middle class was in a time period when the government was giving out the most “charityâ€Â. High taxes were used to create a safety net, subsidies, investments & regulations and it was very popular. When did middle America start hating government “charityâ€Â? In the aftermath of the civil rights movement when black people started having equal access to all the “charity†that white people had grown accustomed to for decades. Republicans were successfully able to convince a large part of the population that government “charity†was no longer being used for building and maintaining a thriving middle class but rather going to lazy, undeserving people who were collecting benefits from hard working Americans tax dollars. Ever since then, Republicans have used boogeyman tactics to get people to vote against their best interests and get them worked up about an undeserving “other†whether that’s minorities, immigrants or LGBT people. With all that said, it doesn’t mean everyone who voted Republican in 2024 is a bigot, like we talked about earlier, it comes down to messaging. After a couple years of high inflation, most Americans were not feeling good about the economy. Republicans were able to convince many of the low information voters that Democrats cared more about immigrants & transgender people than they cared about improving the lives of the average American. These people may not be anti-immigrant or anti-trans but it’s going to be hard to convince people that immigrant/trans rights are the most important issue when they are struggling themselves. Now ~7 months into this administration, we are seeing tariffs & trade wars causing inflation to creep back up and slowing economic activity, we are seeing ICE raids and federalizing the National Guard turning the country into a police state where even citizens are getting abducted, locked up or deported and we are seeing spending cuts to healthcare & food assistance that will hurt millions of “middle Americansâ€Â. The last 50-60 years has seen people regularly vote against their own best interest over culture wars like race, religion, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. not because of some long standing belief of being too proud to accept government “charityâ€Â. | 
