• partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    I have to credit a random Redditor from 10 years back or so that had some excellent analysis I haven’t seen elsewhere or since. This Redditor’s thesis was that the GOP have two core concepts:

    1. Society is zero-sum. For someone to gain something, someone else must lose something.
    2. Each person has a certain class level in society and that each person should stay in their class. If you are poor, you should stay poor. If you are rich you should stay rich. Attempting to move up into a higher level class should be restricted by any means of government possible.

    Looking at these two together explain nearly every GOP initiative or position. So lets apply it to your question:

    Why is he so against feeding the poor?

    Applying the first concept: For the poor to be fed (gain), those that are not poor have to pay (loss). The GOP in power are largely rich, so they see the poor being able to eat through SNAP as a personal loss to the GOP.

    Applying the second concept: SNAP may allow someone to spend what little other non-SNAP money they have on things that would advance them into a higher social class such as:

    • more education to be able to earn more for higher skilled work
    • more efficient transportation allowing them to access higher paying jobs either farther away or at more available hours
    • specialized tools that could be used to earn higher income

    So the GOP don’t want the poor to be fed because they believe the poor should be poor and stuck there forever.

    • some_designer_dude@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      So what you’re saying is they’re sociopathic monsters?

      I can’t even tell if I’m being sarcastic. One question: what did they say about the poor also seemingly voting to remain poor?

      • frongt@lemmy.zip
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        19 hours ago

        To quote Trump: “We won with the poorly educated, I love the poorly educated”.

        Also that LBJ quote: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        That conversation didn’t go that way, but I think the answer to why the poor voting would vote for the GOP is addressed by the (possibly misattribution) Ronald Write quote:

        “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” ― Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress

        • vateso5074@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          Identity politics also plays into it. Pass the blame on to another demographic and promise to do something about it.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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            21 hours ago

            That cartoon is just a variation on zero-sum, isn’t it? The wealthy man in the middle is trying to convince the man in the helmet on the right that he must lose if the immigrant on the left is to gain.

            • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
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              5 hours ago

              “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

              Lyndon B. Johnson

            • frunch@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              I’ve always thought of the man in the middle in that pic as Rupert Murdoch, founder and owner of Fox News

    • Øπ3ŕ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      21 hours ago

      The “logic” that anyone on SNAP is capable of paying their way up the “ladder” is complete horseshit. (though I know you phrased it as what the 1% believe, not reality in any way) Also, there is no ladder.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        The “logic” that anyone on SNAP is capable of paying their way up the “ladder” is complete horseshit.

        By his own admission, the mother of JD Vance (VP) was on that era’s equivalent of SNAP (Food Stamps). Her son became a US Senator and now sitting VP.

        “He explained, “I was raised in a working-class family. My mother required food assistance for periods of her life. My grandmother required Social Security help to raise me. And she raised me in part because my own mother struggled with addiction for a big chunk of my early life. I went to college on the GI Bill after I enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Iraq.””

        source

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
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          20 hours ago

          By joining the military and using a GI Bill for state uni, scholarship to Yale.

        • Øπ3ŕ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          19 hours ago

          The key word here is “paying”. Nothing you provided in reply qualifies for that term. He’s simply jumped from hand-out to hand-out and clearly has been looking for a way sneak out onto the upper crust the whole time.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            The key word here is “paying”. Nothing you provided in reply qualifies for that term.

            I’m not following you here, please clarify. The only time I used the term “pay” was in the context of the zero sum example. I don’t think that’s what you’re referring to. The next time “paying” is used is you saying it. So I guess I need to ask what you mean when you said “paying their way up the ‘ladder’”. Can you explain what you’re meaning there?

            • Øπ3ŕ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              18 hours ago

              Nah. I’m spent. This bullshit is all too real for me and carrying on with fellow rando anons online is only hammering the dark AF reality that nothing is ever going to change. We just get used to the new fuckery every generation. Cheers.

    • falseWhite@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      It’s not GOP led, it’s just Trump being a little bitch and you give him too much credit.

      That would actually require Trump to be smart, which he is anything but. He is simply a cruel sick fuck who doesn’t think or give any fucks about anyone but himself. If he does appear to give any fucks, it’s only because in his mind it will benefit him. Literally anything he does is because he thinks it’s good for him.