A sizable and obnoxiously well-funded faction of Americans have been fighting New Deal reforms for almost a hundred years. Rural folks living on astro-turf for generations believing that bootstraps were not a joke. Sacrifices must be made on the altar of capitalism. Same reason MAHA wants people to die of preventable diseases. Thin the herd, cull the weak, fuck the poor, save humanity. “We can’t afford it” has always been absolute horseshit. The willpower isn’t there, corporate America needs its subsidies, failure is free money. They won’t take their own advice and let the free market decide. Socialism for oligarchs, gambling for everyone else.
What’s crazy is how rural America was solidly behind much of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s, but Civil Rights drove such a wedge that they followed George Wallace right out of the Democratic Party, and by the early 70s had fully aligned with Richard Nixon. The racism was/is that deep, that all those people just gave up everything else they supported politically to try to ensure the government continued to oppress minority groups.
A sizable and obnoxiously well-funded faction of Americans have been fighting New Deal reforms for almost a hundred years. Rural folks living on astro-turf for generations believing that bootstraps were not a joke. Sacrifices must be made on the altar of capitalism. Same reason MAHA wants people to die of preventable diseases. Thin the herd, cull the weak, fuck the poor, save humanity. “We can’t afford it” has always been absolute horseshit. The willpower isn’t there, corporate America needs its subsidies, failure is free money. They won’t take their own advice and let the free market decide. Socialism for oligarchs, gambling for everyone else.
What’s crazy is how rural America was solidly behind much of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s, but Civil Rights drove such a wedge that they followed George Wallace right out of the Democratic Party, and by the early 70s had fully aligned with Richard Nixon. The racism was/is that deep, that all those people just gave up everything else they supported politically to try to ensure the government continued to oppress minority groups.