The "Grievance Industry"

[paft.livejournal.com]

Many years ago, just after the end of Reagan’s first term, I was listening to a local Talk Radio host, Ronn Owens, doing a sort of “summing up” of the Reagan administration so far. He brought up Reagan’s question, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and he said, “I gotta tell ya. Yes, I am. And everyone I know is better off too.”

Ronn invited his mostly white, middle-class listeners to weigh in. One after another they lined up to chirp about how well they were doing in Reagan’s America.

Then, he got a black caller, who informed the host, “I’m not better off. I’m not better off at all. In fact, things have gotten worse. And I don’t know one single black American who’s not doing worse.”

“Oh now sir,” Ronn said, with the air of someone calming down a hysteric. “don’t you feel you’re being a little myopic?”

I guess the farsighted, non-myopic approach would have been for the caller and all those other black Americans to think happy thoughts about how well Ronn Owens and the other white folks were doing, rather than focusing on their own petty concerns.



There has long been in the United States mainstream the unspoken assumption that a poor, female, gay, non-Christian or non-white person voting in his or her own interest is a form of whining rather than common sense, even though the stakes for these voters tend to be higher than the concerns of wealthy folks who don’t want to pay those extra taxes that could price them out of that second house in the Hamptons. The rule of thumb is, apparently – if you have a real grievance influencing your vote, like “I could lose my healthcare if the Republicans have their way” or “I could end up unable to afford birth control or unable to get access to an abortion” or “As a black American, I don’t want a guy who’s taking advice from Charles Murray deciding policy that’s going to affect my kids” or “My family could go hungry” or “I could end up in jail for having consensual sex with another adult” or “this guy wants to pass legislation that would endanger my right to vote” you are part of the “Grievance Industry.” And that’s a bad thing.

This attitude has recently been kicked into overdrive by the passing of ACA. The right wing is now in full panic mode over the horrifying discovery that people like being able to afford healthcare and are not going to like having that access taken away. Worse, these same people will actually vote in favor of their own physical and civic well-being. The right seems to think this is awfully unfair, and they believe it’s even more unfair for Democratic politicians to point out to these voters how much is at stake.

Joan Walsh at Salon puts it beautifully:

So let me make sure I understand. Telling your voters, accurately, that Republicans are trying to make it harder for them to vote, and are blocking action on pay equity, the minimum wage and immigration reform is unfair “grievance politics”? Likewise, any effort to deal with the scandal of $1 trillion in student loan debt? Oliphant compares it to the grievance politics practiced by Republicans under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But that form of grievance politics mainly relied on inflaming white voters’ fears of cultural and racial change with false or highly exaggerated claims about Democrats. (emphasis added.)

The difference between accusations that are accurate and accusations that are highly exaggerated or quite simply untrue is apparently unimportant, as far as some in the media are concerned.

I mean really, it’s all about whether or not they make people get all emotional. All that arm-waving and emoting about “I want to cast a ballot” or “I want my heart medication” or “I don’t want to end up homeless after my unemployment benefits run out” is JUST like those Republicans who said that black people were going to take over and John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals and gay people were going to kidnap your little boy and marry him. So vulgar!

Why can’t people directly affected by these policies stop horning into conversations that should really be conducted as abstract conundrums over cocktails at a DC reception?

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Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So if someone votes Republican this year because they see how the ACA is negatively impacting their family's health care, or are worried about how it will impact their jobs or taxes, are you okay with that?

The problem with the "grievance industry" is not that people vote for what they believe their best interests are (independent of whether they are or not). It's the erroneous viewpoint you espouse with your Joan Walsh quote - the belief that such bogus claims of a "war on women" or having various policies motivated by racism is actually accurate. When you don't need to be honest to win anymore, what's the point? Worked for Obama, after all, so I'm not shocked to see the Democrats doubling down on it this year.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The real grievance industry is the one run by an Australian and a Saudi prince that blathers on about the evils of foreigners and Muslims and anything else it decides to manufacture as a threat.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

"Making it harder for your voters to vote." Translation: Requiring the same ID that most states require just to buy a six pack of beer. Making it harder for you to vote means making sure that the people who are attempting to vote themselves bread and circuses out of Americans' pockets are at least not foreign nationals (a lost cause, I know, when foreign nationals don't even have to come to the U.S. to get what they want from U.S. politicians, especially Republicans). Making it harder for you to vote means making sure you aren't voting while dead, or voting two or three times. How horrible. Voting two or three times is as American as stolen apple pie.

Frankly though, I'm all in favor of voting, democracy and the collectivist mythology breaking down. It's an inevitability anyway. Making voting more secure and tamper-resistant only gives it a legitimacy it doesn't deserve. Hell, let the "illegals" vote — and watch what happens when they do, and get caught. Good times. The Republic, such as it was, is pretty much gone, except in fantasy. Let's see the Empire collapse. I'm all for it. Vote bread and circuses all you want. Blow up the economy with calculation-proof, destabilizing socialism, and then vote yourself socialized band-aids once the medical goods and services become too expensive to buy. Brilliance. Everybody vote two or three times. Pose as your dead grandma, or someone's dead grandma, and go vote. Get together some groups and hire some tour buses to hit the polling places multiple times. Make it a party. Politics is corruption, by nature, why go small?

Just don't do all that stuff too quickly. I'm nowhere near finished stocking up on things like food, medicine, gold, and guns. We don't want to start the old Zombie Apocalypse too soon, you know.