Why Conservatives’ Old Divide-and-Conquer Strategy Is Backfiring

[n2doc]

by Robert Reich


For almost forty years Republicans have pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy intended to convince working-class whites that the poor were their enemies.

The big news is it’s starting to backfire.

Republicans told the working class that its hard-earned tax dollars were being siphoned off to pay for “welfare queens” (as Ronald Reagan decorously dubbed a black single woman on welfare) and other nefarious loafers. The poor were “them” — lazy, dependent on government handouts and overwhelmingly black — in sharp contrast to “us,” who were working ever harder, proudly independent (even sending wives and mothers to work, in order to prop up family incomes dragged down by shrinking male paychecks) and white.

It was a cunning strategy designed to split the broad Democratic coalition that had supported the New Deal and Great Society, by using the cleavers of racial prejudice and economic anxiety. It also conveniently fueled resentment of government taxes and spending.

The strategy also served to distract attention from the real cause of the working class’s shrinking paychecks — corporations that were busily busting unions, outsourcing abroad and replacing jobs with automated equipment and, subsequently, computers and robotics.

more

http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/10/why-conservatives-old-divide-and-conquer-strategy-—-setting-working-class-against-the-poor-—-is-backfiring/

[pinto]

1. Excellent piece.

[bvar22]

2. "95 percent of the economy’s gains have gone to the top 1 percent"

"65 percent of working families are living from paycheck to paycheck"

These things do NOT happen by accident.
This is the result of carefully planned and implemented Economic Policy.
It requires careful preparation, marketing, buying the right politicians, message control, courts packed with Conservative Corporate Rights Judges, and the marginalization and suppression of any opposition.


DURec for Bill Moyers.
---one of the few Truth Tellers left in our Media,
and he has been pushed into a remote corner off in the distance,
while everyone else is focusing on a hyper sensationalized Traffic Jam.

Yes, the Christie corruption story is important,
but it is dwarfed by Moyer's piece.

THIS is the story that should lead every single "news" broadcast
every single day:

[font size=4]95 percent of the economy’s gains have gone to the top 1 percent[/font]


...and THIS:
[font size=3]Study: "Trade" Deal Would Mean a Pay Cut for 90% of U.S. Workers [/font]
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2013/09/the-verdict-is-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-a-sweeping-free-trade-deal-under-negotiation-with-11-pacific-rim-coun.html


Thank You, Bill Moyers,
for keeping it REAL.

[zeemike]

3. Yes and those stories should be repeated every day

By our democrat politicians...but for the most part they remain silent...as silent as the corporate news media.
They are not part of the solution so they must be part of the problem.
Thank god we still have people like Bill Moyers.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. Corporations were ALSO focused on pillaging from the past value for the sake of greed...

Instead of investing in the future.

Part of that stems from all of the Armageddonist crap that there IS NO FUTURE.

There is an entire industry out there telling people to cash in before the inevitable collapse that never comes.

I'm not talking about a market or monetary crash, these idiots believe SOCIETY will collapse.

Part of that is the 1% are CONVINCED that THEY are society so if they go down then EVERYBODY goes down with them, and they consider the 99% out there to be a bunch of mouth-breathers already that are barely able to dress themselves so going DOWN from that leads to wearing animal skins and using clubs.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

5. Commenting to read later. K&R

[JaneyVee]

6. Now we have robots building robots designed to replace American workers with

Robots.

[LittleGirl]

7. thanks for posting

excellent!

[Brigid]

8. Could it be . . .

That Americans are finally beginning to shake off their bad case of what I call "Steinbeck Syndrome?" I can hope, can't I?

[Th1onein]

9. Since the start of the recovery, 95 percent of the economy’s gains have gone to the top 1 percent.

A damned shame.