Reply #10: Still Means the Same, Doesn't It?

[rwenos]

Maybe I read too many books, but I think Bob Ewell symbolizes the uneducated, economically-disadvantaged southern white population as well now as he did in the 1960's, when Harper Lee wrote "To Kill A Mockingbird," which she set in the late 1930's in a mythical small Southern town.

The Bob Ewells of the world probably live a little better now than they did then (the Depression being a faded memory), but don't they still (and I'm quoting from memory, not the text) ". . . spend their welfare checks on green whiskey, so that their children cry from hunger"?

The Pubs have conned this group into thinking they are better off being screwed by big corporations, than by the local elitists. And the Pubs have let them pick their own scapegoat, i.e., the "Liberal Democrats."

In short, I think the description and the term still mean the same thing. Maybe the current version smells a little better, with air conditioning and all.