Following on my last piece on Why Resentment is Key to Conservative Politics, I want to introduce you to the winner of last night’s Republican senatorial primary in North Carolina, state House Speaker Thom Tillis, who will be challenging Senator Kay Hagan in November:
Here (via TPM) is the transcript of Tillis’s remarks in that video, which was made in 2011:
“What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance,” Tillis said. “We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy and had no choice, in her condition, that needs help and that we should help. And we need to get those folks to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government and say at some point, ‘You’re on your own. We may end up taking care of those babies, but we’re not going to take care of you.’ And we’ve got to start having that serious discussion.”
Tillis went on to say that discussion wouldn’t happen until at least 2013.
“It won’t happen next year. Wrong time, ‘cause it’s going to be politically charged,” Tillis said. “One of the reasons why I may never run for another elected office is that some of these things may just get me railroaded out of town. But in 2013, I honestly believe that we have to do that.”
Now, looking back at my argument that making people hate each other is the core of right-wing politics, you can see it in its most naked form here. He’s quite honest that conservatives need to get people who are genuinely in need because of a medical illness or something else that they cannot control to actively dislike other people who are getting public assistance. The idea is that Republicans can get people in genuine need of public assistance to vote against public assistance (and for Republicans) by getting them to hate other people on public assistance. If you have cerebral palsy, you’ll vote for Thom Tillis over Kay Hagan because Thom Tillis is going to cut the public assistance that you need. You’ll do this because you’d rather not get the help you need than see someone else get help that they may not need it as much as you do.
This is how rich people can convince poor unfortunate people to vote for Republicans, which will allow them to keep more of their money and go about their business in as unregulated a manner as possible.
In this case, the racist aspect of this is buried. Tillis is dividing the world into those who genuinely need assistance and those who are basically freeloaders. And he’s pitting them against each other. But the people who are harmed are the people who genuinely need assistance, and the people who are helped are the tax-averse folks who benefit from Republican policies.
When you start off with the view that 47% of the population are “takers” who get public assistance or pay no taxes, you need to set that 47% against each other and get some of them to vote for you because they believe you will beat the crap out of the folks they don’t like. If you don’t do this, you’ll never win.
But, what if there were a right-wing party that wasn’t just a tax and regulation-averse vessel for plutocrats? Could they maybe compete without cranking up the hate machine and pitting Americans against each other?
Maybe, or maybe not. But a hate machine is what they have, and they never stop inflicting it on the rest of us.
You know, it would be interesting if Thom Tillis could come up with just a handful of actual genuine living examples of people who have chosen government dependency at everyone else’s epxense. If these people are deserving of our contempt, let’s name some names. It doesn’t even have to be that many. Could Thom Tillis name, say, just ten people in North Carolina who are open and unapologetic takers?
Could Thom Tillis name, say, just ten people in North Carolina who are open and unapologetic takers?
Governor McGory, Art Pope, Thom Tillis and the rest of the GOPers of the NC Legislature?
A perfect assignment for the crack reporters of Fox News! Email them!
The key point for me in his comments is his belief that there are people who are morally responsible for the decisions they make. Do we have free will or are our behaviors predestined? Conservatives believe we freely choose and therefore can and should be held accountable.
I manage a halfway house for addicts and have worked in the field, on and off, for 30 years (also am an alcoholic/addict myself). I work with the indigent population, people who are impoverished in every imaginable way–no money, no education, frequently with felony records, often not very bright, poor emotional control, often no or negative family support.
Today I did an intake with a 30 year old guy who had been through 15 treatments and no real success at staying sober. His career has been going to treatment every 8 months for the last 10 years at a pretty steep cost to the tax payer. I see people like him regularly; the long term recovery rate for addicts is about 5-10 percent. Hazeldon, who gets the cream of the crop, claims 50% stay sober a year from their program.
So I ask myself, daily, why so many people fail at getting sober? There are many factors that lead to failure (or success), and I don’t see that those factors are chosen (heredity and environment are thrust on us).
So I see people as damaged in various ways and degrees, and the question is what we need to do with them. Oddly, as an atheist, I approve of Christ’s approach of being kind to those who are in trouble.
And that’s the difference, for me, between the worldview of conservatives and liberals.
Why has he
“could [plutocrats] maybe compete without cranking up the hate machine…?”
Their insoluble “problem” is that a strong majority of their political coalition (fundamentalists and low education whites) vote for the party BECAUSE of the hate machine. The machine is now indispensable. Not that this bothers the plutocrats much, they created the machine, after all. Anyway, you rig elections with the electorate you have, not what you wish you had, ha-ha.
Another simply appalling candidate from Team Conservative, he’ll be quite a fine addition to the latest Repub turds in the senate. How exactly is he different from a Tea Party-certified(tm) candidate?
Perhaps his welfare policy idea is that, when applying for the endless cornucopia of welfare that he and his supporters see everywhere (except down on the farm), the dead-weight dependent failure will have to document exactly how they became “dependent”, and some faceless gub’mint bureaucrat will then decide if the applicant is one if the deserving poor who didn’t become “Dependent-By-Choice”. So there may be uses for gub’mint!
Again, another crackpot–with a hugely successful political career. What a country.
The essence of the argument:
And that’s what Tillis is actually, explicitly, saying. Remember what “Divide and conquer” means. It means you conquer both of the parties whom you have divided.
Tillis wants to persuade the deserving poor to despise the undeserving poor, so he can “conquer” both of them, and end assistance for everyone. After all, social security and Medicare recipients are all “deserving” – they’ve paid in their dues. But Republican politicians, almost to a man, want to eliminate them.
republicans hate Americans and actively try to harm them. republicans are a disgrace. Hateful, mean-spirited and largely bigoted.
You’d think a Democrat could point this out next election.
But that would be shrill.
And not at all bi-partisan.
I’m all for it. I really think we should start pushing the idea that redistribution is an American tradition. We all know about FDR, but of course Cousin Theodore was a redistributionist too, and that’s just scratching the surface. I love how TR cites Lincoln in the New Nationalism speech.
Add in Thomas Jefferson, and at least three out of four presidents on Mt. Rushmore were commies. And I’m not sure if Washington was a redistributionist, but I am sure he wasn’t a libertarian.
It really is quite remarkable that this sort of inarticulate, formless blather is what passes for the political wisdom of an elected leader of the NC Repub party.
Perhaps Hagan should just start calling Tillis The Angry White Male…but I suppose he would just respond by handing out “Angry White Male” buttons.
Yes he would. And they would get him votes.
Hm. I don’t think this is actually what he’s proposing (in part cuz it’d be stupid, even for him):
Though it’s arguably no less reprehensible, I think his actual strategy is to convince that woman with CP that, “we’ll let you keep your benefits, which you deserve, and take them away from those who don’t.”
Now, whether Tillis is sincere in this, or fully intending to also yank Ms. CP’s benefits in the process, remains an open question, deserving of the utmost skepticism of his intent and motivation. But to make the proposal as you state it, Booman, would be sheer political suicide, with approximately zero hope of winning Ms. CP over, thus a failure from the outset as a “divide and conquer” strategy. And no matter what horrible people Tillis’s ilk are, what they are not is (intentionally) politically suicidal.
Actually, (watch the video) he is making that argument, and he acknowledges that he’d be railroaded out of town for making it. That’s what is so amazing about it. Also, look at the end of the Nordlinger piece:
Actually, yes (in the serpent sense).
It’s all about subtlety. Actually, slyness. Half of West Virginia and Kentucky are on food stamps and welfare, but they’re voting for Republicans because some black and Latino folks in the Bronx are also on food stamps and welfare.
That’s their whole game, and it works brilliantly.
That argument works. Case in point, my ex. Latina, got into Hopkins strictly because of Affirmative Action and government loans, her father is a 30 year Airforce Veteran as well. But she hates “moochers” and they are all die hard Republicans.
The reason is her niece. Her sister went to Berkley and turned into a hippie and married a stay at home dad who also went to Berkley. Their daughter was raised with no real parental supervision and got knocked up in high school and dropped out. She’s on government subsidies as are her parents… because the dad refuses to get a job and the niece refuses to as well.
To my ex, those dirty hippies are why this stuff needs to be cut. Because she can point to people she knows who are abusing the hell out of it. She’s utterly convinced that the Republicans will keep the stuff for people like her and her father that earn their benefits, while forcing her niece and brother in law to work. And that liberals will look after liberals like her niece and brother in law and put more people on the government dime.
Of course reality isn’t that simple for everyone, but it’s easy to find an example in your own life of someone who needs the system, and someone who is abusing the hell out fo it.
Try making the argument, “Some soldiers are goldbricks and a waste of pay. Therefore we should disband the US Army.”
Btw, flashed the BIOS and it’s been working peachy ever since.
Nice, glad to be of help 😉
If Republicans make the issue about those people who “don’t deserve” assistance, they’ve already won. The issue is, society simply isn’t possible at all if we don’t help each other. The rhetoric of “dependency” is a fraud, and is always used for fraudulent purposes.
There is a sickness in our country, that’s for sure. Just look at this article about NFL cheerleaders.
Predictably, commenters quickly revert to militant misogyny rather facing up to the despicable actions of a league that gets in excess of 100 million in TV rights payments PER GAME.
There is a very strong boot-licker mentality in our country that masquerades as tough, usually macho “independence.”
There are ALWAYS moochers and useless bums who ride the system. We should all acknowledge this and shift the argument to “Is the system policed as well as it reasonably should be?” That’s a legitimate question, but the Republicans aren’t interested in actually improving Government as they once were (remember Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican), but in destroying and subverting it.
The racist aspect of Tillis’s framing is highly dog-whistled. It’s buried in the “end up taking care of those babies” part of his statement.
And the truth is that the the sort of programs that Tillis is calling out haven’t existed to that level and extent since the Clinton administration. And even then they involved less than 1% of the population.
Hagen just drew the 2014 version of Todd Aiken opponent for her re-election bid. If her campaign is halfway decent and competent, she wins.