Article by Tim Jones in The American Thinker
America's real divisions
The real divisions in the country are not what most everyone assumes them to be, such as that of right and left.
No, they are the upper and lower classes versus the middle, working, and rural classes. Lower classes mostly vote for Democrats because they know Democrats all about providing free services in the form of entitlements, welfare and/or transfer payments, or whatever you want to call it. They count on the Democrats as their personal benefactors, much like how a child depends on parents for his financial security. This is also why so many have become locked into their lower financial status. That dependency will always be at a minimal level of subsistence, and there will never be strong enough incentives to break away from that dependency to rise above one's current financial level.
For the upper classes, it's a combination of wanting to maintain the status quo, since almost all government taxes and programs never have an adverse effect on their financial status, and they often improve it. This, then, makes it so easy for them to always vote for Democrats along with a misguided sense of noblesse oblige based on the need to assuage guilt for living so well and high above the unwashed masses.
So when you think about it, the upper and lower classes have financial security, where they never take it on the chin when the economy takes a massive hit, much like what's happening right now with inflation raging and gas and food prices skyrocketing.
It's the middle classes who always get slammed when the economy is bad. Many in the middle are always living on the edge of slipping into the lower classes because so many are living paycheck to paycheck. Who was most adversely affected by the lockdowns? It was working men running their own businesses such as restaurants and small retail stores, waiters and workers, housekeepers, and maintenance people in the hospitality industry, to name a few. It was pretty much anyone who doesn't sit in front of a computer terminal or a laptop for a living.
The vast working classes consist of mostly people who are on their feet eight hours a day and paid by the hour — whom everyone takes for granted, but who are always hurt the most by government policy gone bad. They are the ones who have the dignity to get up every morning and would rather earn their keep than get a transfer payment from the government. And now that the high cost of living is going through the roof because of Joe Biden's complete mismanagement of domestic and foreign policy, any wage gains they've received over the last two to three years have been wiped out by inflation, which has actually made them poorer.
A recent piece by Victor Davis Hanson called "The Real 'Reset' Is Coming," where he talks about those who are hurt the most by policies implemented by Biden and company, argues that they are going to take out their anger and frustration ON the current ruling political class — i.e., the Democrats — in the upcoming midterm elections and vote the bums out of office:
Natural gas and oil costs are now soaring to unsustainable levels — and to the point where the middle class simply will not be able to travel or keep warm in winter or cool in summer.
So as the power elites at the top of the most influential institutions in the country such as government, academia, and corporations continue to impose social policy from above, their perpetual distraction and misdirection from the most important kitchen table issues that affect those in the vast rural, middle, and working classes go on unabated. They are making sure everyone keeps his eye on one shiny silver ball that will do absolutely nothing for so many in terms of making life better for them and their families versus always focusing our attention on the other shiny silver balls such as "systemic racism," "toxic masculinity," and transgenderism, which will do absolutely nothing in terms of improving the financial situation for the vast middle of America or keeping it from slipping away.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/americas_real_divisions.html
