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Voter Angst and Political Ideology

Americans are still being faced with 'politics as usual.'

By Jerrie DeRosePublished 6 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
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President Franklin Roosevelt created "The National Welfare System" as a short-term program to provide work relief for millions of unemployed Americans following the Great Depression. Over the years it was expanded to include public assistance programs, which were embraced by "both political parties although conservatives began denying the fact during Ronald Reagan's tenure as president when the Republican ideology moved more to the right.

Between 1950 and 1995, when the middle class had jobs that paid a living wage that easily supported their families, and Americans received employer-paid benefits including health care and employer funded pensions, there was little complaint about where their tax dollars were going, or about the social security and Medicare being taken from their checks. And almost no American was aware that both parties were dipping heavily into the social security fund to help pay for the budget.

Factories went out of business and shut down when manufacturing jobs went overseas

The collapse of the middle class

When unfair trade policies, written by Republican and Democratic presidents, were sold to voters by representatives in the US Congress and Senate led to the exportation of manufacturing jobs overseas in the late 1980's and early 1990's, the Northeastern and Eastern United States, parts of the Midwest and some southern states became a wasteland of decaying and abandoned factories. The lack of tax receipts into city, state and federal coffers decreased as manufacturing jobs disappeared and were replaced by low paying service jobs no benefits or only a bare bones fringe benefit package. The last to go were the textile mills in the south courtesy of Republican president George W Bush. He also gave Panama the Panama Canal.

Millions were left without work as factories went under. This was parlayed into higher taxes for a fast shrinking middle class, higher property taxes to help shore up now failing city and state economies, and price increases for shelter, utilities, gasoline, food, vehicles, and medical costs. As the middle class saw their wage base decrease, their federal and state income taxes increase and burdened by higher costs, attitudes towards entitlement programs changed as a growing number of Americans were forced to turn to public assistance out of need, NOT choice. And Democrats and Republican's borrowed even more heavily from the Social Security fund Americans had paid into for decades.

The system became a political tool

By 2000 both parties focus had shifted further to the left and the right with mainstream America being ignored. The right turned towards special interest groups with Conservatives aligning themselves with the religious right (which began as the Christian coalition in the 1980's), right to life advocates, anti-immigration groups, and corporate interests, and the powerful NRA. Democrats aligned themselves with groups backing social issues including LGBT and abortion rights, both legal and illegal immigrants, senior citizens, and women's groups. Politics became little more than an ideological battleground.

Democrats threw hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into welfare programs to "alleviate poverty" and by the 1980s were accusing Conservatives of causing poverty, with Conservatives countering that Democrats kept families in poverty. Neither attempted to develop common sense legislature to try and resolve the problems they themselves created. Democrats threw more money into entitlement programs and Conservatives began making deep cuts that resulted in increased homelessness, hunger, less affordable housing, and fewer low-income and middle income workers or those on welfare being able to access decent healthcare.

The Tug of War Between Democrats and Conservatives

Conservatives were the first to draw attention to the state of the US economy, although they were just as much to blame as Democrats, including the high income taxes burdening the middle class, the decrease in jobs related to trade and stagnating wages, the steady flow of millions of primarily Hispanic and Latino immigrants coming into the US illegally, and more. For decades Republican presidents also allowed a steady flow of immigrants into the U.S. illegally to give corporate America a cheap source of labor. With the middle class continuing to decrease and with the economy in disarray and the populous looking for a way out, Donald Trump tapped into the American angst and public anger at politics as usual to attack Democrats on multiple fronts and painting himself as their savior much as Hitler once did and ended up controlling all three branches of the federal government.

The new tax law translated into higher taxes for middle-class workers

Trump and Republicans first order of business was to pass a new tax law benefitting only the wealthiest Americans and corporations. Using executive orders, Trump put mandates on a variety of products and grains exported to China, steel imports, and more. He allowed white Nationalists, Evangelical Christian leaders, and the NRA to set the course for his presidency. And built his infamous wall. Losing a second term in 2020, Right wing extreme Conservatives and the extreme religious right are already planning for 2022 and 2024.

Democrats have been given a chance to do better and all of America is watching to see what happens next. Yet Democrats are still on their soap box touting free college education, Medicare for all, "more money for entitlement programs, etc," the very thing that caused American voters to turn to Trump and Republicans in the first place. It wasn't enough to get a win on the infrastructure bill. The party doesn't seem to have learned a thing.

If Democrats can't or won't come up with new and logical answers to America's ills that do not focus only on spending more of American's tax dollars, there is an excellent chance they will lose the Congress in 2022 with only a six more representatives than Republicans. The Senate is split 50-50 with Harris casting the deciding vote in a tie. And then there is the presidential election in 2024. The public at large is sick and tired of politics as usual in America, by both parties as is evidenced by the fact fewer and fewer Americans from either party are going to the polls, although Republican voters still out number Democrats when it comes to voting.

opinion
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About the Creator

Jerrie DeRose

Willow Tree Early Ed Team social media sup; retired Early Childhood Education Consult; 2017 Mainstream Coalition intern; grassroots polit/fam advocate; Parent support tech MH center, Moderate unaffiliated, 16 yrs content writing; Army Vet

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