Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Why are they so cruel?

After the debacle of the AHCA collapse, one thing seems crystal clear:  the Republican party is a party of heartless cruelty.  The AHCA would have essentially destroyed the insurance market.  In their attempts to court the far-right, they even got rid of a requirement that minimal plans cover "outpatient care, emergency room visits, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and addiction treatment, prescription drugs, rehabilitative services, lab services, preventive care and pediatric services."  So, what's the point of having insurance if it doesn't cover everything?

Exactly.  The point is that "those people" don't deserve any help.

This comes on top of efforts to de-fund social programs including those that support Meals on Wheels.

Paul Waldman:
Beneath proposals like that is a particular view of poor people, one that drips with contempt. It sees them not as those who have had hard lives or encountered some bad luck or who could use help, but people who are fundamentally lazy and trying to scam the system. What they need is a lecture on bootstrap-pulling and maybe some humiliation, and then through that suffering they might improve their moral character enough to be worthy of the government benefits those with higher incomes enjoy. 
And the White House is eager to help; its proposed budget would slash nearly every program in sight that actually helps people, from Meals on Wheels to afterschool programs to the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food assistance program to affordable housing to libraries. 
All this is accompanied, of course, by the Republicans' eternal desire to cut taxes on the wealthy. So pay attention, because this is what Republicans do when they get the chance: They work like dogs to make the lives of those at the bottom and middle more difficult, while trying equally hard to ease the burdens so unjustly suffered by those at the top.  

Chauncey DeVega:
It is normal to feel aghast at and disgusted by the Republican Party’s war on the poor. The more challenging and perhaps even more disturbing task is to ask why today’s conservatives feel such antipathy, disregard and hostility toward poor and other vulnerable Americans. Certainly greed and a slavish devotion to a revanchist right-wing ideology are part of the answer. But they may not be sufficient 
....American political elites often use language that robs poor and other marginalized people of their individuality, humanity and dignity. This language also creates a type of social distance between “middle class” or “normal” Americans and those with economic disadvantages. ...conservatives are more likely than liberals or progressives to believe in what’s known as the “just world fallacy,” whereby people who suffer a misfortune are viewed as somehow deserving their fate....
and like so much else, it is deeply tied to racial dynamics.
As such, poor people are incorrectly stereotyped as being overwhelmingly black and brown. In the United States, the intersections of race and class also affect the media narratives and cultural scripts that have dictated who has historically been considered “deserving” (widows of war veterans, people with disabilities, single white mothers, children, elderly folks) and “undeserving” (adult men and people of color) poor. 
Of course, you'll know they are "Christians" by their love:
Among evangelical Christians, what is called the “prosperity gospel” has become increasingly influential. This grotesque interpretation of Christian doctrine assures its adherents that poor people deserve their circumstances because God has chosen not to bless them with money. Conversely, rich people have more money because God has deemed them worthy. Christian evangelicals — especially those who believe in the prosperity gospel — were a key constituency in Donald Trump’s winning coalition.
As Gandhi said, your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

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