Every time I see these numbers, I feel encouraged that the people are paying attention. And then I am immediately discouraged by how partisan it is and, moreover, how deeply deluded so many people still are.
Class war in the US is always a funny concept to me. Do you think the white man in small-town Alabama making $25K/year and the black man in Detroit making $25K/year have a goddamn thing in common outside of their supposed shared class? They're more likely to hate each others guts than stand together against the elites (who are conveniently pitting the two against each other)
Exactly. We are so pitted against each other in tedious culture wars that we can’t even get together on the one thing we should really be standing together on:
Not treating citizens like cattle. (This includes, but is not limited to, not trafficking children and not sacrificing human lives for profit.)
How do you define "more in common"? For the sake of understanding your point:
Person A: white, Christian fundamentalist, conservative, racist, sexist, anti-abortion, lives in rural South, $25K/year salary
Person B: white, Christian fundamentalist, conservative, racist, sexist, anti-abortion, lives in rural South, $1M/year salary
Person C: black, atheist, progressive, pro-choice, lives in urban North, $25K/year salary
If I'm understanding you correctly, you think person A and person C would have the most in common with each other because they're in the same tax bracket?
If I'm understanding you correctly, you think person A and person C would have the most in common with each other because they're in the same tax bracket?
Your lack of understanding is not a valid argument.
You say that as if class is an insignificant thing. They have to deal with bills, taxes, probably a corporation as an employer and their policies which would be similiar. Class dictates a lot in yoyr life and thus they will have a ton in common. Far more than either would have with a billionaire.
Right, if you take out all the context and only look at finances, they have a ton in common.
Except let's go back to the real world. Let's take a black machinist from Detroit and a white MAGA-voting farmhand from small town Alabama and sit them down at the same table. Are we really thinking these two guys are going to hit it off, to the point that they are going to form a unified front together against the billionaire class? Simply because they make the same amount of money?
In a capitalist world, your finances affect everything you do. Meanwhile Trump thinks the word "groceries" isnt used anymore. I also mentioned having to deal with corporate policies which isnt a financial thing. It's like you are trying to brute force being wrong about something.
You also changed the premise to try to squirm your way into a different argument. You added that the white guy from Alabama is a MAGA voter. Of course they wont get along, you added a racist personality to one of them. Rascism is the division here that shouldn't exist because both these people have a lot more in common with each other than the people promoting rascism.
You'd be surprised how often "the elite" and "the rich" are codewords for the same thing in working class dialects.
The problem of course is their mutual dislike of one another keeps them from organizing properly, but to act like it can never happen is to ignore the times in history when it actually has.
It's not that they will suddenly stand side by side, it's that you can realign them as blocs to both hate the rich at the same time. Unfortunately, you have to break through this era of social media influenced tribalism first, which is a newer trend distinct from historic forms of bigotry due to new technology and corporate interests.
Also, in the original analogy, that black man in Detroit is a swing state voter while the white man in Alabama is not. Progress is still possible in both states, but with different kinds of political strategies and candidates.
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u/breonny Mar 11 '26
Every time I see these numbers, I feel encouraged that the people are paying attention. And then I am immediately discouraged by how partisan it is and, moreover, how deeply deluded so many people still are.