Divide-and-conquer isn't working out so well these days.
By Robert B. Reich in Robert Reich's Blog and Alternet
For almost 40 years Republicans have pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy intended to convince working-class whites that the poor were their enemies.
The big
news is it's starting to backfire.
Republicans
told the working class that its hard-earned tax dollars were being siphoned off
to pay for "welfare queens" (as Ronald Reagan decorously dubbed a
black single woman on welfare) and other nefarious loafers. The poor were
"them" -- lazy, dependent on government handouts, and overwhelmingly
black -- in sharp contrast to "us," who were working ever harder,
proudly independent (even sending wives and mothers to work, in order to prop
up family incomes dragged down by shrinking male paychecks), and white.
It was a
cunning strategy designed to split the broad Democratic coalition that had
supported the New Deal and Great Society, by using the cleavers of racial
prejudice and economic anxiety. It also conveniently fueled resentment of
government taxes and spending.
The strategy also served to distract attention from the real cause of the working class's shrinking paychecks -- corporations that were busily busting unions, outsourcing abroad, and replacing jobs with automated equipment and, subsequently, computers and robotics.
But the
divide-and-conquer strategy is no longer convincing because the dividing line
between poor and middle class has all but disappeared. "They" are
fast becoming "us."
Poverty is
now a condition that almost anyone can fall into. In the first two years of
this recovery, according to new report from Census Bureau, about one in three
Americans dropped into poverty for at least two to six months.
Three
decades of flattening wages and declining economic security have taken a
broader toll. Nearly 55 percent of
Americans between the ages of 25 and 60 have experienced at least a year in poverty
or near poverty (below 150 percent of the poverty line). Half of
all American children have at some point during their childhoods relied on food
stamps.
Fifty
years ago, when Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty," most of
the nation's chronically poor had little or no connection to the labor force,
while most working-class Americans had full-time jobs.
This
distinction has broken down as well. Now a significant percentage of the poor
are working but not earning enough to get themselves and their families out of
poverty. And a growing portion of the middle class finds themselves in the same
place -- often in part-time or temporary positions, or in contract work.
Economic
insecurity is endemic. Working-class whites who used to be cushioned against
the vagaries of the market are now fully exposed to them. Trade unions that
once bargained on behalf of employees and protected their contractual rights
have withered. Informal expectations of lifelong employment with a single
company are gone. Company loyalty has become a bad joke.
Financial
markets are now calling the shots -- forcing companies to suddenly uproot, sell
out to other companies, transfer whole divisions abroad, liquidate unprofitable
units, or adopt new software that suddenly renders old skills obsolete.
Because
money moves at the speed of an electronic impulse while human beings move at
the speed of human beings, the humans -- most of them hourly workers but many
white collar as well -- have been getting shafted.
This means
sudden and unexpected poverty has become a real possibility for almost everyone
these days. And there's little margin of safety. With the real median household
income continuing to drop, 65 percent of working families are living from
paycheck to paycheck.
Race
is no longer a dividing line, either. According to Census Bureau numbers, two-thirds of
those below the poverty line at any given point identify themselves as white.
This new
face of poverty -- a face that's both poor, near-poor, and precarious working
middle, and that's simultaneously black, Latino, and white -- renders the old
Republican divide-and-conquer strategy obsolete. Most people are now on the
same losing side of the divide. Since the start of the recovery, 95 percent of
the economy's gains have gone to the top 1 percent.
Which
means Republican opposition to extended unemployment insurance, food stamps,
jobs programs, and a higher minimum wage pose a real danger of backfiring on
the GOP.
Just look
at North Carolina, a bellweather state, where Democratic Senator Kay Hagan, up
for re-election, is doing well by attacking Republicans back home as
"irresponsible and cold-hearted" for slashing unemployment benefits
and social services. The state Democratic Party is highlighting her Republican
opponent's "long record of demeaning statements against those struggling
to make ends meet." (Tom Tillis, the speaker of the State, had spoken of
the need "to divide and conquer" people on public assistance, and
called criticisms of the cuts as "whining coming from losers.")
The new
economy has been especially harsh for the bottom two-thirds of Americans. It's
not hard to imagine a new political coalition of America's poor and working
middle class, bent not only on repairing the nation's frayed safety nets but
also on getting a fair share of the economies' gains.
Robert Reich is professor of public policy at the Richard and
Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California,
Berkeley. He was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration.