Words'nTone

Populist rhetoric favoring the poor over the rich and the government over the private sector hurts the poor
In the history I have studied and in recent and current history I have lived through and observed, one would think we would have learned that populous political rhetoric might win over the marginalized masses to ensure a change of who is in power, but actual governing leadership by populous politicians never have produced the utopias or “equalized” societies they promise—just consolidated, concentrated, and centralized their own elite status and power. In fact most such politicians once in governing power tend to be intolerant of competition, violent and aggressive against those who disagree, and tyrants over those they govern—even those masses they appealed to for power in the first place. If someone knows of one such governing politician that has actually brought their marginalized out of poverty and blight, please let me know.

Although it is rare for a politician truly to advocate for the poor and mean it and actually do something about poverty (I mean this—who, really, which one has? The list is short, very short), all render lip service and find ways to endear themselves to the poor, while at the same time ensuring the wealthy stay close and friendly.

I told my daughter just earlier this month, I could never be mayor of my urban city (or a legislator who represents it), for I would feel it was my obligation to make sure not one child goes to bed hungry. I couldn’t go to bed knowing that I had the power to do something and didn’t. No one wins elections and especially reelections on that platform. I heard a Connecticut Congressman say once, his constituency is so diverse, for he must find a way to please the billionaire and help the poor who don’t have enough money for food. For me, that’s an easy call—introduce the billionaire to the poor, make sure that happens. As a Christian (which the Congressman stated he was), it is not the politician’s obligation to please the billionaire, but it is his biblical obligation to advocate for the poor. However, it is even worse when a politician (and I don’t necessarily mean this CT Congressmen referenced here) sounds like he or she is an advocate for the poor, but in the end does little to truly promote the eradication of the conditions of poverty.

So on the one hand, political advocates for the poor in the end rarely come through for those whom they are advocating. (Just shifting financial resources doesn’t ameliorate poverty—or it would have happened already. Just throwing money at poverty and the poor doesn’t fix it either.) On the other hand, the politicized rhetoric and class envy in political speech does little good in the end for the poor. In fact it makes that separation stronger; it actually creates resentment by the non-poor against the poor; it makes it seem it’s “us with money” verses “them who want to take our money” and makes the non-poor wary of government funds and programs that shift resources and their money toward the poor. Most of the time politicized rhetoric in the form of class envy is used to produce resentment among the poor, the marginalized, and those who form the low-income populations, the “have-nots” (for a get out the vote). This resentment is to produce political power to shift money and resources to them, to promote spread-the-wealth policies (which isn’t a solution), particularly a power that comes in the form of voter-blocks toward the politician creating that class envy with their political rhetoric. But in the end it doesn’t work, for it also has the consequence of making the non-poor resentful of the poor—which in turn creates another block of voters with interests to protect themselves from government take-over in any form—which in the end just shifts power back to those alienated from those who live in poverty.

I’d go back to introducing the billionaire to the poor. I’d help the non-poor to learn more about poverty, its causes, and how some—maybe not all—of their wealth was created through the assistance of government (whether federal, state or municipal) in the first place (in order to take some of the self-righteous wind out of their own bravado). I have been to at least one “how to end poverty” or “how to help the poor” or “how to bring economic stability and jobs to the poor” workshops and/or conferences each year for the last thirteen years. I love the people who go—they are my colleagues and friends whose jobs are to everyday advocate for the poor. But I have always thought we’re the wrong group to have this discussion—at least wrong to be the only ones in the room. We need the billionaires in that room; we need the business leaders, entrepreneurs, the educators. Solutions to the problems start with the potential solutions being understood and owned by those who could make it happen, or at least to provide the resources and creative energy.

Populous political rhetoric, in the end, hurts the poor by either those offering the rhetoric, but not truly producing the promises, or through the dividing resentment and backlash created in those who are non-poor. There seems to be a better way. There must be.

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In the last post in this thread, I will conclude with some thoughts on being Christian and an unaffiliated independent

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