On Monday, Bill O’Reilly went after some of the people who complained that his comments on the changing demographics of the country were racist. I don’t actually think that Bill O’Reilly is a racist. He’s just a dick—to everyone. He is an angry and hateful man who seems to be very sure that, against all evidence, he has a good bead on reality. But none of that really matters. What does matter is that he is wrong about his comments Monday.
He starts off his “Talking Points Memo” by supposedly defending Mitt Romney against those who are attacking him. I don’t particularly care. On the one hand, I don’t think Romney did a worse job running for president than anyone else; on the other, why should anyone care if some plutocrat gets his feelings hurt? But I do care that O’Reilly doesn’t have enough honesty in him to come out and say what’s really on his mind: he’s angry that people are calling him a racist. Before he gets to that, he trots out the standard conservative line about the election: Obama ran a great campaign. Yeah, that was it; it couldn’t have anything to do with ideology or policy.
Eventually, O’Reilly gets to the core of his argument: he isn’t racist, the world is. It isn’t that he claimed the poor were voting for Obama because the president was giving them gifts, it is that the president was giving the poor gifts and that’s why they voted for him. He then goes on to note that many of those making less than $30,000 per year, “Receive entitlements—food stamps, housing subsidies, that kind of thing.” And this is why they voted for Obama.
O’Reilly’s point is not that there’s anything wrong with this; he pointedly doesn’t say any such thing. But it is clear enough what he’s saying: the votes were bought explicitly. Sure, saying this kind of thing is offensive. But is it really any more offensive than the guy usually is? I don’t think so.
What really bugs me is that it is nonsense. People don’t vote this way. Despite what I’ve heard from conservatives privately over the years, everyone I know (and this includes a lot of low-information voters) takes the process of voting very seriously. I don’t know any “single issue” voters. And I certainly don’t know of any people who vote because of the hope of “gifts.” People vote for the candidate they think is best.
The poor do indeed vote for people who speak to their concerns. But these are also the concerns of everyone they know. Poor people don’t spend Christmas with the Romneys, unless they are working for them. And the poor understand what policies would be best for all of the people they know.
I can’t speak as well for the rich, since I don’t know them. I do, however, know quite a bit about their voting patterns. I know a lot about how politicians promise and deliver huge gifts to them. They most likely think that tax cuts for the rich are good for society, but then they most likely think that whatever is good for them is good for America.
The policies that help the poor are cheap. The policies that help the rich are expensive. Why is it that people like Bill O’Reilly focus on the policies that help the poor while rarely even admitting to the existence of policies that help the rich? I think I know the answer: conservatives hate the poor. And this is the problem they have going forward, because their policies of the last three decades have made a lot more of them.
Ah . . . hate to OD on comments here but this made me think of something I was writing a while back. I mentioned vis-a-vis your statement on the Great Pumpkin that some Bible stories have metaphorical value, it’s just a shame many people feel a need to regard them as literal truth. (More of a shame as many Bible stories are useless at best and immoral at worst.)
Well . . . consider Cain and Abel, and Cain’s famous line, "I’m not my brother’s keeper." Remember the context? Cain kills Abel, hides the corpse, and God (playing Columbo, here) asks him slyly where Abel is. "I’m not my brother’s keeper" is a lie dressed up as some essential principle, meant to deflect the inquiry.
Now compare that to right-wing attitudes towards rich and poor; more specifically, right-wing avoidance of responsibility for causing our massive increase in poverty and simultaneously massive increase in ridiculous, useless wealth for a very few.
Recall, when Reagan ran on tax cuts for the rich, they were advertised as having pragmatic benefits (via spurring investments and thus raising government revenue, which primary challenger G.H.W. Bush rightly termed "voodoo economics.")
Now, since it’s almost impossible to argue that tax cuts for the rich raise overall tax revenue, the policy is no longer justified pragmatically — it’s a defense of "principle." The rich are good, the poor are bad, wealth transfer a sin (how the poor are supposed to support a consumption-based economy with no money is ignored, but that’s another issue.)
Like Cain, the right-wing is being accused of a crime; and, like him, they change the subject by inventing a moral stance for their harmful actions. (Well, less "inventing" than "resurrecting"; it’s really just the old "divine right of kings," isn’t it?)
This tactic is probably their best bet. I think of what William Buckley wrote in his "National Review" issue condemning the drug war — that it was a holy war, and holy wars do not have to be won to be successful. The right will continue to claim, however feebly, that upper-level tax cuts have some economic value, but they will lean more towards presenting them as a intrinsic moral good.
Which smells, of course, like the mark of Cain — or Bain, as the case may be.
(Last rant for a while, I promise!)
@JMF – Never apologize for commenting–especially for such a great comment. There’s a lot to unpack here…
As for Bible stories working as metaphor, I send you to my article on the Prodigal Son story:
http://franklycurious.com/index.php?itemid=2040
I find it evil but it does get to the heart of what is wrong with Christianity.
I love the idea of God as Columbo. I think that might make for some excellent comedy. And god speaketh, "Oh, just one more thing…"
You are right about the statement. It is what Ben Bradlee called a "non-denial denial." And this is exactly what goes on with conservative elites. They will never come right out and say that the poor deserve their poverty. But they will go out of their way to promote individual examples where the poor seem to deserve their poverty or at least suffering. This is one of the reasons I am so hostile to the [i]Cops[/i] franchise. It is inherently conservative. We don’t go around shining a realtime spotlight on the rich at their worst. And note: the rich at their worst generally harm vast numbers of people. But aside from say Bernie Madoff, public humiliation is not one of the punishments for their crimes. In fact, for people like Jack Abramoff, going to jail turns into a very lucrative gig as a whistle blower of sorts.
(In my experience, most rank and file conservatives will come right out and say that the poor are inferior. This is part of the Tea Party problem for Republicans. The established people have learned to speak in code. The new Tea Party explicitly says what the others simply imply.)
You are absolutely correct that the conservative take on rich and poor is exactly the old "divine right of kings" bullshit. The argument has been dressed up a bit, but it is the same. And because the occasional poor person gets rich (Daymond John, anyone?) it is claimed that is not divine right but meritocracy. Of course, in the old days, poor people killed their way into dukeships and Kingships. The only real change is that then people tried to claim that they really had royal blood. (This is a common plot element in Shakespeare where the poor kid who makes good is really a long lost prince.)
This is all about conservatism’s basis in authoritarianism. And that is what I most hate about conservatism. I can deal with the rights/responsibility nonsense. But I hate hierarchical systems–I have the scars to prove it.
Great line: the mark of Bain. I’ll use that!
Well, a shitload to unpack here also, but I’ll leave most of it aside.
The Prodigal Son story is a vivid example of God=authority and power=God. The returning son has absolutely no value or wisdom, he just reluctantly kisses Dad’s ass. If he learned more than the dutiful son on his travels, this could be a great myth. As it is, the moral of the tale is just "submit; resistance is futile."
It is of course entirely possible that a Supreme Being created all existence and is such a petty, low-minded shit that It worries more about our adherence to its garbled proscriptions than how we treat each other. If so, I’m screwed. The lovely thing about modern acolytes, though, is they’ve discarded Pascal’s wager. They claim that adherence creates and justifies living-world success. Since I have never had any, even as a good Catholic adolescent, either a predispositionary deity didn’t like my best efforts, or there is no such entity. Either way, no point in pleasing It.
Thanks for the nice responses. — JMF
@JMF – I find this a very disturbing trend in Christianity: God wants you to be rich! I don’t mind Pascal’s wager as far as I would be likely to take it: golden rule and all. But when it comes to clearly trivial religious rights, I can’t be bothered. I guess this is the same as saying that I don’t go with Pascal. But I don’t see how any god could decide that one form of worship (e.g. Christianity) is good but another (e.g. Islam) is bad. Thus: I’m going to eat bacon!