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Around 2010 Republicans began answering media questions about policy with a list of talking points. Lock step. The same list repeated ad nauseum.
Talking points in 2010
Stop government spending
Extend tax cuts
Cut regulations
Repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act
Push back on Federal overreach - Tea Party - emphasizing states’ rights and constitutional limits on DC
The current legislative process lacks transparency and locks out minority viewpoints (me - rural v coastal elites)
AI
They also began to present their “Makers vs Takers” theory.
The American middle class, hollowed out by factory migrations, angered by a more challenging economy without stable good-paying jobs took notice of this conservative talking point, especially after Mitt Romey was caught talking about it at CPAC. However, not everyone parsed the two groups in the same way. The “makers” group could either include the workers as also being “makers,” or these rich folks could secretly include the workers in the “takers” group. Workers were manipulated to feel a certain solidarity with the “makers,” thinking that the heads of corporations knew how important workers were to their success and their profits. These same corporate heads were already miffed at workers for the demands of unions for higher pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions. When Russia opened up to US corporations and China also opened up, along with Southeast Asia, the lure of cheap labor undercut the power of the labor unions and the Great Factory Migration began, as early as the 1980’s and continuing until Russia attacked Ukraine and COVID came out of China.
This You Tube video of an NPR news broadcast discusses the Republican wave of 2010 but also reveals what Republicans were up to at that time to squelch Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which took government spending in the opposite direction from where Republicans wanted it to go.
“Mitt Romney’s secretly recorded comment that 47 percent of Americans are “dependent on the government” and “believe they are victims” isn’t the only reason he lost the presidential campaign. But the candidate himself acknowledged after the election that the comments were “very harmful.”
He added, “What I said is not what I believe.”
But many Republicans still believe it, and the “makers vs. takers” theme has a deep hold on the party. In private conversations, many in the GOP are whispering that Romney was right and that his only mistake was saying it out loud.“
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say something like, “Well, the half who favor government programs is the half who don’t pay any taxes.”
This is ridiculous -- on many levels.
First, the overwhelming majority of those who don’t pay federal income taxes pay a whole variety of other taxes, including state and local taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, sin taxes and more. They don’t feel excluded from sharing the tax burden just because they don’t pay one particular tax.
It’s also worth noting that these aren’t the people pushing for higher taxes. At Rasmussen Reports, our most recent polling shows that people who make $100,000 or more each year are more supportive of higher taxes than those who make less.
Second, the 47 percent who don’t pay federal income taxes include large chunks of the Republican base. Many senior citizens fall into this category because their primary income is from Social Security.
They don’t consider themselves “takers.” They paid money into a Social Security system throughout their working lives and now simply expect the government to honor the promises it made.
Third, low-income Americans aren’t looking for a handout. Among those who are living in poverty, 81 percent agree that work is the best solution to poverty. Most would rather replace welfare programs with a guaranteed minimum-wage job. Sharing the mainstream view, 69 percent of the poor believe that too many Americans are dependent upon the government.
Sixty-five percent of low-income Americans consider it “very important” for an economy to provide everybody with an opportunity to succeed. Interestingly enough, low-income Americans consider that more important than those who earn more.
But if I had to pick just one number to highlight how bad the 47 percent remark was, it would be this. Just 11 percent of Americans today consider themselves dependent upon government. Sure, some receive a Social Security check or an unemployment check, but that’s not dependence upon government. That’s cash received in exchange for premiums paid.
If they want to seriously compete for middle-class votes, Republicans need to get over the makers vs. takers mentality. We live in a time when just 35 percent believe the economy is fair to the middle class. Only 41 percent believe it is fair to those who are willing to work hard. Those problems are not created by the poor.”
Isn’t it possible that many Americans considered themselves makers even though the Republican Party did not see it in that way.
This drawing represents how the average American pictured makers v takers. The workers believed that they were considered “makers,” along with their corporate leaders.
This next drawing represents how Republicans really thought about the makers v the takers. Most workers, they believed were takers. Although they paid taxes, they used health insurance and insisted on consumer protections. They also used unemployment insurance and planned to retire using Social Security.
The fact that many workers and unemployed workers saw themselves as belonging to the group of makers and as protesting the fraudulent use of tax dollars by the takers helps account for MAGA’s success when Trump began his rallies against fraud in government.
Workers perceived themselves as victims of takers, rather than as workers being exploited by makers. Even the skewed profits that began producing billionaires did not shake the belief of workers, even workers without jobs, that they belonged to the makers group and not the takers group.
This may or may not have been the intent of Republicans, but they saw that the misapprehension worked in their favor, and they saw that Trump made workers injured by the Great Factory Migration into a cult by boosting their pride.
Since their talking points made it clear that Republicans wanted to cut government spending by cutting government programs, making it seem as if the takers were committing massive fraud within these programs reinforced a view already held by workers and turned the working class, even as the middle class was being hollowed out, into cheerleaders for the Republican plan and into Republican voters who elected Donald Trump twice.
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