I don't listen to a lot of mainstream radio, so maybe I'm the last one to catch this commercial by California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay. It was surprisingly blunt class warfare, and guess which side she's on.
You can hear the ad here. Basically, she asserts that California has too many people on welfare, "only 22% work for their benefits," and that the solution is to cut the lifetime cap on welfare benefits from five years to two.
In a state with a crashed economy and hellish unemployment, she wants to shred the safety net.
Her web site is short on specifics, so I don't know how many games she's playing with her statistics. "Welfare" is a vague term; is she including SSI for people with disabilities? Food stamps for people who are employed but make so little money that they still qualify? Foster care payments come from TANF funds; I'll bet you a whole bag of tea that she's counting the recipients as people who "don't work" for their welfare.
She says that California has "five times as many people on welfare as New York" with twice the population. She forgets to mention that NY's unemployment rate is 8.4% to California's 12.4%. (Oh, and her solution to the unemployment crisis? Lower taxes on businesses, of course!)
When people are losing their livelihoods, there are two ways to harness populist anger. One is to focus it on wealthy plutocrats - say, CEO's of mega-rich companies like eBay. The other is to scapegoat the people who have the least, and warn that Those People are getting away with something.
Those People, of course, are black or brown. The old inaccurate stereotype of the "Black welfare queen" has lately been joined by the equally inaccurate stereotype of the "illegal immigrants" raking in the taxpayer-funded benefits. The racial dogwhistle has to be a little more subtle than it was in Reagan's day (which is why this is on the radio and not television). Whitman doesn't overtly refer to these stereotypes, but she doesn't have to; the message board on her web site is bubbling with angry posts from people who imagine they're personally supporting vast numbers of "illegals."
The bankers and CEO's who crashed the economy are taking home seven-figure bonuses. Yet the hostility hits squarely at the the other end of the spectrum. A recent San Francisco Chronicle article showcased a successful program helping homeless people who hung out at the main library. One of the first responses from a reader: "Since homeless people don't pay taxes, why are they allowed to use the library at all?" (Show your W-2's at the door before you enter the library, or call the fire department, or send your kid to school, or stop at a stoplight...) Even here in San Francisco, there are some who are eager to bash Those People.
Whitman is running well ahead in the Republican primary, and she's the closest to Democrat Jerry Brown in polling for the general (still 10 points behind, so far). And in a state with 12.4% unemployment, her solution is to yank the safety net away from those who need it most. And if her lower taxes on businesses don't magically create jobs for everyone? Well, at least she's made sure Those People aren't getting away with anything.