In case you hadn’t heard, Wingnuts hate poor people. Well, they hate poor people until they become poor people and then they blame Obama, but that’s another story.
It’s very important to them that the poors not have access to luxuries such as steak, lobster, iPhones, and dried beans in bulk. But the one thing that really drives them — where do you go when you’re already crazy and filled with rage? — even crazier, is flat screen televisions. According to them, there is no greater indication that you have too much money than a flat-screen television.
It is true that just ten years ago, a flat screen TV of any appreciable size (over 30” diagonal) was going to run you over $2000. The 47-inch television mentioned above would be over $3000. That’s a lot for a TV, even with free money from Obama. There’s no arguing that even a moderately large flat screen television was once a status symbol. It’s also true that we’re talking about people who are still getting used to brown people using the same water fountain so it comes as no surprise that the Wingnuts still think it’s a status symbol.
It’s not.
If you went into a grubby tenement in the early 70’s, you were likely to see its working-poor residents squinting at fuzzy black and white images on a 12-inch “portable” TV. Televisions in this category were advertised as “portable.” This, perhaps, was meant to imply that they were perfect for the owner of a 10-bedroom mansion who might want to watch television in the salon in the morning and then move it to the drawing room later. In reality, these televisions probably spent their entire life sitting in a spot designated by their owner — an owner who was too poor to buy a better television. These were the bottom of the line.
The prices in the ad above are typical. You could pay more; a Sony version of this might cost $150. You could pay less; a Muntz would run you about $65. Let’s stick with this price point, as it was the most common. We’re talking $85, give or take. According the the BLS’s Consumer Price Index calculator, $85 in 1970 would be worth a little over $500 today. Let’s look at what we can get for that:
This is a very nice television — and plenty big, as well — and it’s at an equivalent price point to the cheap TVs of yesteryear.
Also, consider that this is a listing for a brand-new, name-brand television from a pretty mainstream electronics outlet. I’m not really looking for a bargain here. On eBay, I can buy similarly-sized flat screen used for as a little as $200.
Of course, wingnuts pay retail, so they would assume that the price was at least $500 or more. That is still a lot of money for a SNAP recipient whose full-time job brings home $250 a week. While this may underscore the Wingnut position, it also highlights the fact that the working poor of 2016 are considerably poorer than the working poor of 1970. This is another inconvenient truth that the Wingnuts don’t want to hear.
What I think really draws their ire, however, is not just the idea that poor people might have things they don’t deserve, like nice TVs, nice phone, or health care. It’s that these things are more valuable to the Wingnuts because other people don’t have them. When Mr. and Mrs. (no “Ms.” in this household) Freeper unwrap their ginormous 75” Samsung HD Smart TV (with Android apps and Google Cast!) they feel like they own a rich person’s TV. The fact is, that adjusted for inflation, this truly marvelous modern TV is the price equivalent of the 16” Motorola Quasar that the middle-class family of 1970 might have purchased for their rumpus room. They don’t want to know that the anti-labor policies they have supported for the last 30 years are slowly chewing their ass off. And when they see poor people having an aspect of what they consider a good life, it is a stark reminder of how far down they really are.
Thank White Jesus that Donald Trump is here to save them with polices that won’t have the terrible side effect of inconveniencing billionaires.