I work at night so when I’m off, I go out at night. So it was on this unseasonably cold late March 2015 night in Boston. I walk into a bar I’ve become a regular at. “The kitchen is closed,” the bartender tells me as she puts a drink menu down. I’ve only seen her once before- but we’d been introduced and exchanged a few words. I found her attractive and engaging and was hoping the ice of that “kitchen is closed” start would break. I come back from the bathroom after my first drink- no conversation yet so I’d planned on leaving. I come out and the glass is full. I ask with a smile “ did you fill that glass for me?” “Yes,” she smiles back. Work, the brutal winter and what we do in life, the conversation is rolling.
I mention having a second job to cover student loans. She lights up “ Obama is trying to do something about that isn’t he?” I reply “yes, but the goddamn Republicans will only let him do so much and they control the congress.” She nods and goes “yeah, they suck. I don’t know it all but he (Obama) just seems like such a nice, normal guy who is doing the right thing for the country.” We talk more and I leave with a new crush. The crush ends up as a friendship but along the way I learn my friend is the first in her family to finish college and is the daughter of a court employee and a small business owner. Long family history of Democratic voting. Conversations between her and I don’t turn to politics too often, but when they do, she’s got it right. “Did you see Trump? He’s crazy, isn’t he?” “You know we are the only country that charges interest on student loans?” The only concerning thing I ever heard from her was a comment about refugees after Paris but it was a couple days after the attacks so I let it go for the most part. Just referred her to Seth Moulton’s comments- as he’s her congressman and said it better than I could. And never followed up with her or texted the link to Moulton to her. Mostly, we discuss other topics. She's highly intelligent. Lots of life experience for someone our age- late 20’s. Academically, professionally or in a bar, she can hold her own.
Election night, I go into the bar. I’ve already eaten somewhere else and it’s pushing midnight. I’m pretty sure this is over based on the slight Trump leads in WI, PA & MI not changing with increased percentages of the vote in. My friend and I catch up and she says she wants this over and dislikes both candidates. My response (even though I don’t dislike Hillary at all) “I dislike Trump a hell of a lot more!” Her response: “I grew up a Democrat. My family, all Democrats. I find myself more and more of a Republican as I get older because I bust my ass, 2 jobs, pay out $10,000 in taxes so lazy people can sit at home and collect welfare.” I’m pissed already from the results and now even more from the comment but trying not to lose a friendship. I tell her Hillary doesn’t support that, the Democratic Party doesn’t, and I also work 2 jobs, pay the same taxes as her and can assure her I wouldn’t be alright with voting for anyone who had the views she described.
She’s skeptical- because fake news and all- but I go through, among other history, the 1996 bill and Romney’s lies on what Obama did to it and that they said “fact checkers be damned” when called on it. I had remembered from a previous conversation that she disliked Romney from the time he was our Governor. I then give her Biden’s “GM is alive and Osama is dead” line and talk about the unemployment rate, the economy in general. I tell her the Republicans have a coordinated LIE machine on all of these things to distract you from that. Now, she stops me: “Obama has done a good job.” I don’t know if I truly reached her, but I could see the wheels turning like you couldn’t believe.
The point is, I heard this same line about welfare a lot this time and very little in 2008 or 2012. It wasn’t messaged right or even at all. What you heard about it in 2012 was from US and it was a lesson in how to respond:
-Romney campaign puts out the lying ad about dropped work requirements.
-Obama responds forcefully with his own ad featuring Bill Clinton and Republican staffers and state officials’ quotes telling the truth: It increased, not decreased work among welfare recipients.
-Convention speaker after convention speaker NAILS the lie repeatedly. Read Ted Strickland’s speech where he addresses this and calls it a lie.
-Matthews brings up a great point on MSNBC. Welfare is used to divide us by race and the perception is blacks take welfare while whites work. He then goes into his early morning commute every day through poor black DC neighborhoods- where he passes black people waiting for buses or walking or driving the same routes every morning at the same time. He points out how they’re going to work, not the welfare office. That was so powerful because ANYONE, my bartender friend, my white male self, other people like us, can and do drive through the inner city frequently and see the EXACT same thing.
-We mix this rebuttal in with our main message “GM is alive, Osama is dead, we’re not back yet but we’re miles and miles in the right direction. Don’t let the liars who want to go back to 2008 economic policies distract you from that. Don’t let (let them go bankrupt) Mitt lie to you about Obama.”
Now, I am well aware of the divide among progressives, even to this day, on what Clinton should’ve done with that 1996 bill. However, I never heard anyone suggest that the disagreement was in the time limits- so long as they are reasonable and reflective of economic conditions- and work requirements. Joe Biden to Jim McGovern, Ted Kennedy to John Breaux, Jim McDermott to John Kerry, Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton to Barbara Boxer- we supported work based reform. Just like FDR correctly called handouts a narcotic and JFK, LBJ, Wilbur Mills and Carter sought to fashion progressive, work promoting and rewarding reforms.
So eyes on the ball- of course we can argue about how much child care to provide, the appropriate level of benefits and other details. We can tell, say a hypothetical 2018 Manchin that we’re not letting him play to the Trump base by reinstating TANF restrictions on legal immigrants. However, we need to band together and make destroying this myth a substantial part of our messaging. If I’m hearing it in Massachusetts and more than a few times, what does that say about the rust belt? Florida outside our Palm Beach-Broward-Miami strongholds? Arizona? I could go on.
Very little breaks my heart more than having it suggested that the people and ideals I vote for stand for handing my friend’s and everyone else’s hard earned money to lazy people. We stand for a safety net- and we should defend it vigorously as we dispel this terrible lie. My bartender friend, well, she has no problem with helping people in hard times. Nor does the steelworker I know. Nor do my cop friends. Nor does my Mom’s best friend who retired from the post office. Nor does my mechanic. In fact, you have a genuine hardship, these people would be happy you were getting help and probably open their own wallets for a bit extra.
These are just people who have been conned by a good messaging machine that never takes a day off and understands that most people have much more going in their lives than following the nuances of politics. They are not stupid- though stupid exists. They are not deplorable- though Hillary is correct, deplorable certainly exists and reared its God awful head in 2016.
I will tell you who opposes a safety net. The Koch Brothers, a small but powerful minority of the rich who want to pull the ladder up (most rich people get it, I think) and ideologue weasels like Paul Ryan. That’s IT. IT!! People go along with Republicans because they say directly or imply they’ll get rid of those handouts. They can’t say “ we’re taking grandma’s health care, telling the college graduate he’s off mom’s health plan and telling the guy who just got laid off from running the fork lift at Wal Mart that he can’t get food stamps that come out of taxes he paid.” They’d lose 99-1% and they damn well know that.
I think the Democrats- when they talk about say, Medicaid or food stamps, they have good intentions but don’t realize that those programs are tangled in this myth. Lots of Americans will think we are talking about more handouts unless we explain. Another area of messaging where they have us beat to hell.
We need a message here! Start with the basic 2012 rebuttal and add in how these programs helped during the Great Recession. Morally and economically by keeping demand from collapsing entirely. Move on to how small of a percentage of your taxes go to SNAP and TANF and how anyone you see with a Jaguar and a SNAP card is committing FRAUD. Fraud that sucks but is lower than in other programs, has a good track record of being detected by agencies and stopped and is most certainly not endorsed by the Democratic Party.
I don’t know why this myth has taken off to Reagan era levels when we’re 20 years and mostly improvements to the system away from the big reform. My only theory besides messaging is EBT cards. Prior to recent years, as we all know, welfare recipients would pull out cash to pay for things and we couldn’t tell who they were. Now, TANF is on a card that everyone can see. It appears as if there’s more recipients now, when there’s factually less. Combine that with how the Republicans have many people convinced these programs operate and you have a fuel tank on fire!
Let’s make this a part of bringing people back to our fold! We can do it without dividing by race or religion or class. We can do it without compromising our rock solid commitment to the safety net- motivated by our compassion and belief that we are all in this together.
So that brings me back to the bar on November 8, now the morning of the 9th. My friend has left for the night and we’ve established I wasn’t upset with her and we’ve thanked each other for understanding and friendship- today and since we’ve met- and bid good night. I pay up with another guy I’ve befriended there and leave a short time later- I’m not going to watch the election get called for this DISGRACE of a man here. I walk out into the Boston night. Sick to my stomach already. A sickness that has barely subsided since. It feels like the world has changed entirely in a few short hours.
I never want to feel that way again! The fact that we lost a 27 year old woman, a smart and strong millennial from a working middle class Democratic family in Massachusetts (let that sink in!) between March 2015 and November 2016 bothers me as much or more than the outcome. We’ve got her on board- and many like her as well- for 2012 yet this year- when things are substantially better, we dropped the ball in a big way.
We have no reason to lose the people we lost to Trump. Ever. Losing them in light of the progress we’ve made at home and abroad- economically and socially- since 2012 is almost criminal.
I’d appreciate some responses and I’m sorry for the length. I hope to contribute more here as this is my first diary. I will work on making them shorter and more coherent. I ask for the patience and forgiveness of the community as I learn.