One
can only wonder why average working class Americans would vote
for a party that is so obvious in their bias towards the
wealthy. It would make sense that someone in the top 1 percent
of the income bracket would vote for the Republican party since
they have the wealthiest American's best interest at heart. You
could even make the case that highly religious Christians would
vote for Republicans even though, at times, they vote against
their own best economic interests. So the question remains,
while scratching your head, why do working class Americans vote
for Republican candidates?
I once sat down and spoke with an acquaintance of mine, trying
to get a grip on what people are thinking about the future of
our country. He said he voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 because,
"we need a business person to get our debt down." I asked where
he got his news and information from, and after trying to
deflect from the question, the answer finally came. "I don't pay
attention too much, but when I do, I watch Fox." Fox News is the
primary source for information for millions of Americans across
the country and that's where the problem starts.
Whether it's Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or other right wing
ideologues, Fox News is a tunnel vision information outlet with
only one particular agenda that is being pushed through.
Millions of Americans watch Fox News, listen to the likes of
Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz, Michael Savage and others while
getting information from right wing think tanks like the
Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. With big businesses
and billionaire allies, the truth and facts in American have
gone from a clear right and wrong, black and white situation to
muffled shades of gray. It's not to say that Fox News, the Cato
Institute and others like them totally lie because that would be
too difficult to pull off. What these think tanks do, is take a
fact and twist it to fit their own personal agenda, leaving out
key information that would contradict with the platform they're
trying to create.
A perfect example in describing the way groups like the Cato
Institute operate is a report that came out by alternet.org. In
the early 2000s, the Cato Institute released a report that
suggested that families receiving welfare were making between
$17,000 and $25,000 a year, but the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities countered that claim. The Center for Budget and
Policy Priorities showed that the average income for welfare
recipients was below $9,000 a year, which is nearly $3,000 a
year below the poverty line.
The misinformation also comes from another right wing think
tank, the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, when Paul Ryan released
the "Ryan" Republican budget, the Heritage Foundation claimed
that unemployment would drop to 6.4% in 2012 and to 2.8% in
2022. A report released by the Washington Monthly pointed out
that these claims were extremely exaggerated. The CBO, the
Congressional Budget Office, showed the errors of the Heritage
Foundation's report and the director of the Heritage
Foundation's Center for Data Analysis, William Beach, was forced
to walk backed the claims.
In 2009, the Heritage Foundation released ads attacking the
Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that was brought to congress
that would give all employees the right to form a union without
fear of being fired from their current job. Since the Heritage
Foundation is bought and paid for by million and billionaire
conservatives, the idea of having workers unite with more power
and freedom threatens their control at the top. The ads released
painted a false picture about the Employee Free Choice Act,
claiming that unions will bully workers into joining them with
an attempt to take money from the employee. According to the
Huffington Post, the Heritage Foundation "frame(s) the EFCA
issue based on bald-faced lies. Business-financed 'think tanks'
like Heritage propagandize workers against their own interests
in psychologically sophisticated ways, often pulling on their
heartstrings and framing their anti-union stance as 'common
sense.'"
Average Americans need to be more informed about what is going
in the country, but also where to get their information. The
argument isn't about holding a liberal or conservative ideology,
it's about facts that are based on truth and not information
based on twisted logic. Americans need to learn to dig a little
deeper to find honest reporting, not just believe something that
falls in their lap at the expense of a billionaire funded think
tank or news organization. |