Andrew Tillett-Saks

September 6, 2014September 8, 2014

Jorge Elorza: rhetoric for the 99%, policies for the 1%

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With Providence’s mayoral election looming, Jorge Elorza has positioned himself as the ‘progressive’ candidate in the race, with many local progressives jumping on the Elorza bandwagon. There is one small problem. Elorza isn’t progressive by any feasible definition of the word.

As I will detail in-depth below, Elorza falls on the conservative or neoliberal side of almost every single issue, from raising the minimum wage to charter schools to racial profiling to progressive taxation. There is a candidate in the mayoral race with a solid progressive record and concrete progressive social program. However, once we pull the rhetorical wool from over our eyes and consider actual policy, it becomes clear that the candidate is not Jorge Elorza.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, a progressive vote for Jorge Elorza would be literally insane.

Elorza represents a disastrous nationwide habit of 21^st century American progressives: supporting charlatan politicians who are progressive in rhetoric but utterly neoliberal in policy. While progressives are right to feel despair at the rightward drift of our country and our ever-widening inequality, they must accept partial responsibility. Swindled with sweet songs of vague progressive rhetoric, progressives have time and time again elected many of the very politicians who go on to desecrate progressive values. A sober look into Jorge Elorza’s actual politics makes clear that he is attempting to do the same, that Elorza is in no substantive way progressive, and that Providence progressives are on the cusp of repeating the same error we’ve repeatedly committed and come to regret in past election cycles.

Well-intentioned progressives have elected a long list of rhetorically progressive candidates who have gone on to govern as conservatives or neoliberals. There was Bill Clinton—whose legacy is still shrouded in a mythical mist of populism— destroying welfare programs and attacking workers through passage of NAFTA. There was Barack Obama—who rallied progressive enthusiasm unlike any other candidate in recent American history—deporting more immigrants than any President in American history, abandoning campaign promises of labor law reform, and drone-striking foreign civilians at appalling rates. And locally, how can we forget Angel Taveras, who galvanized progressives and working-class Latinos with his ‘Head Start to Harvard’ personal narrative. Of course, Taveras proceeded to send firing notices to all Providence teachers and oppose the hotel worker minimum wage ordinance, just to name a couple of progressives’ disappointments.

Many local progressives feel some sense of betrayal towards politicians such as Obama and Taveras; their policies have rarely aligned with their progressive promise. Obama and Taveras represent a powerful new figure in American politics: the politician whose personal narrative and identity are used as a progressive mask over a neoliberal social program. Despite Obama’s overwhelmingly moderate voting record prior to 2008, progressives nationwide clung to the belief that he would govern as a progressive due to his personal narrative and identity. Lack of a clear progressive social program didn’t matter; his background combined with teasingly vague progressive rhetoric was enough to convince progressives. Angel Taveras replicated the mold, bludgeoning voters over the head with his ‘Head-Start-to-Harvard’-from-a-Dominican-Providence-family personal narrative enough times that no one seemed to care that he didn’t actually propose a substantive progressive social program. As the renowned political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. described, both men are “the triumph of image and identity over content; indeed…the triumph of identity as content.”

Jorge Elorza has attempted to cut this exact same political figure. Without articulating an actual progressive social vision, Elorza is attempting to garner the progressive vote through rapid-fire repetition of his ‘Cranston Street to Wall Street’ personal narrative—a slightly modified version of the Taveras story. Elorza rarely delves into specifics when speaking to progressive or working-class voters, but specifics of his second-shift-working mother and his voyage from CCRI to Harvard Law are provided almost incessantly. As for vague rhetoric? Elorza’s campaign slogan of “One Providence” attempts to represent everyone by taking an actual stance on nothing in specific (its worth noting that Obama’s version of vague rhetoric, “Change,” was at least vaguely progressive; Elorza’s is so vague it doesn’t even go that far). Elorza also tempts progressives to draw their own dreamy conclusions on how he will govern as mayor via anecdotes of subpoenaing banks as a housing court judge, reminiscent of Obama’s winking references to his time spent as a ‘community organizer’. Just as progressives excitedly cited Obama’s community organizing experience as evidence that he was a closet socialist, I’ve heard more than one Providence progressive cite Elorza’s bank anecdote as indication of his progressive politics. Elorza has mastered the gameplan; his claim for the progressive vote substitutes identity and narrative for actual progressive policy.

Yet unlike Obama and Taveras, it’s hard to find a redeeming quality in Elorza. Obama has mixed in some genuinely progressive stances and Taveras may very well be the only thing that can save Rhode Island from the atrocious Gina Raimondo. Elorza, on the other hand, uses personal narrative to appeal to the progressive and working-class vote because behind the rhetorical fog lies an entire set of policies no progressive could possibly get behind. For the skeptical, lets go through the list:

Raising the minimum wage for workers? Elorza has not once but twice come out publicly against raising the minimum wage for Providence workers. First, Elorza declared his opposition to the Hotel Worker Minimum Wage Ordinance, offering the Reaganesque explanation that raising wages would drive business away. Then, perhaps in courtship of business-class support, Elorza doubled down against raising the minimum wage, telling the Providence Chamber of Commerce “I am not in favor of Providence imposing an across-the-board wage hike at the city level.” Amidst skyrocketing inequality, what has become an obvious need for American workers and a milquetoast issue for Democrats nationwide is too far left for Elorza. Progressive?

Fighting racial profiling? Even amidst the horrific murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Elorza comes down on the conservative side of the struggle. Against what should be an obvious progressive stance, Elorza came out against the Providence act to combat racial profiling in a candidate interview with the RI Coalition to Defend Human and Civil Rights. Elorza ultimately sided with conservative opinion instead of taking a stand against racist immigrant ICE holds and police brutality. Elorza, instead offered conservative tropes, proposing ‘changing the culture and instituting more community policing’. Progressive?

Standing up against the attack on our public school system? Most progressives oppose the expansion of charter schools in support of a democratically controlled public school system. Not only did Elorza publicly call for the expansion of charter schools in Providence, Elorza sits on the board of Achievement First, a controversial charter school in Providence. With teachers unions and public education advocates fighting to stem the tide of the business-backed charter movement, Elorza’s again taken the side of business in the education struggle. Progressive?

Advocating a progressive tax system? After (opportunistically?) telling the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats of America he was “open to exploring the idea of a municipal income tax” and securing their endorsement, Elorza quickly retreated firmly back onto conservative ground. Quite typically of pseudo-progressives, Elorza stated in a television debate that he was interested in municipal income taxes, just not in Providence (incidentally, the city he is proposing to govern). Out of one side of the mouth comes soft, reassuring rhetoric that he is progressive at heart. Out of the other side come firm policy statements for the wealthy—‘No, I am not in favor of an actual municipal income tax in Providence’. Progressive?

Using government power to directly create good jobs? Since FDR helped create hundreds of thousands of good American jobs through the New Deal, Keynesian economics and direct worker stimulus have been staple rallying cries for progressives. But absolutely nowhere in any of Elorza’s seven-point ‘Jobs Plan’ does he propose any form of direct worker stimulus. Instead, Elorza treats us to trickle-down economic proposals. His plan to create ‘1,500 jobs’ is a bizarre supply-side plan to better integrate Providence in the global trade market, and he worryingly proposes “working creatively to forge new public-private partnerships” (read: privatization). Moreover, Elorza nailed down his conservative economic credentials when he criticized his opponent’s proposal for direct government job creation in Providence. In response to Michael Solomon’s plan to (in a refreshingly New Deal-esque progressive fashion) create 2,000 Providence jobs through rebuilding our public schools, the Elorza campaign stated: “[Elorza] has a plan to create 1,500 jobs by doubling our export economy, and unlike Michael Solomon’s plan, Jorge’s doesn’t require spending a quarter-billion in taxpayer dollars” [emphasis added]. Fear mongering about taxes and big government to fight government job creation to rebuild public schools sounds like FOX News. Advocating ways to better attract business and investors while opposing direct job creation and worker stimulus from government sounds like Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. Progressive?

One could go on and on, but this slew of conservative policies alone should be more than enough for any sober progressive. There is simply no way possible to reconcile the above policy program with progressive or egalitarian politics. In a vacuum, no progressive would ever endorse a candidate against raising the minimum wage, for expanding charter schools, opposed to anti-racial profiling legislation, against progressive taxation, and in favor of trickle-down economics over direct government stimulus to workers. They would more likely refer the candidate to the Tea Party. With Elorza, we get rhetoric for the 99%, and policies for the 1%.

Progressives who’ve taken the Elorza bait are undoubtedly well-intentioned. The desire to diversify our elected offices is understandable, and the rags-to-riches narrative tugs on a noble progressive emotional desire to see such upward mobility for all. But failing to see past the thin façade would be more forgivable if progressives hadn’t been fooled so recently, so numerously, and so locally in the exact same fashion. Providence progressives who can still feel the sting of disappointment from Angel Taveras are somehow following the exact same course with a nearly identical candidate. These progressives are either suffering from a bad case of historical amnesia or some sort of political Stockholm Syndrome.

The obvious response from progressive Elorza supporters will be the lack of a superior alternative. Even if this were true, celebrating neoliberal politicians as progressive champions is a pernicious practice that puts off the real work of building a genuine progressive movement. Nevertheless, there is a superior alternative in the race, Michael Solomon. I’m not engaging in opportunistic exaggeration or self-delusion. Solomon is not Martin Luther King Jr., Che Guevara, or even Bill de Blasio. Solomon’s election alone will not lead us to the promised land. But sober analysis reveals that Solomon does have a host of genuinely progressive concrete policies, unlike Elorza. Solomon proposed directly creating 2,000 jobs by rebuilding our Providence public schools, remarkably reminiscent of FDR’s New Deal and a striking break from the supply-side economics of most modern Democrats. Solomon publicly opposed any expansion of charter schools in Providence in the recent WPRI debate, taking a firm progressive stand where he had previously gone along with Angel’s Mayoral Academies. Solomon supported the Providence racial profiling ordinance—in fact, he is lead sponsor of the ordinance. I personally witnessed Solomon struggle vigorously for passage of the $15 hotel worker minimum wage, an issue Elorza refused to support even rhetorically. Solomon has an actual political record of taking on large corporation to protect workers and the environment, championing nationally groundbreaking legislation in introducing the Worker Retention Ordinance (which protects hotel workers’ jobs upon change of ownership and was viciously opposed by local hospitality corporations) and confronting Big Oil itself in voting to divest the city’s pension holdings from fossil fuel companies. Solomon is not a perfect progressive. But he is not part of crusading neoliberal movement that is currently driving our country into unseen depths of inequality. Rather, Solomon represents some of the genuinely admirable strands of the Democratic Party tradition, far from the Wall Street neoliberals currently dominating the Party and so lamented by progressives. He is a more traditional Democrat who exhibits at least some sense of obligation to working families and some willingness to regulate the excesses of free market capitalism.

It will undoubtedly be said that my support for Michael Solomon is professionally motivated—the organization for which I work, Unite Here Local 217, is endorsing Solomon. It is true that supporting Providence’s hotel workers is something about which I am deeply passionate, and personally witnessing Solomon risk alienating the entire business community as he pushed and maneuvered vigorously behind the scenes to raise hotel workers wages was moving. Yet I do not write this piece as a hotel worker organizer. I write this piece as a dedicated progressive, as someone wholly committed to advancing civil rights, immigrant rights, worker rights, and general equality everywhere. As progressives, we must stem the tide of the neoliberal onslaught, stem the tide of ballooning inequality. We must learn from recent history and break from the insanity; we cannot do the same thing over and over and expect different results. By that definition, a progressive vote for Jorge Elorza on September 9^th would be literally insane. Michael Solomon may not be the candidate of progressives’ dreams, but he will move us in the right direction. Stem the tide. Break from the insanity. Vote sanely September 9^th.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

Neoliberal myths and why Ray Kelly protestors did the right thing

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Every few years, protestors shout down a conservative speaker at an American University. Every few years, rancorous debate ensues. Yet every few years, the warring sides simply yell past one another; the opponents of the ‘shout-down’ uphold the sanctity of ‘free speech’ while the protestors decry the awful ‘real world impact’ of the conservative speaker’s message.

In the wake of the Brown University shout-down of Ray Kelly, champion of the NYPD’s racist stop-and-frisk policy and racial profiling in general, the debate has resurfaced. Rather than talking past the anti-protestors’ arguments, they need to be addressed directly. The prototypical argument in denouncing the protestors is not a defense of Ray Kelly’s racism. It is twofold: First, that a free-flowing discourse on the matter will allow all viewpoints to be weighed and justice to inevitably emerge victorious on its merits. Second, that stopping a bigot from speaking in the name of freedom is self-defeating as it devolves our democratic society into tyranny.

The twofold argument against the protestors stems from two central myths of neoliberalism.

The argument for free discourse as the enlightened path to justice ignores that direct action protest is primarily responsible for most of the achievements we would consider ‘progress’ historically (think civil rights, workers’ rights, suffrage, etc.), not the free exchange of ideas. The claim that silencing speech in the name of freedom is self-defeating indulges in the myth of the pre-existence of a free society in which freedom of speech must be preciously safeguarded, while ignoring the woeful shortcomings of freedom of speech in our society which must be addressed before there is anything worth protecting.

Critics of the protest repeatedly denounced direct action in favor of ideological debate as the path to social justice. “It would have been more effective to take part in a discussion rather than flat out refuse to have him speak,” declared one horrified student to the Brown Daily Herald. Similarly, Brown University President Christina Paxson labeled the protest a detrimental “affront to democratic civil society,” and instead advocated “intellectual rigor, careful analysis, and…respectful dialogue and discussion.”

Yet the implication that masterful debate is the engine of social progress could not be more historically unfounded. Only in the fairy tale histories of those interested in discouraging social resistance does ‘respectful dialogue’ play a decisive role in struggles against injustice.

The eight-hour workday is not a product of an incisive question-and-answer session with American robber barons. Rather, hundreds of thousands of workers conducted general strikes during the nineteenth century, marched in the face of military gunfire at Haymarket Square in 1886, and occupied scores of factories in the 1930’s before the eight-hour work day became American law.

Jim Crow was not defeated with the moral suasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches. Rather, hundreds of thousands marched on Washington, suffered through imprisonment by racist Southern law enforcement, and repeatedly staged disruptive protests to win basic civil rights.

On a more international scale, Colonialism, that somehow-oft-forgotten tyranny that plagued most of the globe for centuries, did not cease thanks to open academic dialogue. Bloody resistance, from Algeria to Vietnam to Panama to Cuba to Egypt to the Philippines to Cameroon and to many other countries, was the necessary tool that unlocked colonial shackles.

Different specific tactics have worked in different contexts, but one aspect remains constant: The free flow of ideas and dialogue, by itself, has rarely been enough to generate social progress. It is not that ideas entirely lack social power, but they have never been sufficient in winning concessions from those in power to the oppressed. Herein lies neoliberal myth number one—that a liberal free-market society will inexorably and inherently march towards greater freedom. To the contrary, direct action has always proved necessary.

Yet there are many critics of the protestors who do not claim Ray Kelly’s policies can be defeated with sharp debate. Instead, they argue that any protest in the name of freedom which blocks the speech of another is self-defeating, causing more damage to a free society by ‘silencing’ another than any potential positive effect of the protest. The protestors, the argument goes, tack society back to totalitarian days of censorship rather than forward to greater freedom. The protestors, however well intentioned, have pedantically thwarted our cherished liberal democracy by imposing their will on others.

The premise of this argument is neoliberal myth number two—that we live in a society with ‘freedom of speech’ so great it must be protected at all costs. This premise stems from an extremely limited conception of ‘freedom of speech.’ Free speech should not be considered the mere ability to speak freely and inconsequentially in a vacuum, but rather the ability to have one’s voice heard equally. Due to the nature of private media and campaign finance in American society, this ability is woefully lopsided as political and economic barriers abound. Those with money easily have their voices heard through media and politics, those without have no such freedom. There is a certain irony (and garish privilege) of upper-class Ivy Leaguers proclaiming the sanctity of a freedom of speech so contingent upon wealth and political power.

There is an even greater irony that the fight for true freedom of speech, if history is any indicator, must entail more direct action against defenders of the status quo such as Ray Kelly. To denounce such action out of indulgence in the neoliberal myth of a sacrosanct, already existing, freedom of speech is to condemn the millions in this country with no meaningful voice to eternal silence.

Every few years, an advocate of oppression is shouted down. Every few years, the protestors are denounced. They are asked to trust open, ‘civil’ dialogue to stop oppression, despite a historical record of struggle and progress that speaks overwhelmingly to the contrary. They are asked to restrain their protest for freedom so to protect American freedom of speech, despite the undeniable fact that our private media and post-Citizens United political system hear only dollars, not the voices of the masses. Some will claim that both sides have the same goal, freedom, but merely differ on tactics. Yet the historical record is too clear and the growing dysfunctions in our democracy too gross to take any such claims as sincere. In a few years, when protestors shout down another oppressive conservative, we will be forced to lucidly choose which side we are on: The oppressors or the protestors. The status quo or progress.

August 1, 2013

Why the response to Trayvon Martin falls short

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The death of Trayvon Martin and acquittal of his murderer, George Zimmerman, unleashed widespread discussion and protest of racism in America. The response has been rightful outrage; protestors filling streets and indignant polemics filling the media. Yet a lion’s share of the response misses the mark.

Trayvon Martin’s death, like most all instances of racism, resulted from the structural racism which exists in the United States—income, education, incarceration, voting inequality, etc. Systemic, pervasive racial inequality inevitably breeds racist behavior. But, in a manner both common and pernicious, most of the response has ‘individualized’ racism, reducing the problem to the depraved attitudes of George Zimmerman and other racists like him. The problem becomes just Zimmerman; the grand remedy is nationwide attitude reform. Any course of action that individualizes racism as such is circular, leading directly back to where we stand today. If we are serious about stopping the rushing stream of Trayvon Martins, a different conceptualization of racism and a different action plan is necessary.

Most of the mass outcry at Trayvon Martin’s murder and Zimmerman’s acquittal has treated racism as an individual problem. The limitations of the demands and the proposed program to fight racism both treat racism as an individual attitude rather than a systemic ideology rooted in material inequalities.

In example, the nearly singular demand expressed by the outraged has been a guilty verdict, to lock Zimmerman up. Op-ed after op-ed, tweet after tweet, and speech after speech blasted the Florida justice system. Here most of the outrage stops. Zimmerman is a racist who must be imprisoned, and perhaps the acquitting jury members share some of the responsibility as well. The call on the Obama administration to prosecute Zimmerman on civil rights grounds has been far and away the most resounding and organized response, quickly amassing over one million signatures. Overwhelmingly, anti-racists have directed their rage at Zimmerman the individual.

Even when the discussion has moved beyond Zimmerman, the outraged have generally kept racism at the level of the individual. The common plan of action to combat further racism has been to promote self-reflection on racism amongst racist individuals everywhere. President Obama summarized this strategy in his widely celebrated speech on the matter. Obama concluded,
“And then, finally, I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race… [A]sk yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.”

The remedy is to ‘wring bias’ out of people, to question our individual attitudes. In the same vein, perhaps the most trendy social media response was to declare ‘I am not Trayvon Martin’. Turning the traditional ‘I am’ rally cry of unity on its head, the ‘I am not’ strategy focuses on stimulating discussion of ‘racial privilege’. Like Obama’s conclusion, the implied solution is to cleanse racists’ attitudes through sober discussion. While there hasn’t yet been anything akin to the Million Man March, we have certainly seen a Million Man Recognition of Racial Privilege of sorts in the past weeks.

Both responses are fine starting points. Zimmerman should be imprisoned as a matter of justice and racism’s omnipresence in American society needs to be talked about. But stopping there, as most of the conversation has, is not only stunted but also politically harmful. To imply that racism is merely a free-floating cancer in the minds of individuals and can be eradicated through widespread individual persuasion is to condemn the anti-racist movement to failure.

The problem with the individual-centric response is that racism is an ideology inextricably rooted in the material racial inequality of American society. Rather than existing simply in the realm of ideas, ideologies such as racism exist as a means for individuals to interpret and explain material realities. That is, ideologies help us understand the world around us. As the great historian of American racism, Barbara Fields, writes,

“Ideology is a distillate of experience. Where the experience is lacking, so is the ideology that only the missing experience could call into being…An ideology must be constantly created and verified in social life; if it is not, it dies. Ideology is not a set of attitudes that people can ‘have’ as they have a cold, and throw off the same way. Human beings live in human societies by negotiating a certain social terrain, whose map they keep alive in their minds by the collective, ritual repetition of the activities they must carry out in order to negotiate the terrain.”

Racism in the United States is an ideology that helps ‘negotiate’ the country’s drastic racial inequality. In a country with such great inequality along racial lines, racism as an ideology is profoundly powerful in explaining the ‘social terrain’. As long as this inequality exists, along with a class with an interest in exploiting it (think Fox News), racism as an ideology is not likely to disappear.

An isolated maniac thus did not alone murder Trayvon Martin. The rampant racial inequality in our society that engenders racial prejudice, along with Zimmerman, ultimately shares responsibility. Zimmerman reacted in fear and hate towards an African-American just as thousands of other Americans do each day, just as our unequal society encourages them to do. In a society that disproportionately criminalizes, impoverishes, imprisons, and generally oppresses African-Americans, an ideology of racism which understands African-Americans as ‘underclass’ criminals readily flourishes. Zimmerman looked at the world around him, one in which African-Americans are disproportionately criminalized and impoverished, and the ideology of racism made sense. When he saw Martin walking home, his instincts sprung to action and he committed racist murder.

Most of the outraged responses fall short because they fail to address these root causes of racist violence. If racist violence such as Zimmerman’s were an isolated phenomenon, a mere conviction would be sufficient. Racist violence—physical, economic, and psychological—is, however, an every-minute occurrence in America. Discussion of racism in America is vital, but discussion is only worth the action it precipitates. A political strategy of discussion that will convert American racists is bound to leave American racism safely intact. A political strategy of merely discussing ‘privilege’ in hope that racist White Americans recognize and denounce their racism is bound to leave American racism safely intact. Any political program that treats racism as a mere idea or attitude, detached from our country’s racialized slums, prisons, schools, etc, is bound to leave American racism safely intact.

To truly fight racism in America and to stop future racist brutalities like the murder of Trayvon Martin, we must focus our energies on ending the sweeping racial inequalities that generate George Zimmermans. For example, we must channel our outrage at ending the racist criminal justice system. For as long as one in three African-American men are imprisoned in their lifetimes, there will be racism and more Trayvon Martins. We must channel our outrage at fighting for decent jobs and full employment in African-American communities. For as long as African-American unemployment is more than twice that of white unemployment, and as long as African-American poverty rates nearly triple those of whites, there will be racism and more Trayvon Martins. We must channel our outrage at fighting for decent public schools in African-American communities. For as long as only roughly one-half of all male minority students graduate high school on time, there will be racism and more Trayvon Martins. We must channel our outrage at fighting the attack on voting rights. For as long as thirteen percent of all African-American men have lost the right to vote, there will be racism and more Trayvon Martins. So on and so forth.

The list is potentially long, the conclusion the same: racial inequalities must be uprooted to end racist behavior. Racism is an ideology that flourishes in unequal societies. Like any ideology, its mass appeal is in its ability to help members of society navigate their everyday reality, and its reproduction cannot occur if this reality fundamentally changes. Fighting racist behavior without fighting America’s material racial inequalities is akin to prescribing Tylenol instead of radiation for a cancer patient. George Zimmerman should be imprisoned. However, those interested in ending such racism must make demands that would dismantle nation-wide racial inequities. We need to have a wide-ranging discussion of racism in America. However, the endgame cannot be individual catharsis or moral exposé in recognizing racial privilege. Instead, our discussion must focus on why racial inequalities exist and how we are going to organize to collectively vanquish them. Continuing to discuss racism as an individual problem keeps the struggle on the American elite’s preferred terms, deflecting culpability from society’s policy-makers and leaving social structures unquestioned.

Those of us outraged must not let Trayvon Martin’s death be in vain. Let’s talk far and wide about the deep societal inequalities that cause racist injustices like Trayvon’s every day in America. In Trayvon’s name, let’s organize far and wide and fight for an end to the racial inequalities that exist at the very core of American society.

September 26, 2012November 9, 2012

47% Comments Bungle GOP’s Victim-Blaming

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When video of Mitt Romney dismissing the “47%” recently surfaced, shockwaves pulsated throughout American political society. Liberal pundits reacted with breathless glee to the Republican nominee’s gaffe, while working-class voters reacted with breathless outrage to the perceived uber-insult. Liberals and conservatives alike asked if Mitt’s misstep meant political suicide, if his comments were extreme enough to bring a crashing end to his campaign.

Romney’s potentially mortal sin was the following statement:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.”

Accusing such a large portion of working-class and middle-income Americans of laziness and freeloading rightfully offended the masses of hard-working Americans who don’t fall in the ‘top-53%’ income bracket.

Depicting Americans who toil frantically to make ends meet, have seen any sense of personal opportunity fade in an economy torn down by unscrupulous Wall Street bankers, and who utilize government programs to maintain the basic necessities for their families as irresponsible mooches is despicable and absurd. It is the typical victim-blaming of the wealthy who plunder and then chastise the plundered for their misfortune. More specifically, the typical victim-blaming by rich Americans who have seen their incomes soar in previous decades on the backs of working Americans whose wages have stagnated and living conditions plummeted. Quite simply, blaming poor Americans for their plight is generally wrong; it was wealthy bankers who tanked the economy and greedy corporations who have refused to share the expanding profits American workers have produced.

The only problem with the shock and outrage at Romney’s “47%” comments is that the notion of the freeloading poor is nothing new to this presidential election season. In fact, victim-blaming akin to Romney’s comments has been a staple of both parties campaign rhetoric throughout their campaigns. Both candidates have consistently, implicitly and explicitly, excoriated the poor for their own poverty. Both parties’ national conventions contained countless testaments to the rags-to-riches ‘American Dream’—Read: those who work hard will inevitably prosper (see Michelle Obama’s Convention speech, for example).

Both candidates engaged in a one-upsmanship on who champions Welfare-to-Work programs more aggressively—Read: who can claim the trophy of having booted more lazy poor people off of Welfare. And Democrats and Republicans alike have repeatedly deployed the tropes of government ‘hand-outs’ and ‘dependency’. From Paul Ryan’s latest Town Hall rant (“We’re worried about more and more people becoming net dependent on the government than upon themselves) to Barack Obama’s Convention speech (“We insist on personal responsibility and we celebrate individual initiative…We don’t want handouts for people who refuse to help themselves, and we don’t want bailouts for banks that break the rules”) both campaigns have routinely, and without any significant backlash, painted a picture of a lazy, free-loading American underclass.

So what made Romney’s 47% comment different? Why the sudden outrage over what has become staple rhetoric this election season? Romney crossed the line because the latest accusatory insult lobbied at the American poor unavoidably included poor and working white Americans. While it goes unsaid in our culture of ‘post-racial’ political correctness, there is little doubt as to the skin color of the free-loading lower class that politicians and pundits frequently chastise: black and brown. The staple conservative image of the single mother who has irresponsibly had too many children, chooses not to work and lazily weans the social welfare system via food stamps and Welfare—the ‘Welfare Mom’— is undeniably meant to be African American. The bipartisan calls to confront the self-imposed ‘culture of poverty’ that allegedly hold poor communities down is never meant to suggest images of poor white communities, but always poor black communities. Recently, Romney has uncontroversially run ads attacking Obama’s Work to Welfare record stating, “You won’t have to work. You won’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.” Blaming less fortunate Americans for their own poverty and accusing them of lazy free-loading is commonplace from most politicians in both major parties, but it is almost always implicitly targets poor black Americans. But no matter how you do the math—blacks represent around 12% of the American population, and even add the Latino population at around 16%—Mitt’s 47% includes a sizable chunk of the white American population. Victim-blaming and condescending self-help lectures get tossed around regularly and without controversy, but always part of a racist discourse directed at black Americans. Romney changed the tune, crossed the line and provoked outrage when he included white Americans as part of the parasitic poor.

A recent study by Princeton Professor Martin Gilens obliterates any doubt as to the racist implications of the Welfare and ‘hand-out’ discourse. While 71% of Americans polled favored spending on “Social assistance for the poor,” 71% also oppose spending on “Welfare.” How can such a large majority of Americans contradictorily support spending to help the poor but oppose the program that does just that when called by a certain name? In a word, racism. “Welfare” conjures up images specifically of poor blacks in a way “Social assistance” does not. Blaming blacks for their own poverty and labeling them as undeserving of assistance holds public credence in a way that doesn’t fly for whites.

Romney thus bungled one of the classic American conservative political strategies. Scapegoating African Americans as such is tried and true, as wealthy classes in American history have repeatedly used racism to divide and conquer. From the implementation of racial codes in the southern colonies in response to cross-racial uprisings such as Bacon’s Rebellion (in which white indentured servants and black slaves joined forces), to the Republican Party’s infamous ‘Southern Strategy’ of using racism to usurp Democratic control of the South, to the incessant anti-‘handout’ rhetoric of Paul Ryan, wealthy whites have long sought to gain the allegiance of working class whites via racism.

Class hostility from working class whites could be avoided, class solidarity amongst working class whites and blacks could be preempted, and class dominance maintained so long as working class whites blamed their problems on blacks rather than the wealthy. That this strategy remains alive and well today was beautifully displayed in recent comments from the extremely conservative Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham: “The demographics race we’re losing badly…We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.” By expanding his verbal attack to whites, Romney inadvertently broke the mold and pissed off the same white working class whose allegiance he needs to be elected.

It is for this reason that conservatives also reacted with disappointment to the ‘47%’ comments. Recognizing that Romney had blundered the classic formula, fellow Republicans quickly distanced themselves from the presidential candidate and many spoke ominously about the comments’ potential effects on his candidacy. Ultra-conservative Fox News columnist Charles Krauthammer laid into Romney:

“He said  these are people who consider themselves victims. Now, that’s not a very  smart thing to say. It’s not even accurate. And you don’t win an election  by disparaging just about half of the electorate. So simply as a matter of  appealing to the electorate, the way he put it was about the worst possible  way.”

Former George W. Bush speechwriter and Republican Party activist similarly thrashed Romney, writing, “Mitt Romney has just committed the  worst presidential candidate gaffe since Gerald Ford announced in 1976 that  there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, certainly no populist champion, concluded, “An intervention is in  order. Mitt, this isn’t working.” Similar denouncements appeared in conservative publications far and wide, from the WSJ to Fox News to Bloomberg Businessweek. The severity of Romney’s misstep was immediately apparent to all. Accusations of free-loading, dependency, and entitlement are fine in American politics, but extending such claims beyond African Americans and to white Americans is off limits.

Hopefully Romney’s comments do torpedo his campaign and Americans will reject his haughty elitism in electing Barack Obama come November. For the true progressive, however, that is not enough. Progressives must reject the victim-blaming ideology whenever the wealthy use it to justify their exploits, not only when it is leveled at white Americans. Americans should react with the same revulsion piqued by Mitt’s ‘47%’ whenever ‘Welfare Mom’, ‘culture of poverty’, or other popular ‘free-loader’ diatribes implicitly blame African Americans for their poverty. White workers must react with equal outrage when similar conservative attacks attempt to single out black workers as lazy free-loaders. Progressives should demand that Democrats stop using these tired and racist tropes, stop implying that we live in a perfect meritocracy through incessant ‘pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps’ rhetoric, and start aiming their fire at the real causes of American poverty sitting on Wall Street and in corporate corner offices. Mitt’s comments were offensive, but if we continue to allow similar ideology to go unchallenged everyday, elites will continue to thwart the creation of a powerful progressive movement using the great wedge of racism.