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Over the past two years the number of Americans who say there is a “very strong” or “strong” conflict between the rich and the poor has skyrocketed. According to Pew Research, in 2009 only 47 percent of Americans said there was a very strong or strong conflict between the rich and the poor. That number has now jumped to 66 percent, a 19 point gain in just two years.
While there is some partisan divide on the issue, a majority of individuals in every partisan group, Democrats, Independents and Republicans, now say there is at least a strong conflict between the rich and the poor.
Much of the rapid change in public opinion is the result of white Americans now becoming much more aware of the serious class conflict in our society. From Pew:
While blacks are still more likely than whites see serious class conflicts, the share of whites who hold this view has increased by 22 percentage points, to 65%, since 2009. At the same time, the proportion of blacks (74%) and Hispanics (61%) sharing this judgment has grown by single digits (8 and 6 points, respectively).
It would be hard to see this rather rapid change in public opinion as anything but a real victory for the Occupy movement, which is heavily focused on the growing economic inequality in this country. The Occupy movement managed to change the national conversation. It caused the media to talk about the issue of income inequality.
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Hmm, I was reading something this week about Americans “waking up”. The author clarified, “awakening in the sense of ‘satori’”.
Whew, that’s a lot of punctuation!
But yes, it is getting harder not to notice, and harder still to explain away.
What next, do we suppose?
Both political parties hijack the Occupy message and use “populist” message to try and win the election. After the election, whichever party wins, Wall Street goes back to screwing anyone they can out of their money. With the blessing of the party that won the elections.
What’s next?
Paging Rush Limbaugh to the WHITE propoganda wurlitzer, STAT!!!
That sounds about right, but we still gotta keep pushing.
Is there any way to reach working-class whites in Dixie and the Midwest? Sometimes I imagine something called the Red State Outreach Project to do that, to help them see what we see.
Of course, even if such an enterprise could be launched, what would its message be? “Vote Democratic” used to make sense, but it doesn’t any more.
The rich are business as usual– co-opt and keep on doing the same old theft and war schtick. Right now they are hard at work in an attempt to Iraq Iran.
Younger adults, women, Democrats and African Americans are somewhat more likely than older people, men, Republicans, whites or Hispanics to say there are strong disagreements between rich and poor.
If this is true, then the other 54% of people are idiots. Of course most (Vast Majority) rich people are wealthy mainly because of circumstances of birth or connections.
Walker:
Might as well title this piece “Reality Slowly Dawning on Popular Majority”. The richest members of society haven’t been at odds with the bulk of society’s population for as long as there have been societies. I think it is a tribute to the effectiveness of the American ideological indoctrination/programming system – as well as to the previous strength of the American middle class economically – that it is taking so long for people to wake up to this reality again.
“Reality Slowly Dawning on Popular Majority”
———
I LOVE your re-stated headlines.
Where did everybody go Jon?????????
Don’t tell me the Aztec calendar had the right year, just the wrong month.
Heh,
People born in North America (or Northern Europe) get a little squeemish when the subject turns to “rich people are wealthy mainly because of circumstances of birth or connections”.
Because they all are by comparison to the people born in South America, Africa, India, etc.
Certain Americans don’t like to admit they’re the 1% from a Global perspective.
I’m glad I didn’t throw away my ” Eat The Rich ” protest signs from the Ronnie Raygun Revolution. Sounds like the plates are finally warmed enough to begin the feast. My favorite would be a lean, ” long pig ” rump roast served with garlic mashed potates/kahlrabi mix, gravy and winter vegatables. Roasted brussel sprouts in garlic olive oil would work quite nicely. An Argentinian bloodsausage red Malbec to wash it all down. Dessert to follow for decades! Again, let the feast begin!
Your statement is merely a halftruth, alan. The American 99% may indeed have advantages that people in poverty in other countries don’t have, but what 99% of Americans don’t have is the power to affect improvements on a national and international scale. That power was taken away when rich people put their money, not into national or international philanthropical projects (which we should applaud) but into manipulations of power, into the political stratosphere.
Ninety-nine percent of Americans now have no say in what our government does. One percent of us do. So, in this country in particular there is a chasm which makes the 99% here just as powerless as the 99% anywhere in the world. And maybe in some poverty stricken countries, their 99% has more power to affect change in their country’s policies than we do here.
That’s the real issue.
Said the “certain American” who tippity-taps on a computer in comfort.
Find a cure for a disease, create a strain of wheat that grows where it’s needed, invent DDT. For all the good you do some people will still complain. One persons “affect improvement” is another persons “I don’t want your injection, genetically altered food is bad, mosquito killers hurt the water”. So much for all your good intensions.
I looked for it in this story, but couldn’t find it.
http://www.grist.org/article/davis
“It would be hard to see this rather rapid change in public opinion as anything but a real victory for the Occupy movement, which is heavily focused on the growing economic inequality in this country.”
I think you have it backwards here, Jon. It is not the Occupy movement that is driving the rapid change – it is the rapid change that is driving the Occupy movement. That is why the latter will continue, because they represent the rapid change, not because they are making the change. That is why it will not matter how slick their ongoing campaign is, or who attempts to co-opt their ideas. It won’t even matter if somehow the PTB dampen their influence temporarily. What already is is. What is and will be is increasing awareness that power has been stolen by the superrich, that money has become a lethal weapon. It isn’t just corporations that are people – as far as elections are concerned, money is people and people are not people.
Money is power. This horrid reality is being laid bare in plazas all over the country as the PTB suppress the Occupy encampments. It is being laid bare in the glut of television advertising, the kinds of campaigns that are being run, the attempts to manipulate and distract the voting public.
The Occupiers don’t tell us something we don’t already know; they are simply our human mike. If there were to be any new recognition or victory taking place, hopefully it would have been the PTB who looked back and made a real, not phony, change. That’s victory.
Power must be restored to the people. Otherwise, goodbye democracy.
People in Manhattan making 80K are barely middle class due to a number of local factors. Moving to Alabama would make them comfortable due to a number of local factors. Your solution makes perfect sense if we can just get those people to move to Alabama. Tuscaloosa has a lot of new housing starts even though the state, in totality, has 36% of its’ residents on food stamps, etc. To equate the 99% of U.S with conditions in 3rd world countries is baseless. Inputs must be equal to measure acurately outputs. You need a new tape measure if you want to work as a builder and a wrecking ball isn’t even the same toolbox. Just sayin’.
The improvement I would effect, alan, is to end the imperialism causing so much destruction, to reduce pollution so we could all breathe cleaner air and allow the climate to return to balance. Not allowing corporations to make life and death decisions on the world stage is another one. I am not thinking of power plays disguised as altruism, just very basic improvements which our 99 percent supports, improvements to our daily lives. I think the people, not the huge corporations, can make these decisions – they have done so in other countries smaller than this one.
What part of democracy do you not understand?
I think a lot of this increase is because we have moved from a class to a caste society. We may not recognize it officially, but functionally, we’re there.
The 1% want to enshrine their place at the top. It has become so bold that even middle-class whites are waking up.
The theme of this presidential election is going to be about the rich and the middle class….and Mitt Romney is not shy at all about making that clear when he campaigns. Either way, I loose….if I get Mitt……I will be living in a chicken coop……if I get Obama, I will heading towards living in that chicken coop. I still have hopes of an “eleventh hour candidate” .
Doesn’t matter where you live, so long as you live in North America or North Europe. You’re the 1%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
Perhaps you could coax the San Diego Chicken out of retirement? Makes sense in a couple of ways.:)
What people are waking up to is that the wealthy and those in power are no longer willing to throw scraps from the table, or have forgotten that they need to lest their heads become detached from their bodies. Fun times coming!
If Romney gets the nom. from the ROC we will see more of the same. News flash, his big contributors are equity firms.
With no regulations:
Find a cure for a disease becomes side effects that kill more than are saved
create a strain of wheat that grows where it’s needed becomes destruction of plants and animals that sustain the ability to grow anything at all by killing the pollinating insects
invent DDT becomes the end of birds like the American Eagle by changing the egg shell- making it very thin – so it could not bring baby birds to birth
All these things happened because those with money wanted more money quickly – more quickly than waiting for regulatory approval would require.
Meanwhile the polls also show that while seeing the income disparity as a bad has entered 66% of the publics mind, seeing folks that are rich as bad has not – there is no envy – just folks seeing a need for change. Your trust fund/inheritance is safe – mostly :-)
We seem to agree, except when it come to reading other peoples minds.
I chalked it up to good intentions, you assumed greed.