Thread by @SamHainPress

...I grew up mostly poor (hand to mouth, actualfax gov't cheese, tons of debt), with guns in the house (some inherited, many as saved-for holiday gifts), and my parents (esp. my father) were die-hard conservatives.

My dad would always say "come the revolution..." ominously about too-liberal public figures. The unspoken message was that conservatives were gonna rise up and 'take back's the country.

He'd probably think the b00g@l00 boys have the right idea. I don't know; I don't talk to him anymore, for my own safety and the safety of my spouse.

Thing is, my dad grew up wealthy. Owned show horses & went to Georgetown without financial assistance.

I'm pretty sure his conservatism stems from THAT, + "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" syndrome.

For him, M@G@ probably means returning to his halcyon, privileged youth.

It's all about restoration to a 'rightful place' - where he didn't have to think abt the tangible realities tht millions of americans have dealt w/for generations - people he classified as 'other.' Thugs & criminals, not hurting people laboring under the same broken system as he.

It's about empty promises of a future where those concerns go away again - where the calls for empathy are silenced. Where consciences are absolved by 'righteous' revolution against the people trying to challenge the hierarchy that made him a prince (then a pauper).

It's not about the economic hardships of the present. Those are seen as temporary, in a "righteous system." Just vote red, and all will be restored - and if not, you always have your guns, to defend what is yours, and to restore by force the hierarchy that will lift you up again.

If he could clearly see that it's the system he's upholding that impoverished him while lifting up people who will never see him as an equal, if he truly saw what generations of stolen wealth looks like in the form of the poor Black American experience... I don't know.

It's not 'economic anxiety' holding him back, though. That's oversimplistic. It's privileged whiteness. It's the amoral lie being peddled by conservatives about who 'deserves' poverty, who 'deserves' destitution, who 'deserves' to be at the bottom of a broken hierarchy.

It's a lack of empathy for the Black people who live on government assistance even as he benefitted from it - because he needed 'temporary help' and they 'just want handouts.'

It's a failure to recognize who are actually his peers & potential allies in fighting a broken system.

Because he doesn't *want* to fight the system.

He just wants his former place in it.

It's not about economic anxiety, or his place in the class hierarchy. It's about regaining a separation, a higher place, than The Others he thinks are beneath him.

It's about a lie being peddled by the rich, about bootstraps, & 'earning' better places if you 'deserved' to start at the bottom - & regaining your rightful place if you lucked out before but "somehow" fell from grace.

"Somehow." As if that's not the system working as intended.

Funny how poor Black Americans always "deserve" to start from the bottom, too.

Funny how "bootstrap" stories about rich white scions never properly acknowledge the role generational wealth plays in their wild success.

[Ed: it's not actually funny.]

"Economic anxiety" is a smokescreen. It sidesteps so many factors, & it's being peddled by the same ppl who benefit from the system that creates those "anxieties." And that system relies upon white privilege, "injured Whiteness," to prevent empathy across lower conomic classes.

I escaped - barely - from that gelatinous cube of a lie, because I'm a queer neuroatypical woman, & I realized the deck was stacked against me. I started to recognize how the deck was MORE stacked against others. I developed empathy, and learned to listen to people of color, etc.

I realized that in a white cisheteropatriarchy, I was 'the Other,' & started to see how other people were cast that way, too. It took me a long time to get there, & I'm not proud of the time I spent as a conservative. But that time means I know how the Conservative Lie ticks.

And I won't leave the supporting Lie of "economic anxiety" go unchallenged, because I *lived* it. It's bullshit. It's all bullshit made to foster division instead of breed empathy. Fuck that.

Thing I just realized: "economic anxiety" is not just a smokescreen - it's carefully designed to trip your empathy, to make you pity and look down on these "poor, misguided souls." To make you think that if someone just *cared enough* to help poor whites that they'd be Better.

From what I know of guys like this, they don't want your pity. That would be being seen as weak. They want to prove their STRENGTH. So "economic anxiety" not only overwrites empathy for poor PoC, but it also fuels the 'condescending elitist liberal' resentment.

Don't feed that.

Note that it's always wealthy white pundits - who think lavishly-appointed, tax-deductible charity galas are the peak of Enlightened Moral Action - who peddle the 'economic anxiety' line.

They think money solves everything, and race is invisible. Because for them, it does & is.

These wealthy white pundits are basically calling poor, armed, reactionary whites "jealous haters" bc they can't conceive the full, complex reality of what it means to live in these communities, where racial divides influence how people perceive their own stations in life.

[CW domestic violence]

You know how I also know it's not about economic anxiety but entitlement and power? Because he didn't hit me when the bills came due. He hit me when I defied him, challenged his place in the family hierarchy.

Did his economic precarity make him feel as if his place in the hierarchy was more tenuous? Maybe. But I also know his trust-fund momma hit him for the same damn reasons.

Right-wing violence isn't about money. It's about asserting POWER, specifically power OVER those they see as inferior. It's about displaying strength as a mark of status.

Their targets tell you who they think is lesser. Women, racial minorities, queers, 'weak' liberals, etc.

If it were really about economics, they'd be building guillotines in front of Elon Musk's house, not cheering for the state-sanctioned murders of Black people.

The other thing about the 'economic insecurity' argument is that it presupposes an ignorance - an intellectual innocence, almost - about how the world works. Like they're just taking their frustrations out on whoever they get manipulated into hurting.

Which is condescending as shit, first off.

And second off, these aren't schoolyard bullies. They're grown ass adults.

Again, my father went to Georgetown. He studied politics.

They know how the world works. They know it's unfair. But in the words of Calvin, they're upset that the world isn't unfair *in their favor.*

You know, the way it's *supposed to be.*

Does poverty play into this? Sure, but it's about more than that. It's about power, prestige. The ability to do as they please without accountability or consequences.

This is what they call "freedom."

That's why Tr*mp is their guy btw. More than for his wealth - they don't care that he's actually broke as shit - they admire him for what he gets away with. Attacks on women, racial minorities, the disabled, whoever? He gets away with it, and they want THAT, for themselves.

Anyway. Thanks for listening. I'll end his thread here, just so it stops taking up my headspace.

TL;DR - 'economic anxiety' is bullshit. Don't fall for it.