Dog Whistle Politics: Why Americans Hate Welfare
Martin Gilens, a political scientist at Princeton University, studied decades of polling data and media reports to gain a better understanding of why we tend to hold welfare in disdain.
Via Moyers & Company:
Whatever his faults, Ronald Reagan was undoubtedly a gifted communicator. His ideological preferences often came wrapped in memorable anecdotes.
Reagan justified his antipathy for the social safety net — and capitalized on the racial anxieties held by many white voters — by invoking the infamous, Cadillac-driving welfare queen and the “strapping young buck” who lived large on T-bone steaks purchased with food stamps. Reagan didn’t actually coin the term “welfare queen” — that was the Chicago Tribune. (He did in fact use the term “young buck” — derogatory slang for a young blac...