Romney Misunderstands My America
The problem with what Mitt Romney said — “I’m not worried about the very poor.” — is that it misses the point of upward mobility. He said that they have their safety net so they are covered. What a calloused view! Like they are happy with their food stamps and public housing. He’s not concerned with them. They are not going anywhere. Let’s just warehouse them somewhere so that the rest of us can get on with our lives.
He cannot fathom a concept like “working poor.” He has no knowledge or empathy with those who get up every morning, go to work for minimum wages so that their children can go to school. Day after day, they keep at it so that one day they can get ahead of their paycheck. If your life starts on third base, I guess you don’t have to understand how Americans struggle everyday.
This is a mindset of well-to-do arrogant Christians who feel that God is blessing them to the exclusion of others. Well, yes, we’ll reluctantly provide a minimum safety net for those less fortunate than us but I don’t really want to know their names or their situations. After all, they aren’t our kind of people.
I want a president who has endured hardships and poverty (maybe even a broken home), succeeded through hard work and perseverence, is able to empathize with people of all income levels and cultures, and governs from a vantage point that believes that people are not the sum total of their birth circumstance.
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