Member-only story
The Loose Alliance Between Suburbia And The Left Is About To Break
How we can keep it together
A few weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine asked a question on our suburban community’s Facebook page:
Do you think enhanced unemployment benefits help or hurt the economy?
That question reveals the divide between financially comfy suburbanites and their less fortunate compatriots. Look at the phrasing word-by-word. Do you see it?
Here it is again.
Do you think enhanced unemployment benefits help or hurt the economy?
Someone who benefits from this program might have phrased it as “…help or hurt people.”
That’s the disconnect between our two worlds. When you live in a safe and comfortable home, work a cushy office job with a generous salary and exceptional health insurance, policies around unemployment and childcare tax credits for low-income Americans prompt us to ask, but what will it do to the economy? We don’t understand that these programs are meant to help people.
Not everyone thinks that way, but even those of us who’ve always supported social programs did so with tepid enthusiasm, never ardently enough to affect our vote one way or another.
