I'll Punch You Right In The Heart If You Think I'm Poor.

The election of 2012 may well be remembered by future historians as the Fight for the Middle Class. The words “middle class” are as much a mantra to both Romney and Obama as “maverick” was to Sarah Palin. The parties are fighting like piranhas on bath salts for the privilege of being the One True Champion of the Middle Class.

But neither side is saying much about the poor.*

This is because America hates poor people.

Let’s just admit it. We hate the poor. We detest them. We make brutal fun of them at best (watch an episode of the mercifully-cancelled "My Name is Earl" or pay a quick visit to peopleofwalmart.com, if you don't believe me)--or we insult them by using some of the ugliest words and phrases in the language: “Welfare queens.” “White trash.” “Niggers.” “Trailer trash.” Our hatred of the poor cuts across racial lines. We hate and mock and fear poor whites as much as we do poor blacks. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that America’s perennial “race problem” is more about class than race. I think Americans hate poor people worse than we hate black people. It’s just convenient that so many black people are poor. Makes it easier for us to conflate the two categories of people we hate the most.

This disdain for the poor is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that I wonder if it’s become part of our genetic code. And, honestly, I’m no better than anyone else.

I was recently caught in a traffic backup that put me home a half-hour later than usual. I fumed behind the wheel, inching forward, until finally I saw the source of the snarl: a twelve-year-old, rust-spotted Pontiac, hood up, smoke pouring out, stopped in the center lane.

The driver—one of those skinny, flaxen-haired, wife-beater-clad, chinstrap-bearded types that Missouri produces in such vast numbers—was standing helplessly beside his car, arms outstretched as if to say to all us angry motorists, “Hayell, man, I ain’t got no idear why she quit.”

I lost it. “Get your &#%$ing oil changed next time, you @%#ing redneck!!” I shrieked from behind closed windows, revved my engine just to let him know how mad I was, and sailed merrily on before I realized that I—a card-carrying Socialist—had just cursed a poor person for having the audacity to let his poverty inconvenience me for half an hour.

It’s not just that we hate poor people—we’re also terrified of being thought poor ourselves. Our politicians aren’t stupid. They’re appealing to the “middle class” because no one in America wants to admit they’re poor. We can stand being called “middle class.” But not even the poorest among us can stand being called “poor.”

"Socialism never took root in America,” said John Steinbeck, “because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Never were truer words spoken. We don’t think of ourselves as poor—and we go to great lengths to convince ourselves (and anyone who’s watching) that we’re not.

In fact, we make ourselves poorer so that we don’t look poor. We drive cars, live in houses, and buy clothes more expensive than those we need, but that make us think we look rich. The rash of outlet malls creeping over the landscape like open herpes sores exists solely so that we can wear Polo, Calvin Klein, and Ann Taylor—just like rich people wear!—without actually having to pay full price. In essence, they’re there to help us fool people into thinking we’re not broke as junkies.

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I can't say for certain where this peculiarly American dislike of poor people comes from. I suspect, however, it comes from our Calvinist Puritan roots. Prosperity, to the Pilgrims and their ilk, was a sign of God’s favor. Those whom He loved would He bless with riches (which goes completely counter to everything Jesus ever preached, but don’t expect Christians to be Christlike). This idea is the source of what sociologist Max Weber called the “Protestant work ethic”: work your ass off and make all the money you can. Get rich or die tryin.’ Otherwise, people might think God doesn’t like you.

This idea finds secular expression in a phrase that's become America's nickname, its unofficial moniker: “The Land of Opportunity.” “America is the Land of Opportunity!” we tell ourselves in civics class, political rallies, and damn near everywhere else where Americans gather to tell ourselves how great we are. It’s our most sacred shibboleth. Our national Kool-Aid. It’s practically an article of religious faith. “Anyone can make it in America! You just work hard, apply yourself, keep your nose to the grindstone, don’t take any wooden nickels, and you, too, can end up a millionaire!” 

And it’s sort of true, maybe, kind of, a little. Both my grandfathers were born dirt poor, worked their asses off, and ended up doing okay (although honest labor may have had less to do with it than I like to imagine. My father is fond of saying, “Sonny boy, one of your grandpas went to jail, and the other one should’ve”).

But “The Land of Opportunity” has a dark side that is terrifying in its implication. If America truly is the Land of Opportunity, it means that if you don’t make it in America, it’s... your... fault.

Taken to its logical conclusion, if you’re poor in America, it means there’s something wrong with you. You’re defective in some measure. It means that you’re lazy. Or stupid. Or dishonest. Or immoral.

Think about how we talk about  those poor people who have the nerve to collect welfare: “They’re lazy. They’re promiscuous. They have all these kids they can’t take care of. They don’t want to work. They’re thieves. They’re all on drugs. They’re like animals, they just want free handouts. They’re just soaking up my hard-earned tax dollars.”

Cripes, who’d want to be described like THAT? Who’d want to help THOSE people? No wonder we treat the poor like lepers. No wonder we flee, not just from the physical location of the poor, but from any association with them.

What’s implicit in calling America “The Land of Opportunity” is that the poor deserve their poverty. And much of America buys it, which turns traditional values upside down. The rich have become our folk heroes—and the poor have become the villains of the American narrative. This makes it okay to treat the poor like criminals—insisting, for example, that we humiliate them by making them undergo drug tests before they get their welfare check. Or implementing a draconian “three strikes and you’re out” policy and calling it “welfare reform.” Or entertaining such inhuman proposals as scrapping free and reduced lunch programs for poor children in public schools, as I recently heard right-wing AM talk radio host Michael Savage suggest.

The truth, as anyone who cares to get beyond the current American cacophony of wealth-fetishizing sycophancy knows, is different. In most cases, people are poor for reasons beyond their control. Their jobs go away, they get sick and can’t pay for it, their families couldn’t afford to educate them—dear God, there are a zillion reasons for poverty that have nothing to do with any fictitious inherent defects on the part of the poor.  

But many of us don’t want the truth. We’d prefer to pretend. We’d prefer to idolize the rich and deny compassion to the less fortunate. We’d prefer to vote Republican, since, after all, that’s the party of the rich—like us—and that Mitt Romney, who is, after all, a millionaire (like we’ll be some day), better represents our economic interests than the party of the free welfare handouts. We’d prefer to project, through our clothes and houses and cars and stuff, the fantasy that we’re rich.  

We’d prefer to believe we’re just temporarily embarrassed members of the Middle Class.

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* With the exception of Mitt Romney, who says, quote, “I’m not worried about the very poor.” Good on you, Mitty. I just bet you’re not.