politics

Last week a secretly-taped video of Romney made headlines. In it, he said that 47% of America believes that they are “victims,” is “dependent” on the government, and likes it that way.  SocImages, like many places around the web, did some talking about who the 47% of people who pay no income taxes really are.

In this post, however, I’d like to make a different kind of point about framing and the sociological imagination, inspired by Ill Doctrine‘s Jay Smooth and Slate’s William Saletan.

Reacting to the release of the video, the media returned to a similarly clandestine video of Obama that had made the rounds during his first run for the presidency.  In it, Obama refers to Americans who are “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment…”  So, six-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other right?  Both statements are equally tone deaf and biased right?

No. In fact, one is embedded in a deep empathy and an understanding that circumstance (i.e., that thing that sociologists study) can shape one’s outlook, sometimes in negative ways.  The other is a straightforward criticism of a group’s character, with a lack of empathy and understanding.

Let’s take a closer look at how Obama introduced his (fairly criticized) comment about the bitter clinging to guns (transcript).  He begins by saying that people have a good reason to be unhappy with politicians:

In contrast, Romney’s comments are dismissive and accusing (transcript).   His targets — the 47% of people who are exempt from paying income taxes — aren’t embattled, fighting for a decent life despite political neglect, they’re “entitled” to something they haven’t earned.  They’re happy to be dependent on the government and don’t want it any other way.  They’re leeches, parasites, freeloaders, bums.

And, instead of saying that its his job to help those people see life a different way, Romney dismisses them entirely:

 [They’ll] vote for the [current] president no matter what… my job is not to worry about those people — I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives…

So, while some are arguing that Romney’s comments are just a politically-right version of Obama’s — equally biased and cynical — nothing could be farther from the truth.   Obama looks at Americans who will not likely vote for him and sees social structural reasons that their negative emotions are valid (even when they’re aimed at him), he expresses empathy for their plight, and seeks to connect with them.  Romney does nothing of the sort.  Instead, he condemns them as individuals and blows them off as potential constituents; and he encourages others to do the same.

In short, Obama has a sociological imagination that enables, even presses him to see the bigger picture.  He sees both individuals and the circumstances they live in.  Romney, for whatever reason, does not exercise a similar imagination.

Wanna hear it straight from Jay? I would too:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Salon posted a video by Benjamin Wheelock that illustrates changing voting patterns in the U.S. over the last century. He assigned each state a color based on voting for presidents, governors, and Congress for each year there were elections. Red indicates Republican, blue is Democratic; the darker the color, the more overwhelming the vote was for that party.

The video starts with 2011 and moves backward to 1912. What’s perhaps most striking today is that through the late 1970s, the South was a swath of Democratic blue. In the 1980s much of it turns purple, as presidential elections increasingly go Republican but Dems remain competitive in state elections. By the 2000s, it becomes much more solidly, and brightly, red as Republicans consolidate their popularity in the region.

It’s a quick way to highlight many major trends and turning points in U.S. political history, including changing stances on racial issues within the parties, the Democrats’ overwhelming dominance during the late ’30s as the country struggled to emerge from the Great Depression, and the clear shifts in the South and on the coasts over time.

Thanks to my colleague Pete for pointing it out!

Cross-posted at Caroline Heldman’s Blog.

On Monday, Mother Jones released a video recorded in May of presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser in the Boca Raton home of “private equity party boy” and “sexy party” host, Marc Leder. A hidden camera caught controversial remarks about Israel, Iran, and a joke about being more electable if his parents had been born in Mexico, but the topic of this post is Romney’s use of the 47% Meme.

The 47% Meme is the idea that half of Americans take from rather than contribute to tax coffers. It sometimes surfaces in the form of the “takers vs. makers” frame. I have encountered this “argument” for years on Fox News, so it is surprising to see it gaining national attention now. Romney did a superb job articulating the 47% Meme in response to a question of how he might win in November:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.

Many myths start with a kernel of truth. The 47% Meme is loosely based on the statistic that 47% of Americans pay no income tax (down to 46% in 2011). This meme is wildly dishonest since people pay a host of other federal, state, and local taxes. It’s about as honest as saying a person doesn’t eat vegetables because she only eats carrots, celery, bell peppers, cucumbers, and cabbage, but not broccoli.

So who is paying taxes, and what taxes are they paying?

Federal Income Tax

The Tax Policy Center finds that two main groups comprise the 46% who do not pay federal income tax: (1) The poor whose subsistence-level income is not taxable, and (2) those who receive tax expenditures. This chart shows that the lion’s share of tax expenditures goes to senior citizens, children, and the working poor, with the notable exception of 7,000 millionaires who paid no income tax in 2011.

Other Federal Taxes

But enough about income tax since this narrow focus only serves to further the misleading 47% Meme. The chart below shows a more accurate picture of who pays federal taxes. If we don’t count retirees, only 8% of Americans pay no income or payroll taxes.

Americans also pay federal excise tax on gas, liquor, cigarettes, airline tickets, and a long list of other products, so virtually every American pays federal taxes in some form. And contrary to the 47% Meme, poor and middle-class Americans actually pay a greater percentage of their income in federal payroll and excise taxes than wealthier Americans.

State and Local Taxes

When it comes to state and local taxes, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that the poor pay more in state and local taxes in every state except Vermont. As the chart below indicates, state and local taxes are regressive, meaning that those who can least afford to pay, pay more.

Romney has apologized for the inelegance of his statements, but stands by their substance, despite ample data debunking the dependency (above) and entitlement bases for the 47% Meme. I don’t believe that Romney believes that half of the people in the U.S. are pathetically entitled “victims.” He is a smart person, and this is a ludicrous line of reasoning. But what does it say about our bitterly partisan nation that heaping unmitigated scorn on the poor brings in big bucks from the base?

In light of Romney’s comments regarding those who depend on the government, we thought we’d re-post this great data showing that many people who are using government social programs don’t know they are doing so.  

————————

Dolores R. sent in a fascinating image posted at boingboing. It comes from a paper by Suzanne Mettler, a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell. Mettler first asked survey participants whether they had ever used a federal U.S. government program. Then later in the survey she specifically asked respondents whether they had ever benefited from or participated in specific federal programs. As it turns out, large number of people who have benefited from various federal programs or policies do not recognize themselves as having done so. This table shows what percent of people who said they had participated in or used these 19 federal programs had earlier in the surveys said they had never used any social program:

Mettler argues that recipients are less likely to recognize themselves as benefiting from programs that are part of what she calls the “submerged state” — programs and policies that provide incentives and motivations for particular behaviors in the private sector, rather than overtly directing behavior. If you receive food stamps, you interact directly with a government agency, are required to periodically meet with a government worker and reapply to re-establish eligibility, and can point to a specific thing that links you to the program (these days usually a debit-type card rather than the old style coupons/stamps).

On the other hand, if you participate in the government’s mortgage interest deduction program, which encourages home ownership by allowing people to deduct the cost of mortgage interest from their taxable income (which you can’t do with rent costs, for instance), it’s less noticeable that you are benefiting from a federal policy. You get a form from your mortgage company that provides the relevant number, and you transfer it over to the correct line when you’re filling out taxes.

Notably, the programs recipients seem least likely to recognize as a government program are among those the middle (and higher) classes are most likely to use, while those more common among the poor are more clearly recognizable to those using them as government programs. Yet allowing you to write off mortgage interest (but not rent), or charitable donations, or the money you put aside for a child’s education, are all forms of government programs, ones that benefit some more than others. But the “submerged” nature of these policies hides the degree to which the middle and upper classes use and benefit from federal programs.

Peter N. sent in some data compiled by Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post.  It reveals the intersection of race and religion among Democrats and Republicans.   As Cillizza concludes, it’s “overblown” to say that the Republican party is made up of White Protestants and the Democratic of minorities and atheists, but there is definitely an argument to be made that each party is disproportionately so.

This first pie chart shows the racial and religious affiliation of people who identify with or lean towards the Republican party.  More than half are White Protestants, another 18% are White Catholics.  Only a small percentage of party faithfuls are religious Blacks and Hispanics (the two racial groups featured in in these data).

This second chart shows the same data for Democrats and Democratic-leaning individuals.  Almost a quarter of Democrats are White Protestants, but a slightly larger percentage of Democrats are religiously unaffiliated.  One in five Democrats identifies as either Black or Hispanic and religious.  The larger “other” category conceals smaller blocs that nonetheless add diversity to the party.

This is just one way to slice the pie, so to speak, but these are the kinds of data that both the Obama and the Romney campaigns are working with.  When they aim to bring out their “base,” this is what they’re talking about.  These numbers may give us a clue as to why they pick the strategies they do, such as the sudden spike in the inclusion of the word “God” in the Republican party platform.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

If you followed media coverage of the Democratic party convention last week, you may have heard about the short-lived controversy that broke out over the lack of the word “God” in the party platform (as well as the platform not explicitly mentioning Jerusalem as the capital of Israel). Fox News picked up on the lack of religious references and highlighted it as a major failing. Both items were hastily added to the platform.

Over at Organizations, Occupations and Work, Chris Prener posted a graph showing the number of times “God” appears in the party platforms over the last century. As Prener mentions, explicit references to a deity  were rare before World War II. After including it a few times in the ’40 and ’50s, the Democratic party platform mostly left it out until the 1996. The Republican party has much more consistently included “God” at least once in each platform since 1948, but 2012’s platform stands out, since it has more than double the mentions as in any prior platform:

Using the word “God” in official party platforms isn’t a tradition inherited from the earliest days of the two parties. It’s a relatively recent change, illustrating a trend toward more explicit inclusion of or reference to religion in U.S. politics and by political candidates.

In 1956 sociologist C. Wright Mills published a book titled The Power Elite.  In it, he argued that our democracy was corrupt because the same people exercised power in business, the military, and politics.  This small group, with so many important roles and connections, had an influence on our society that was far out-of-proportion with their numbers.  This, he concluded, was a dire situation.

Fast forward to 2012 and Lambert Strether posted a series of Venn diagrams at Naked Capitalism.  Strether writes:

[This] nifty visualization… shows how many, many people, through the operations of Washington’s revolving door, have held high-level positions both in the Federal government and in major corporations. To take but one example, the set of all Treasury Secretaries includes Hank Paulson and Bob Rubin, which overlaps with the set of all Goldman Sachs COOs. The overlapping is pervasive. Political scientists and the rest of us have names for such cozy arrangements — oligarchy, corporatism, fascism, “crony capitalism” — but one name that doesn’t apply is democracy.

UPDATE: I’ve included a criticism of the methodology after the diagrams; the overlap portrayed here is almost exclusively among Democratic politicians and the diagrams were explicitly intended to point out connections among progressives.

See for yourself:

On the methods for putting together these diagrams, Strether writes about the person who’s behind the diagrams:

Herman’s honest: Her goal is to “expose progressive corporatism,” and — assuming for the sake of the argument that D[emocrat]s are progressive, and that “progressives” are progressive — her chart does exactly that, and very effectively, too.

But what her data does not do is expose corporatism as such; there are very, very few Rs listed; it strains credulity that Hank Paulson was the only high-level GS operative in the Bush administration, for example, and if GS isn’t the R[epublican]s’ favorite bank, there’s surely another.

Hence, Herman’s chart, if divorced from context[2], might lead somebody — say, a child of six — to conclude that the only corporatists in Washington DC are D[emocrat]s.

Thanks to Carolyn Taylor for pointing out the methods bias.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog.

The New York Times ran these graphics showing the word frequencies of the Republican and Democratic conventions.  I’ve added underlining on the keywords that seem to differentiate the two conventions. (The data on the Democrats runs only through Sept. 4, but it looks like the themes announced early on will be the ones that are repeated.)

The Republican dictionary falls open to the page with Business – ten times as many mentions as in the Democrats’ concordance.  If you go to the interactive Times graphic, you can click on Business and see examples of the contexts for the word.  Many of these excerpts also contain the word Success.

You can put the large-bubble words in each graphic in a sentence that condenses the party’s message about government, though that word – Government – does not appear in either graphic.   For the Republicans, government should lower Taxes so that Business can Succeed, creating Jobs.

For the Democrats, government should protect the rights of Women and ensure that everyone has access to Health and Education.

Perhaps the most telling most interesting word in the Democratic cloud is Together.  The Republican story is one of individual success in business, summed up in their repeated phrase, “I built that.”  The Democrats apparently are emphasizing what people can accomplish together.  These different visions are not new.  They go back at least to the nineteenth century.  (Six years ago, I blogged here about these visions as NFL brands — Cowboys and Steelers — and their parallels in US politics.)

(HT: Neal Caren who has posted his own data about the different balance of emotional expression at the two conventions.)