Words matter.
Always use simple direct language.
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
Don’t use complex words.
The issue is entirely a media problem. Can you tell yet?
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Welfare = black, poor people = whites.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner.
So weird. As a Scandinavian, “welfare” to me means schools, healthcare, elderly care, sick pay, paid parental leave etc., paid for by the shared burden of taxes for the benefit of everyone.
It is a word with entirely positive connotations for me.
Our famous and revered constitution actually says in its thesis statement that one of the purposes of our government is to provide for the general welfare
To me the negative connotation of “welfare” is, Kafkaesque bureaucracy used to gate access. Actually being on it feels more like you are playing a fucked up game than receiving assistance.
People acting like gaming welfare is easy. Fuck me, it’s a full-time job getting anything at all.
For example: Been thinking about trying to get some food stamps. Wife works, I’m unemployed, maybe get a little of the tax money back from when I was making bank? Maybe get a pittance of unemployment? I can scarcely imagine navigating all the bullshit if I wasn’t technically capable. Kafkaesque bureaucracy indeed.
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I got fired from a job, rather unjustly, and attempted to file for unemployment.
It made no sense, I could not navigate my states website (which didn’t want to play well with Linux anyway), so I gave up. Which is the point.
One time an employer fired me and refused to pay me after discovering I was trans, and it literally took 6 months to get that check. The system is designed to fuck people.
I hear this, and also some flavor of people gaming the system.
I don’t like that I hear these things. But something definitely weaseled its way in.
Reagan’s smear campaign on welfare is still paying dividends
Meanwhile EU saying fuck all the disabled to appease a convicted rapist/felon. Sickening.
If it’s the particular words that are the issue you have a bigger problem than just helping the poor, which is a laudable goal. Hups, I just used an obscure word and alienated the dummies.
A favourite cognitive bias is the role of emotions in persuasion and decision making. Arguments are much more persuasive if they make us feel good, regardless of the evidence.
It’s interesting to watch an AI reason these issues because we’re reasonably sure it doesn’t have feelings and should be immune to the pitfalls of having an ego.
I’m not voting for no “laudable” BS. Let’s just talk about goals that are worthy
AI reason
Any researcher will tell you that these programs do not reason
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You don’t reason lol
Anyone can be poor, but only they are on welfare.
Publishers note: They usually refers to African Americans, but can be used for any suspicious minorities.
its almost always used as negative connation against blacks, or unsavory demographics. while the people, white conservatives railing on these people are the biggest welfare queens.
don’t forget wall street and corporations. if you fuck up, congratulations now you’re homeless. if they fuck up, congratulations you’re gonna bail them out.
That actually follows from the traditional argument against possibility of welfare - if the state can do such help, it’ll first give it to closest to it, which are the people who need it the least.
But I think with direct democracy it’d be fine. At least some middle ground would be found between those voting for “free money” and those voting so that others wouldn’t get “free money”. Unlike now when depending on who you are it’s either always free money or always fuck you.
EDIT: In general radical political models are better thought through fundamentally. Real world ones work in arcane ways, usually not the ones publicly declared, and rely on lots of inertia to be functional. But both radical marxism (direct democracy and full on social involvement) and radical ancap (no common decisions at all, no common social involvement at all) lack such vulnerabilities. That’s unfortunately the reason people with real world power don’t need them. If you have real world power, you’d support the change that gives you more power or preserves what you have. So for a model to be plausible it needs to have vulnerabilities, to attract real-world support. Only disadvantaged people really want a perfect model, and they are not the ones deciding.
Hence another radical variant - radical agnosticism of political systems, try to always keep as variable and diverse mix as possible, so that power, advantage and disadvantage were more or less equally spread, allowing people to live maybe not in heaven, but not in hell too. Decision-making systems as mixed as possible, legal spaces as diverse as possible, and so on.
That’s just associations’ war.
Complex words have more specific associations. Except specific associations are easier to change via propaganda than generic associations. And people love to pretend to be smart like I do, so use complex words when they can.
This rule shouldn’t be limited to outsiders. It should be used when talking to your own as well. Using compound concepts of simpler ones in discussion helps preserve understanding (and filter the kind of people not better than tankies).
Fox News: “Write that down. WRITE THAT DOWN!”
They knew.
The probably caused it. The Murdoch news organization has been using it as a slur for many decades.
Just want to point out that this negative association is based on racist dog whistles like the, “welfare queen,” which were propagated by right-wingers to convince low-income whites to hate the programs designed to help them.
And I think theres a place to break that association, but .aybe candidates that are running to change our system dont need to be the ones to do it.
I would actually say that would he a great strategy in building working-class solidarity. Making poor whites realize that their declining standard of living isn’t caused by minorities accessing social programs but the ruling-class gutting the those programs is key to building a progressive coalition.
Did the study define the kinds of assistance at all or was it simply the choice of terms?
“Welfare” is defined and had a lot of baggage with it. Opinion about welfare can be wildly different individually and demographically.
“Assistance” isn’t defined, people can place their own restrictions on what that hypothetical assistance is, who gets it based on their own prejudices, needs, and ideology.
Nah, see, you’re falling into the trap. “Welfare” has baggage only because conservatives have attached baggage to it via their relentless propaganda campaigns. In practice, welfare is literally just assistance. In practice, the two words are synonymous. The fact that you perceive a difference in them is evidence that the conservative propaganda is working.
Kind of you to assume it was my baggage I was describing, and that I don’t understand the subject at hand.
Pleasure’s all mine, partner
One of many lasting “gifts” of Reagan.
I’m glad Reagan’s dead
I’m not. I much rather he lived forever. Forever wasting away, seeing his loved ones perish, losing his sanity little by ever so fucking little, inhabiting a hell all of his own.
Regan
loved ones
I don’t think it’s healthy to dehumanize our villains. He probably had loved ones. You don’t need to be a monster to do monstrous things. All humans have that capability within, you and me included.
It’s like that famous answer to “what stops you from murdering and raping?” “Nothing, I rape and murder as much as I want, which is zero."
I agree. We shouldn’t demonize our opponents.
Humans can be monsters, but there are different kinds of monsters too. One special group is the psychopaths.
I believe Regan was one, and I think he saw relationships as transactional.
OK, maybe he wasn’t, let’s assume. But he gladly saw to massive swathes of destruction of American people because he did not see them as humans. If someone can be that callous with human lives, I can think and call him a monster. Because, how can you tell the difference?
Wym? Just a few more decades, and the trickling down will surely start. I can already taste it on their boots
We’ve got to get all those
welfare queens25 year old males playing video games back to work! They’re getting a free ride that they don’t deserve. People only have value when they are working!He started that evil welfare queen idea back in California. It gained traction there so he continued to use it on the national side.
dont you love the misogyny in that “queens” label? because who makes a better scapegoat than black mothers?
Currently? Mexicans and Middle easterners, it would seem. They’re all criminals and rapists apparently.
/s
Related Links:
- June 16, 2025 | https://apnorc.org/projects/few-want-spending-on-federal-benefit-programs-reduced/ | https://archive.ph/EuDrn
- Feb 14, 2025 | https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/where-u-s-adults-think-the-government-is-spending-too-much-and-too-little-according-to-ap-norc-poll
- February 14, 2025 | https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/us-government-overspending-foreign-aid-poll/3674663/
- February 14, 2025 | https://apnews.com/article/ap-poll-government-spending-social-security-medicare-8a8ddb0e721355a4e9585da4147efe1a
- Feb. 17, 2025 | https://www.thegazette.com/federal-government/poll-u-s-spends-too-much-but-not-on-social-security/
I’m a little bit concerned about the colors of each line on this graph.
I would hope this kind of study would be apolitical attempt to discover where we have agreement as opposed to disagreement. And if vernacular is the core difference let’s not use color choices that could be interpreted as means something else.
Nothing is apolitical anymore, deal with it
People are emotional creatures.
Someone was joking in another thread, but maybe we should seriously consider just taking socialism and calling it, like, americanism.
Yeah if you want to pitch socialism to people who don’t know what it is, just describe its parts as individual policies. Don’t actually use the word “socialism” - that makes the rednecks scurred >_>
Yup, look at the overwhelming support citizens have for the Affordable Care Act… but haaaaaaaaaaaate Obamacare.
And if you do say socialism, say it along with something they like that isn’t scurry. For example, “socialism, like the fire department”.
“It’s like crowdsourcing, but with community and business supporting resources!”
“Freedomism”
american dreamism
Psychological damage is present.
Nobody is immune to propaganda
Yup, I consider myself better than most at critical thinking, playing devil’s advocate, and identifying sources of propaganda. I’ll still find myself getting overly agitated and upset when I read five articles and posts within thirty minutes that all tell me why to be upset and who to be upset with.
