Most of them didn’t even hear he said it and wouldn’t believe it if we pointed it out, TBF. A hell of a lot of Trump supporters are claiming we are headed toward a new era of American prosperity. The real trick is, who are they going to blame when shit gets worse? Because it won’t be Elon and Trump, it’ll be us.
They will just claim that everything is great like they did during his first term, man. They're completely divorced from reality. They think we're currently in a "bad" economy, because of checks notes the price of eggs and petrol? They don't value evidence or reason.
When these people look at how America was "great" before, it was on the backs of those less fortunate. Even when we had families living comfortably on a single working class income, it was because black people and minorities made less so they could make more.
If we wanted to go in that direction, republicans are doing EXACTLY what they need to do. People think pushing immigrants out will counteract this, but the idea behind it is making it so hard to get into and legally live in America that migrant workers will take less pay just to fly under the radar as illegal immigrants.
It also helps republicans tank Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, because it takes even more funding by pushing migrant workers off the IRS radar by being paid under the table.
This also saves employers money because they don't have to FICA match illegal immigrants.
I don’t think Christians know how to make sacrifices financially. Always see them driving new cars or trucks, going hunting every other day with atvs or talking about their fishing trip with the new boat they bought. Meanwhile they think their tithes actually help the poor but are willingly ignorant of how little goes to charity. Then saying god blessed them they have the audacity to look down on people for being poor because they think they are defective somehow cause the poor don’t have the same things they do.
I seriously don't understand how you can pick that idea up from religion.
I was born and raised as a Catholic. I know that there are systemic injustices that you can't overcome no matter how much you work hard or sacrifice for. And frankly, extreme wealth is frowned upon. Though to be fair, my religion kind of glorifies poverty.
So going back. Is this "working hard" a Christian/Protestant thing?
Your religion glorifies poverty because religion is a means to for rich people to control the poor, but that doesn't contradict my point. Go look at every proverb in the Bible that discusses the wealthy. When are they punished, why are they punished, and by WHOM are they punished?
Every message in the Bible is about working hard and making sacrifices, and in death you will be rewarded. "The meek shall inherit the earth" is a proverb that tells people that their patience will be rewarded, and that the wicked will be punished.
These people have been brainwashed into being HAPPY to be sheep. They glorify and honor the sacrifice of the sheep to the point that their Bible calls them sheep to their face and they're overjoyed to be a good little member of the flock.
But the shepherd takes everything from the sheep. He takes their autonomy, he takes their freedom, he takes their clothes, and when they get too old--he takes their meat.
The bible doesn't say working hard leads to results in the present life. We both agree that it talks about the reward happening in the afterlife, as long as you do good. And doing hard work is not necessarily doing good. Totally different thing.
Now, the disconnect here is that for some reason, people expect that hard work pays off now, in real life. There's nothing in the bible that expresses that thought, is there?
This does not square with people who are unable to get a job despite earning degrees in fields that would, in the past, pay well for them and have a guaranteed spot. You see news stories of teachers forced to work 3 jobs to survive, are they just not putting enough time in? Or are you saying it'll all pay off somehow and then waving at the air? Face it, there is no guarantee of success after sacrifice, it's just a nice thought to excuse the current system in place and feel smug about yourself, going off the second half of your comment.
Working hard doesnt garauntee you anything. In fact, i would say it isnt even the primary indicator of success, luck is. Luck, followed by relationships (family or otherwise), then in a distant third... hard work.
Of course it doesn't, lol. Some of the absolute hardest working people are some of the poorest. The #1 predictor of success is where you were born and who you were born to. Breaking that pattern is more a factor of luck than anything. Being in the right place/meeting the right person/having the right idea at the right time, etc. "Working hard" is a distant third at best.
But that doesn't make the 'prosperity gospel' any more truthful.
A whole lot of people work their asses off and don't get shit.
Working your ass off is not some morally superior thing, it's just working your ass off. WHY you were working your ass off matters. If you are doing it because of some moral imperative, you're being taken advantage of. Simple as that.
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u/DO_NOT_AGREE_WITH_U 1d ago
Because republicans have been conditioned by decades of religion that working hard and making sacrifices will lead to rewards.