“Yeah we gotta watch out for that Nancy Pelosi,” he said, “She's out to take all our money and give it to the illegal aliens! You know, she's gonna tax all of us and give them the money.”
The LOL nodded (to her credit, I would have nodded too). Speaking truth to the crazy is not always the best policy, or maybe she thought this was true.
“Ya know,” he continued, “My mom and dad worked hard and they have their own home. Pelosi says they don't need that home, she wants to move them out and give the house to the illegals...”
At this point the kid (there should always be a kid) behind the counter came over and he and the LOL went out to install the wipers on her car. I bought my oil and quietly left the store.
Ok, so I'm a coward. But what could I say to this guy?
I have never heard about a program to take away houses and give them to illegals. Nor have I heard about the illegal's subsidy program either. I suspect that these are Limbaugh/Beck/Savage/Drudge mental constructs. Why would this guy believe that democrats and poor illegals are the ones who threaten what is left of his lifestyle, the ones who would suck up whatever he had earned?
Why this nonsense can infect the brain of the poor, old white guy working the counter at the parts store? Lets face this, if you are a 60 year old guy working at a low wage job (how do you think they keep their prices down and profits up?) you might feel that you have gotten a raw deal in life. Who can he blame? Certainly not the folks who have sucked up the wealth of this country. Not the wall street hedge fund wizards who get 10's to hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses. Nope, not them. Its the illegals.
Why the illegals? Because he sees them everyday. Ok maybe they are not illegals, but he sees Spanish-speaking dark skinned guys every day. They work on their cars. They buy the parts in the boxes labeled in Spanish and English. Forty years ago those boxes were labeled in English. Shit, if they were fluent in English they could have his job! Lots to be threatened about there.
Granted, this guy is getting his news from dubious sources, but lets face it, he sees the Hispanics in front of him every day. He has no idea that a relatively underpaid CEO (like the one at the utility I work at) can get 20 million in a bonus. He does not know these people exist. He has probably never been to New York, to Wall Street, he has no idea that there are people who can get millions of dollars just for doing their job (or screwing it up). No clue. The real wealthy in this country lead lives out of sight of the majority of us, they are invisible.
The real crime is that nobody is telling this guy that the reason he is being screwed over is not so illegals can have free houses. It is so somebody can make more money than anyone could reasonably spend, more money in a year than a hundred or more people could make in a lifetime. He wouldn't believe it.
Too bad. It would be great he could aim his ire at the people who really are messing with the working people of this country. The ones who wouldn't know how to change oil, how to fix disk brakes, how to change a flat. Until the media he listens to starts telling the truth, he will never know.
