‘Class Warfare’ in the Age of Obama

One of the most interesting conversations to emerge in the recent run-up to the Presidential election has been the on-going conversation about class warfare. Republican presidential candidates accused President Obama of waging class warfare, in the wake of the proposal to pay for the $447 billion jobs package by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Unsurprisingly, President Obama’s embrace of tax increases for those in the highest tax brackets galvanized the Republican party.

It appears, however, that the Republican attempt to classify President Obama as a “class warrior” has fallen on deaf ears. According to a Washington Post poll released on Thursday (9/29/11), 52% said that American society is not divided between those that have and those that have-not. Half of those polled said that Republicans in Congress were more likely to aid the haves and fewer than one in three say Obama favors the ‘have-nots.’ Despite the growing class divide, I think the poll also reveals that the language of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ makes it easy for people to identify themselves with the ‘haves’ in society as 48% of those surveyed identified themselves as “haves.” This conversation is also divided along racial lines, with more than half of the African American respondents identifying themselves as “have-nots” as compared with 34% of all poll respondents.

These poll numbers are important because they reveal that voters are openly rejecting the Republican push-back to the jobs bill. They also show the deep racial divisions that continue to inform class discussions in our country. Undoubtedly, the next prong of the Republican strategy will be to exploit these racial divisions as they did during the 2008 presidential election. However, if President Obama is able to continue to focus his remarks on the theme of a rising tide raising all boats, perhaps the majority of voters will also ignore any future racialized attacks based on the idea of class warfare.