Getting Something for
Nothing: Trump, Fraud,
and the Tea Party
By David Bordelon
I
n her recent portrait of Tea Party America, Strangers in
Their Own Land, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild
sifts through four years of interviews with conservatives to find the answer to what she calls “the great paradox:” why people vote for
politicians whose policies hurt them. She nods to Thomas Frank’s similar exploration in What’s the Matter With Kansas, but shifts from the polemic of that book to
a more reflective tone, inspired in part by her focus on “why” instead of “what” and
by her source material—over 4,000 pages of interviews.1
Interested in deep research instead of a surface sampling, she focused on one
area of the country, Louisiana, because it exemplified the paradox of a citizenry
which hated the federal government yet ranked 49th “on life expectancy, school
enrollment, educational degree attainment, and median personal earnings,” and last on “overall health,” all factors that an embrace of federal
programs could improve.2
Hochschild sketches out the red staters’ self-portrait: a belief that they
are hard-working citizens who have played by the rules and patiently
waited in line for their piece of the American pie. The problem now is
that the line isn’t moving forward—in fact it feels like it’s moving backward. And, by and large, that part of the self-portrait is true. Household
David Bordelon is an associate professor of English at Ocean County College in Toms River,
New Jersey, where he teaches a variety of composition and literature courses. His academic scholarship focuses on 19th century American print culture. Links to his blogs on literature, higher
education, and politics can be found at https://davidbordelon.wordpress.com.
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incomes for the top one percent have skyrocketed since 1980. For the 99
percent it’s more of a fizzle.3 Where the self-portrait starts to look more
Salvador Dali than Norman Rockwell is their view of what’s kept them in
line for so long.
According to most Tea Partiers, the main problem is that the federal
government has been giving their hard earned money to assorted welfare
queens, moochers, and layabouts. Representative of this view is Lee
Sherman, a staunch Tea Partier
who told Hochschild that those on
According to most Tea
welfare “lazed around days and partied at night.”4 In other words, that
Partiers, the main
were getting something for
problem is that the federal they
nothing.
government has been
That’s the story these people
tell themselves, and it is a story fed
giving their hard earned
by constant exposure to their favormoney to assorted welfare ite—and in some cases only—
information source, FOX News,
queens and moochers.
which sends out regular doses of
reports on welfare abuse designed
to feed Sherman’s habit. In fact, if you’re jonesing for a hit of misdirection,
they have a web page devoted to uncovering stories like “Minnesota
Couple Who Lived on Yacht Accused of Welfare Fraud” and “Refugee
Kids Get Food Stamps at Higher Rates then U.S. Born Kids.”5 This
regular stream of anti-government propaganda leads Hochschild to conclude that for red staters, “at the heart of the deep story . . . is the local
welfare office and the mailbox where undeserved disability checks and
SNAP stamps arrive.” Key is “undeserved.” The definition for that?
Whoever isn’t you.
Exhibit A is Jackie Tabor, who tells Hochschild that her poor IrishCatholic mother, “had to get on welfare to support us,” after being abandoned by their father. She was the deserving poor. Tabor “had worked
hard. She had waited in line. She’d seen others ‘cut ahead,’ and this had
galled her and estranged her from the government.”6 The “others”? Let’s
just say they stand out in a White crowd.
In case you’re ready to dismiss this as a lost Southern cause, consider
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John Gaguzis, of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, who voted for Trump because
“We’ve got to get rid of the Democrats that support people that don’t
want to work.”7 And then there’s Iowa resident Jackie Furman, who complained to a New York Times reporter that “The welfare system needs to
be reorganized,” because “‘Chicago people’ were moving to Burlington to
receive higher benefits and bringing crime.”8 Ignoring the race baiting of
“Chicago people,” let’s focus instead on the larger myth of a system rife
with corruption. Hochschild
reports that “When I asked one
The problem here is that
couple what proportion of people
on welfare were gaming the
while the Tea Partiers
system” one person guessed 30
readily recognize personal
percent and another 80 percent.9
welfare, they miss the
The facts show the opposite.
SNAP (the federal Supplemental
elephant in the room:
Nutrition Assistance Program,
corporate welfare.
better known as food stamps), the
most common welfare benefit, had
an error rate (which includes fraud)
of 3.42 percent in 2012—and most of this was due to caseworker error.10
And what about the classic image of the loafer sitting on the couch
while the welfare checks roll in? Hochschild notes that in 2011, for the
bottom 20 percent, welfare accounted for 37 percent of their income. The
remaining 63 percent? Work.11 That means that a majority of people
receiving government assistance are already working— just at a job which
doesn’t supply a living wage. What about the big one—that so much of
our tax dollars are “wasted” on welfare? Again, Hochschild comes to the
rescue, showing that income-needs based benefits accounted for eight
percent of the 2014 budget. Health care? 26 percent. Defense? 22 percent.
Pensions? 24 percent.12
The problem here is that while the Tea Partiers readily recognize
personal welfare, they miss the elephant in the room: corporate welfare. In
2013, it’s estimated that Americans paid $6,000 each in “taxes” that went,
not to the government, but to corporations in the form of grants and
subsidies, according to a statistic from a Cato Institute fellow—a libertarian
organization that’s not exactly a friend of big government.13
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Then there’s the orange elephant, Trump. At every turn he has cheated his way to the head of the line. In fact, Trump’s net worth is based in
no small part on bankruptcy laws, the most unequal form of welfare that
favors the wealthy. This inequality can be illustrated by two scenarios.
Consider a college student who works hard, does well at school, graduates with student debt, but has trouble finding a job. Can he shrug his
shoulders, say “sorry” to the banks, and walk away from his financial obligations, leaving all the people
touched by that debt in the lurch?
Then there’s the orange
Of course not, that would be
elephant, Trump. At every unfair—and illegal. He has to work
it off until it is paid, even if it means
turn, he has cheated his
garnishing his Social Security.14
way to the head of the line.
Now consider a wealthy real
estate developer who overpays for a
In fact, his net worth is
property, lacks a clear business plan,
based in no small part on
and thus ends up $916 million in
the hole.15 Can he shrug his shoulbankruptcy law.
ders, say “sorry” to the banks and
walk away from his financial obligations leaving all the people touched by that debt in the lurch?
Of course. He can even become president.
While Trump shrugs off bankruptcies as “us[ing] the laws of this
country,” he ignores the harmful ripple effect such practices have when
contracts are ignored and small businesses end up with pennies on the
dollar.16 But his shabby treatment of people extends beyond the pages of
Chapter 11 rulings; this man of the people just flat-out stiffs workers and
small business owners—the same people that form the backbone of the
Tea Party. People like Philadelphia cabinet maker Edward Friel Jr., whose
small business went bankrupt after Trump refused payment.17 Other
workers? Dishwashers, bartenders, glass workers, carpenters. . . name the
profession and you’ll find a representative stiffed by Trump. USA Today
found more than 3,500 lawsuits against Trump for failure to compensate
for completed work.18
And what about the red state outrage over fraud? Two words: Trump
University. Trump agreed to pay $25 million in November 2016 to settle
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Divided, by Catherine Leisek.
class action lawsuits from one of his many failed business ventures, which
again preyed on the very people waiting in line for the American Dream.19
Where’s the red state outrage over that? Where’s the calls to lock him
up? Instead the “mad as hell” line at his rallies— “Everybody is ripping us
off ”—was a cheer machine.20 Unfortunately, his adoring crowds never
realized that the “everybody” engaged in fraud included himself.
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These examples all lead to my paradox. How could people like Lee
Sherman, Jackie Tabor, John Gaguzis, and Jackie Furman, who hate
moochers and cheaters, elect Trump—the king of getting something for
nothing?
How, for instance, could Jackie Tabor, who believed Jesus was the sole
provider of her good fortune, ignore her own reliance on the federal government she felt so estranged from?21 It was the feds who provided funding for the loans and grants, to the
tune of $76 billion (about three
Like the majority of
times the state’s annual budget),
that enabled Louisiana to rebuild
Americans who voted to
after Katrina.22 This, in turn, helped
keep Trump out of office,
finance the construction which her
I’m left confused by the
contractor husband turned into a
tidy profit that lifted her family to
Tea Party’s inability to
comfortable upper middle-class
recognize fraud in the
existence. It is clear that Tea Party
Louisiana welcomed tax dollars
orange-tinted flesh.
from liberal America. This conforms with the long established
finding that blue states redistribute more of their federal taxes to red states
. . . the very states which profess a hatred of all things federal and all things
taxes.23
Like the majority of Americans who voted to keep Trump out of
office, I’m left confused by the Tea Party’s mental fixation on fraud—and
inability to recognize it in the orange-tinted flesh.24 I can only hope that
my confusion will be shared—and change to anger—when the Tea Party
realizes the man they elected has more in common with their archetypal
welfare cheat than a working class hero.
Until then, we’re all getting nothing from something.
END NOTES
1. Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, p. 248.
2. Ibid. p. 9.
3. Stone et al., “A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality.”
4. Hochschild, op cit., p. 35.
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5. See Fox News Insider, “Minnesota Couple Who Lived on Yacht Accused of Welfare Fraud”
and “Report: Refugee Children Get Food Stamps at Higher Rate Than U.S.-Born Kids.”
6. Hochschild, op cit., pp. 172, 170.
7. Gabriel, “A Pennsylvania Town in Decline and Despair Looks to Donald Trump.”
8. Gabriel, “In Iowa, Trump Voters Are Unfazed by Controversies.”
9. Hochschild, op cit., p. 148.
10. Kertscher, “On Average, 20 to 25 cents of Every $1 Spent on Four Government Assistance
Programs is Lost to Fraud, Sen. Ron Johnson says.”
11. Hochschild, op cit., p. 256.
12. Chantrill, “What are the Federal Budget Actuals for FY 2016?”
13. Linicome, “Calculating the Real Cost of Corporate Welfare.”
14. Lobosco, “When Unpaid Student Debt Leads to a Smaller Social Security Check.”
15. Barstow et al., “Donald Trump Tax Records Show He Could Have Avoided Taxes for Nearly
Two Decades, the Times Found.”
16. Graham, “The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet.”
17. Reilly, “Hundreds Allege Donald Trump Doesn’t Pay his Bills.”
18. Ibid.
19. Eder, “Donald Trump Agrees to Pay $25 Million in Trump University Settlement.”
20. Bauerlein, “Thousands Turn out for Donald Trump’s Speech in Jacksonville.”
21. Hochschild, op cit., p. 172.
22. Albert, “$120 Billion in Katrina Federal Relief Wasn’t Always Assured.”
23. Moran, “Blue State, Red Face: Guess Who Benefits More From Your Taxes?”
24. Leonhardt, “Clinton’s Substantial Popular-Vote Win.”
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