The Producers
by digby
… and I only wish I were talking about Mel Brooks’ (original) cinematic masterpiece.
Calls to rally the virtuous “producing classes” against evil “parasites” at both the top and bottom of society is a tendency called producerism. It is a conspiracist narrative used by repressive right wing populism. Today we see examples of it in some sectors of the Christian Right, in the Patriot movements and armed militias, and in the Far right. (see chart of US right). Producerism is involved in the relationship between Buchanan, Fulani, Perot, and the Reform Party.
Producerism begins in the US with the Jacksonians, who wove together intra-elite factionalism and lower-class Whites’ double-edged resentments. Producerism became a staple of repressive populist ideology. Producerism sought to rally the middle strata together with certain sections of the elite. Specifically, it championed the so-called producing classes (including White farmers, laborers, artisans, slaveowning planters, and “productive” capitalists) against “unproductive” bankers, speculators, and monopolists above—and people of color below. After the Jacksonian era, producerism was a central tenet of the anti-Chinese crusade in the late nineteenth century. In the 1920s industrial philosophy of Henry Ford, and Father Coughlin’s fascist doctrine in the 1930s, producerism fused with antisemitic attacks against “parasitic” Jews.
Perhaps this explains it best:
(click on image)
Why do I bring this up? Well:
Today The Hill is reporting that Repbulican Senators are using immigration wedge politics to try to poke holes in the new jobs legislation moving forward in Congress:
The GOP expressed worries that the $15 billion jobs package crafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), does not go far enough to ensure that businesses don’t use new-jobs tax credits in the bill to write off jobs given to illegal immigrants.
Sound familiar? It should. Restrictionist members of the GOP have been playing the ‘immigrant’ card on nearly every major piece of legislation that’s come before Congress this session. They started off playing politics with sick kids, but now they are holding jobs for unemployed Americans hostage in order to score cheap political points on the backs of America’s most vulnerable workers and families. A familiar bloc of Republican Senators (PDF) are protesting the Senate jobs bill over supposed fears that the bill’s tax credits for employers would be used to employ unauthorized immigrants. The reality, according to The Hill, is that the very language in this current jobs bill is the same as language first introduced by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah in tax rebate legislation. In short, it is already against the law to hire unauthorized workers. Reality, however, is rarely the issue with this debate. The thinly-veiled excuse to oppose legislation based on the “illegal immigration” boogeyman is a worn-out strategy used again and again by some GOP lawmakers, who draw on research by extreme groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, (FAIR), a recognized hate group, to make their points. These groups have urged their Republican allies to play the “immigrant” card in the stimulus bill, SCHIP, healthcare, the financial crisis, the flu pandemic, and even global warming.
The Real Americans we see at these tea party rallies are often portrayed as slightly misguided common folk who have it right in their gut. And when they rail about bailouts and government it all sounds somewhat rational, at least on the surface. Sure, there are some rather unseemly images among them, particularly those pertaining to the president, but politics ain’t beanbag and demeaning pictures of politicians are as old as the hills, even if these have a peculiarly, shall we say old-fashioned tenor.
But the ACORN set-up was a little preview of what I suspect is coming. And immigration is the issue that’s likely to clear up any confusion about just what kind of “populists” these tea party patriots really are. And it will be yet another headache for the GOP establishment, who know that they need to get somebody other than white, middle aged conservatives to vote for them.
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