Why do they stay?

Middle class voters and battered women's syndrome

As an advocate for abused women, I’ve heard the question a thousand times. Rather than asking why some men abuse or why society does not punish such criminals, people will invariably ask, “If women don’t like being abused, why do they stay?”

There are a number of incorrect assumptions in that question. First, it assumes the responsibility for abuse lies not with the abuser, but with the victim. This is obviously not true.

Second, the question assumes that abused women stay. Statistically, they don’t. It may takes months or years for a woman to safely extricate herself from a violent partner, but most women are so resourceful that eventually they do escape.

I understand the rationale for the question. Lately I’ve been wondering the same thing about middle class Republican voters. Year after year, Republican officials fleece the middle class. They regale us with promises of spending cuts, only to demand more pork than all their predecessors. They claim to be socially conservative while engaging in gay restroom hookups and chasing after teenage boys. They start wars they cannot finish and spend money we do not have. Even as they use patriotic language and religion to entice more recruits for their wars, they cut funding for veterans programs and wounded soldiers.

Throughout eight years of Bush, it has been discouraging to think that our children’s children will still be paying for this war. If McCain wins the 2008 election, our children’s children will still be fighting this war!

It is the middle class that bears the burden. Proportionally, ours is the greatest tax burden. Do middle class Republican voters really believe corporate welfare and tax cuts for rich people will “trickle down” to the average Joe? If it were true, Joe should be rich by now. Instead, Americans are poorer in real dollars than we have been in several decades.

The health care crisis also hits the middle class the hardest. The poorest citizens are still eligible for Medicaid, while programs like PeachCare that help the middle class are gutted and insurance companies are deregulated so they can invent more exceptions that fall outside covered expenses. These days it is hard to know which is rising fastest: deductibles, premiums or the cost of medicine.

Georgia Republican officials are no better than those on the national level. While middle class Georgians struggle with widespread fuel shortages, Governor Perdue and Senator Mullis run off to Spain. While Georgia public schools are failing (some so badly they actually lost their accreditation) and Georgia test scores are falling, school superintendent Kathy Cox goes on “Are You Smarter than a Fifth-grader?” to show off her knowledge. Middle class Georgians do not care how smart Kathy Cox is. We care what our own children are learning in the public schools we are funding with our tax dollars.

Like violent marriage partners, Republican politicians keep promising to change. Even though McCain and Palin support the Bush policies 100%, they somehow claim to be the party of change. Stealing Obama’s lines, they tell us to vote for them if we do not want “politics as usual.” Yet they cannot point out a single aspect where their policies will differ from the president who has the worst popularity rating ever.

Like other abusers, Republican politicians use religion and guilt to keep their victims in place. They set up “prayer groups,” non-profit organizations and TV preachers to proclaim that voting Democratic will imperil our souls. These are the same preachers who threaten women with the wrath of God if they divorce their abusers. When faced with a Democratic candidate who is a born-again Christian vs. a man who divorced his wife for his mistress, the abusers simply make up lies. Obama is a Muslim, they say. Since there is absolutely no evidence for this claim, they make him a closet Muslim, and an unpatriotic guy who befriends terrorists, to boot. None of this true, but lying is no big feat for an abuser trying to hold onto his prey.

Just like abusers everywhere, McCain and Palin claim to be mavericks to whom the rules do not apply. They condemn other politicians for pork barrel projects even though Alaska holds the record for per capita ear marks. They condemn lobbyists in politics, even though Sarah Palin was the first mayor to hire a lobbyist to bring pork barrel money to her little town of Wasilla. McCain continues to push for endless war in Iraq, even as American citizens and Iraqi officials call for an end to the occupation. They’re mavericks, all right.

Four more years of Bush-as-usual is not what voters want. In every state, middle class Americans are tired of war. Yet, for the presidential election, the Republican Party has selected the most crazed war hawk in American politics today. Why do they stay?

As with abused women, the question assumes too much. They don’t stay. They won’t stay. Sooner or later, middle class voters will be brave enough to leave the Republican Party behind.