During the Cold War Americans liked comparing their broadly shared prosperity to the rank poverty of the 3rd world.
Indeed, America was proud of her great postwar middle class. Average citizens could afford to send their children to college. This was not the case in Russia or the 3rd world.
America derived its superiority not from its landed gentry, but from the fact that a man born without means was given an opportunity equal to those born in wealth. This was not the case in the 3rd world, which lacked upward mobility aka freedom.
Consider the poster child of postwar New Deal assistance: Ronald Reagan. His family was poor -- struggling, going nowhere, besieged. FDR's New Deal saved them. Jack Reagan, Ronnie's father, was given a GOVERNMENT JOB as part of the New Deal work program. This allowed them to lift young Ronnie out of poverty, so he could make something of himself.
FDR didn't believe the Reagan's were Welfare Queens. FDR believed they were real Americans. [too bad Ronnie didn't have this attitude when he became president]
FDR invested in something more precious than energy, big pharma, or Wall Street; he invested in the American People -- he invested in Ronald Reagan. He gave him a leg-up, so he could become productive and make something of himself.
FDR believed in the American people. He thought they were worth investing in. He trusted them.
When the New Right got rid of FDR's approach to the middle class, they unwittingly got rid of the middle class. The money never trickled down. America spent 30 years creating a narrow class of aristocrats who own government and media. We lost that shining city of the hill -- the very thing we used to point to when we claimed superiority over the 3rd world, which didn't have a middle class. We lost the very Government support which pulled Ronald Reagan out of poverty.
How ironic: if Reagan had been born during the age of Reagan (1980-2010), he would have never risen out of poverty. He would have been called a Welfare Queen.
The Republicans know not what they do.