"Makers & Takers" is a damaging slogan

Andrew Klavan, in Makers and Takers and Takers and... Someone we Forgot! talks about the negative effect of a common meme on the right in this past election:

Barack Obama has been a disaster for the poor and the working class and, I believe, will continue to be so. But to pat a worker on the head with your cigar hand and say, basically, “Don’t worry, little man, an unfettered market lifts everyone,” is not going to win you his confidence or his vote. Reagan never did that. (Read the excellent WaPo piece by AEI’s Henry Olsen at the link.) Reagan always stood up and spoke up for the little guy. He identified with him and explained why his policies would help him. Many of today’s Republicans have lost that knack and given the game away in the process. That’s why the polls showed people shared Romney’s values but thought Obama cared about “people like me.”

It’s largely conservative policies that help the working guy and girl, but you have to let them know that and make sure they understand that government cares about them and will not abandon them if they fall off the bottom rung of the ladder. When one candidate is saying, “Tax the rich,” and the other is calling half the people moochers, both are wrong…  but only one will win an election. We already know which one.

I'm certain that this sort of messaging is one of the reasons that the Republicans lost. The whole makers/takers meme needs to be abandoned.

I have a number of friends and relatives who have been suffering in this bad economy. My sister is in poor health, and has been struggling with the decision of whether to stay on SSI or take a temporary job and risk losing the SSI. She did take the work, and struggled with a bad back and a bad knee and constant pain. And I'm sure that when she hears people rant about the "makers" and the "takers", she thinks they're talking about her as one of the "takers".

That's no way to get people on your side of the argument.

Yes, there's some truth to the makers/takers thing. But the truth is not outweighed by the harm it does by making people think that Republicans are only on the side of entrepreneurs and not on the side of workers. And not on the side of lots of other groups that won't be too sure they're not being lumped in the "takers" group, like stay-at-home mothers.

The left grabbed the 47% comment, took it out of context, and ran with it. I didn't think it was that bad, because I felt that I understood what he was trying to say. But even writers and pundits trying to explain what Romney was "really" trying to say, probably did more harm by talking over and over again about the dependent class. Yes, too many people are dependent. Yes, we want to reduce that. But when the economy sucks, you probably shouldn't go around telling people they're moochers and we're going to take away the benefits they're depending on.

And... now that I think about it... I realize that this one even made me feel kind of uneasy, because I'm not entrepreneurial at all, and have never started my own business. I've always worked for other people. So I wasn't completely comfortable thinking of myself as a "maker", even though I intellectually knew I was supposed to be in that group. But emotions always trump intellectual contortions. If I hadn't already been aligned with the people spouting this slogan, it certainly wouldn't have attracted me to their positions.

Is there some way to turn this one around?

Riskers, Workers, Leaders, Helpers. I can't immediately think of a good way to re-do this one to improve it. Possibly the whole thing should be abandoned, and instead we should emphasize improving the economy and helping everybody get ahead.

"Jobs for Everyone"
"A Chicken in Every Pot"
"Bright Futures"

This is going nowhere. I'm going to have to think about this one some more...