bemusedlybespectacled:

brainstatic:

apparentlyeverything:

superdiscochino:

apparentlyeverything:

I get that y’all are upset that this tweet seems to be implying that you have to work full time to deserve shelter, but it’s actually to promote the Rent Relief Act, which she’s introducing to give lower-income renters a rebate if they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. There’s nothing in the bill that requires anyone to be working full time, it includes people in government-subsidized housing, and there’s a cap on income eligibility to wealthy people cannot take advantage of it.

She’s sponsoring a progressive piece of legislation meant to help working people, but people here and on twitter were too busy being furious about the wording that they apparently didn’t even bother to watch the video attached to the tweet or check what it was about. Politicians can and should do more than just make general statements of principles, and it helps to actually pay attention to context and details instead of just looking for chances to criticize them for not saying the right words.

sorry, there is nothing progressive about letting landlords continue to charge whatever they want while simply shifting the cost from individual renters to all taxpayers. the rich keep getting richer on the backs of everyone else. 

There is “nothing progressive” about helping people afford their rent? Honest question, do you understand how rent works? Do you understand that it’s not like the minimum wage ? Individual cities may choose to impose rent control, but there’s been no federal mechanism for controlling rent since WWII. It’s always been a *controversial* issue, and opposed by pretty powerful real estate lobbying interests, but either way, there seems to be no significant organization pushing for it and with the exception of federally-subsidized housing, rents are not currently under federal control. You’re making the argument that it’s not “progressive” for a Senator to sponsor legislation to help lower income people afford their rent right now, because she’s not changing the entire system that allows landlords to charge rents that are unaffordable to lower income people? So fuck anyone struggling who might benefit from this?  

And look, I agree that the fact that landlords can charge whatever they want is a huge problem, and in an ideal world tax credits would be, at best, an extra, but I’d like to see people get some relief now, with legislation that, while unlikely to pass with the current Republican majority in Congress, does have a chance under a Democratic majority. 

Do people not get how messaging works?

A common conservative talking point (and, indeed, a common American cultural idea) is the idea that individual people are capable of success, therefore a lack of success is due to individual failure, therefore poor people must only be poor because they are lazy.

“People who work full time shouldn’t suffer” does not imply that people who don’t work full time should suffer. It’s striking at the heart of that common cultural idea: if all that’s holding back poor people is their laziness, Republicans, how do you explain full-time workers who are still in poverty?

It creates the uncomfortable situation of Republicans having to either support the working poor, or admit that their worldview is fundamentally flawed. Which is its entire point: that is its design.