Sorry for this question. I am still learning.
Something that has always bothered me is how much u.s. politicians obsess over helping the middle class. Seems like the two major parties talk about it a lot. Why do they endlessly talk about helping the middle class, but never seem to acknowledge or focus on helping the (lower?) or poverty or proletariat class?
To me it sounds like the middle class by definition should be not be as in need as other classes that don’t have as much? What’s the purpose of this?
There’s a long answer and basically it’s my thesis that as Jim Crow was obviously untenable long-term, the powers that be set about transposing the American apartheid model onto the economic sphere so that way it becomes diffuse and mystified; there’s no clear way to dismantle the system or to petition it for redress and so on (well, I can think of one way…)
Basically the middle class in America is a pseudo-caste that exists because of the economic conditions that caused it to flourish by design.
Here’s my hot take on this whole deal
There’s other stuff to be discussed on thw topic of your question about how this shapes and structures aspiration, how it obscures the realities of class warfare, and how strictly limits the scope of what’s acceptable within bourgeois democracy etc. etc. that I’m sure other comrades have answered better than I could.