Sometimes I see a post on twitter/reddit where they try to make a progressive point about inequality or social security etc. they list several reasonable points interjected with "STRONG MIDDLE CLASS" and I don't get it.
Is the underlying assumption that the middle class is the moral centre protecting people not just from the rich but from the 'unwashed masses' on the other side? Or is (what I hope) some latent propaganda that hasn't been updated with the changing discourse?
"Middle class" is a great piece of rhetoric. Whoever hears it assumes they're a part of the middle class, but not everyone is. So you can promise to help the middle class (that's me!) but not everyone (I'll get ahead of whoever these non-middle class people are!). When you get in power and don't want to actually do anything, you can say you're not doing it because of those lazy freeloading poors, which is acceptable, because you built that into your original promise, and the listener definitely doesn't think they're one of the poors.