This is the Biggest Myth Republicans Keep Telling

by Shawn Drury

One of the central tenets of American life is that if you work hard and play by the rules you can get ahead. Millions upon millions of people come to America solely because of their belief in this premise. We’ve heard politicians of every stripe repeat it. The problem is that it’s no longer true.

We’ve seen people work very hard and remain in poverty. We’ve seen some not follow the rules and get little more than a slap on the wrist.

There’s one thing worse than finding out a belief is false. And that’s believing something is true when it no longer is.

A recent study by a pair of psychology researchers from Cornell University, Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich, shows that most Americans still believe it’s possible to move up by working hard and playing by the rules, even though it’s harder than ever to do just that. The impossibility of getting ahead has been proven both anecdotally and through research. The chasm between those at the top and everyone else is at record levels.

It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that the Cornell researchers found that conservatives believe in the “work hard, get ahead” myth at a far greater rate than liberals. Here, as with climate change, immigration, and gay marriage, Republicans believe things that are simply not true.

The “work hard, get ahead” myth is very important to our economy. If people didn’t believe it, they wouldn’t work. Or they’d move somewhere where they believed they could work hard and get ahead.

How much longer can this myth survive? And if you find a conservative who acknowledges that income inequality is a grave problem, the solution is the same as it is to every other economic question: cut taxes on the wealthy. Yes, cut taxes on the wealthy and they will hire more poor people. Our problem now is not that you can’t get rich in America. The problem is that it’s almost impossible to stop being poor. And when you cut public services, which the poor rely on to improve their lot in life, you exacerbate the gulf between the rich and poor. Yet that’s what happens when Republicans are in charge.

A great source of frustration for liberals is when people vote against their own economic interests, yet it happens time and again. The Cornell research gives us a clue why. Poor people believe there is more mobility than there actually is. And those who believe in social mobility overestimate the amount of upward mobility versus downward.

I don’t claim to be an economist. Yet many who claim to be economic experts didn’t see The Great Recession coming even though it was screaming at us from several blocks away before it arrived on our doorstep. That’s how economists like to talk–in metaphor, metaphors like “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

Unfortunately, right now in America there are millions of people who would just love to get their hands on some oars.