There are a multitude of reasons, but the big ones I my opinion is that there has been an effective propaganda machine telling those of us who are fortunate enough to remain in the shrinking middle class that the poor are a lazy parasites. They've convinced many people that they are living on easy street stealing tax dollars out of our pockets. This in itself serves to conceal where most of this moneyis really going.

The other reason is if poverty were eliminated and education were free our even affordable, there would be no reason for many people to join the military. Out government would lose its means of intimidating other nations, and our corporations would lose those lucrative military contracts.

They need people to believe the poor are the cause of all the financial sufferring they endure. "The poor are takers" - everyone needs someone to blame and they need the blame placed on those without power to inhibit their greed.

My take anyway.

Part of the christian ethos (of some denominations anyway, but generally true) is that the wealthy are that way because they have been blessed by god. Poor people are just sinners. Pull yerself up by yer bootstraps or jesus will never look upon you. Hence the popularity of tRump with his base.

I think many of the basic, hardworking folk in this country who know they’ll never be rich or powerful are conditioned to pride themselves in the fact that they are irreplaceable in the working machinery of ‘this great country’. They take ownership in something so enormous and powerful, they feel a proprietary ownership. Their part in their country equals their value. I think it’s too difficult for them to absorb that they are actually serfs for the ultra-wealthy, so they pit themselves against the ‘lazy and shiftless’ who ‘want something for nothing’. They need an easy enemy because acknowledging the reality is too demoralizing.

That’s what I think anyway.