I got through 12 years of school without reading many of the classics, or maybe most of them. I am doing a little catching up, reading 1984 and Slaughter House Five (also rented to movie). I found this paragraph in Slaughter House Five to be interesting and though I would share for those who have not read the book or did so long ago and forget.
This selection is from the time Billy Pilgrim, the main character, is in the POW hospital and a German officer is reading a print out from an American born member of the Nazi Party propaganda wing named Howard W. Campbell Jr. He is explaining to German POW officers why the American prisoners were so badly behaved and slovenly compared to other countries POW's. I found it to be kind of revealing as to why the American poor have developed such a love of Trump. He treats them like they are special while taking from them all their government support programs, which they often feel are only being used by the other poor people, mainly minorities.
"America is the wealthiest nation on earth, but it's people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kirk Hubbard, "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be." It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on it's wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?" There will also be an American flag no larger than a child's hand glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register."
"Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for an American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who money blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times."
"Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves. Once this is understood, the disagreeable behavior of American enlisted men in German prisons ceases to be a mystery."