Words matter.

You aren’t writing an academic paper. Always use simple direct language.

  • Help the poor
  • Healthcare for everyone
  • Good treatment at work.

Don’t use complex words.

  • Madagaskar_sky@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Anyone can be poor, but only they are on welfare.

    Publishers note: They usually refers to African Americans, but can be used for any suspicious minorities.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      9 hours ago

      its almost always used as negative connation against blacks, or unsavory demographics. while the people, white conservatives railing on these people are the biggest welfare queens.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        don’t forget wall street and corporations. if you fuck up, congratulations now you’re homeless. if they fuck up, congratulations you’re gonna bail them out.

  • Mamdani_Da_Savior@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    As someone that works with the general public.

    People are fucking dumb. Like not I’m not even kidding, there’s a skill gap to even get to a site like this…and not everyone has the ability to do it…I’m not even kidding. People are just stupid.

  • NoMadLadNZ@lemmy.nz
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    19 hours ago

    Yep. Never use a ten dollar word when a 50 cent one does the job better. The left wing needs to dump it’s highbrow (and cringe celebrity endorsements) and use the language of the common people in simple terms that cannot be demonised (or would sound insane to try).

    Also, this is a prime example of how demonising words, especially buzzwords, is the strategy they use to make it lose all rationality with the public… the notion of being “woke” originally a good thing, welfare a good thing, etc…

    • Sheldan@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      They managed to make DEI a divisive word, I presume because they always used the abbreviation, because how else can you poison these words.

    • MisterD@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      Sadly, more than 50% of Americans a grade school vocabulary. Imagine trying to convince a kid in grade 6 that helping the poor is not bad.

    • Soggy@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Doesn’t work, they take the cheap words too. “Fake news” was originally used for right-wing propaganda. The only solution is education so that future generations are more aware of and resistant to dog whistles and doublespeak.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Just want to point out that this negative association is based on racist dog whistles like the, “welfare queen,” which were propagated by right-wingers to convince low-income whites to hate the programs designed to help them.

    • isaaclw@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      And I think theres a place to break that association, but .aybe candidates that are running to change our system dont need to be the ones to do it.

  • SuperCub@sh.itjust.works
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    17 hours ago

    I get the critical comments here, but I think there’s a basic association of the word “welfare” with the CURRENT system of assistance which leaves too many people out. Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing. If they were sincere in working for the masses, they would push more universal programs, but at least on the national level, they are bought out by the same corporations as the Republicans.

    • S0ck@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing.

      I kind of doubt that democrats are the ones who MADE it too hard, but they definitely are the ones that preserve it’s difficulty.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Did the study define the kinds of assistance at all or was it simply the choice of terms?

    “Welfare” is defined and had a lot of baggage with it. Opinion about welfare can be wildly different individually and demographically.

    “Assistance” isn’t defined, people can place their own restrictions on what that hypothetical assistance is, who gets it based on their own prejudices, needs, and ideology.

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      Nah, see, you’re falling into the trap. “Welfare” has baggage only because conservatives have attached baggage to it via their relentless propaganda campaigns. In practice, welfare is literally just assistance. In practice, the two words are synonymous. The fact that you perceive a difference in them is evidence that the conservative propaganda is working.

  • plyth@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    Assistance implies that it is temporary, that it is help to help themselves.

    Welfare implies that it is continuous.

    If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem. The correct solution would be to change the system. People who support the continuation of the current system either profit from it or don’t see an advantage in a change.

    • renzev@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Assistance implies that it is temporary,

      Not it does not. Ever heard of “aim assist”? “Assisted living”? “assistive touch” (the iOS feature)? I don’t see how any of these are temporary.

      But yeah the correct solution is indeed to change the system. There will always be naysayers who argue that “no one system can suit everybody” so I guess we’ll need a system of systems.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Also, “assistance” is something that is given out of the kindness of your (or the government’s) heart and that the recipient should feel gratitude (and/or have to grovel) for. “Welfare” is seen as something the recipient is entitled to as a right. FWIW I support a UBI that is adequate for food and shelter and the necessities of life - as an entitlement for everybody.

      • plyth@feddit.org
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        1 hour ago

        41% of the population would object, together with 29% who don’t support assistance at all. If you want UBI in a democratic society you have to sell it differently.

      • renzev@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        Hey, a UBI supporter! Just curious, how can UBI be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in hyperinflation? If a society was to ration out food/shelter/necessities directly, I understand how that would work. But if it’s done through the intermediary of money, what would prevent the economy from entering an arms race where the producers raise prices to adapt to the new purchasing power of the population, and the government raises the UBI to keep up with the rising prices?

        • jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          if the government treats the UBI as a seperate “currency” that guarantees a certain amount of food water and shelter and in major cities the government is the primary provider of qualifying products it would only affect the non major cities, which would be small enough to not effect the greater market

        • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          Just curious, how can UBI be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in hyperinflation?

          I don’t know - and we’re never going to find out, in the United States at least. I may support UBI but that doesn’t mean it’s not the biggest pipe dream in the history of pipe dreams.

        • plyth@feddit.org
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          19 hours ago

          A buyers market. Let competition drive down prices, or cooperation from people with UBI who don’t need the profits.

          That’s for basic goods. It’s good that other prices rise so that people are motivated to work.

    • Pendorilan@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Do parapelegics require “temporary support”? There are some people who need continual support and they’re always going to exist in any society. Disabled people. And they aren’t a “systemic problem”.

        • Pendorilan@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          And they would be immoral and evil if they suggest letting disabled people die off. Yes, I know about Libertarians and their selfish, egotistical, unempathetic views towards people less well off than they are. Anyone who believes “every man, woman, and child for themselves” is how a society should function is a piece of shit, sorry. And obviously you can lump Conservatives in with them on this issue too.

          • jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works
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            3 hours ago

            I could see a religions having a belief that being burdensome is a fate worse than death and a government then mandating that religion. Which admittedly goes against human rights, but is done in a few countries.

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem.

      To a point, maybe, but populations are always going to have disabled persons or people with chronic illnesses that require continual assistance to live a dignified life. Be careful not to write those people off with sweeping generalizations like this.

    • Henson@feddit.dk
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      1 day ago

      But it doesn’t have to be the same group in the population. Probably a portion is the same but the larger picture is all those you help up again so they can help support the community/country/state, and the price is helping the group that otherwise make the community unsafe so they in large can … act decently to others and live a life without violence

      • plyth@feddit.org
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        20 hours ago

        helping the group that otherwise make the community unsafe

        Why does such a group have to exist?

        Why the downvotes. I cannot think of a group that is inherently unsafe. Who do you have in mind that you consider it an insult?

        • Henson@feddit.dk
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          4 hours ago

          In a perfect world they wouldn’t. But its hard to ensure that everyone gets a traumatic free childhood, or that any natural insedent traumatise some people to the point where they cant/won’t be helped. I guess the downvotes is because your comment feels too unrealistic idealistic (otherwise I can’t see why)

        • jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          non offending pedophiles are a classic example of a group that makes others unsafe. and removing them would be mass murder of innocent people.

          • plyth@feddit.org
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            2 hours ago

            If they can settle in their own town, there is no threat and they don’t need welfare. An example where initial assistance is needed but no continuous welfare.

  • hansolo@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    One of the main reasons why USAID was the first part of the government targeted was because of things like this.

    If you frame their work as “Assistance to disasters” or other variations, plus the context of it being under 1% of the Federal budget, Americans were find with it. If you call it “giving taxpayer money to foreigners” then it’s wildly unpopular.

    Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what’s going on in the world. Framing a narrative can get the same individual to simultaneously support and hate literally the same thing. It can get people to support policies and actions that directly harm them.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      22 hours ago

      Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what’s going on in the world.

      Not that the information channels that inform them blast high-octane corporate-friendly propaganda since childhood, leaving no attention for any other perspectives?

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      I wonder what the general opinion of USAID would have been if it had been described as “feeding poor people so their rulers can buy US weapons instead”.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    IIRC “ACA” and “Obamacare” had similar divides. Propaganda is a helluva drug.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    because welfare has been propagandized as used by “lazy and homeless, and poors, and blacks” its usually based on racism as well, the true welfare queens are Conservative voters.