Alex Blaze says that America is still paying for the sin of slavery and quotes Nathan Glazer from this paper to explain why working class whites are really worried about a big government takeover of healthcare:

AGS [Alesina, Glazear and Sacerdote] report, using the World Values Survey, that “opinions and beliefs about the poor differ sharply between the United States and Europe. In Europe the poor are generally thought to be unfortunate, but not personally responsible for their own condition. For example, according to the World Values Survey, whereas 70 % of West Germans express the belief that people are poor because of imperfections in society, not their own laziness, 70 % of Americans hold the opposite view…. 71 % of Americans but only 40% of Europeans said …poor people could work their way out of poverty.” […]

“Racial fragmentation and the disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities among the poor played a major role in limiting redistribution…. Our bottom line is that Americans redistribute less than Europeans for three reasons: because the majority of Americans believe that redistribution favors racial minorities, because Americans believe that they live in an open and fair society, and that if someone is poor it is his or her own fault, and because the political system is geared toward preventing redistribution. In fact the political system is likely to be endogenous to these basic American beliefs.”(p. 61) “Endogenous” is economics-ese for saying we have the political system we do because we prefer the results it gives, such as limiting redistribution to the blacks.

Thus the racial factor as well as a wider net of social beliefs play a key role in why Americans don’t care about income inequality, and why, not caring, they have no great interest in expanding the welfare state.

Alex sees this as an example of how racism hurts us all. “I know this explanation isn’t 100% of what’s going on, but I can’t help but look at people protesting against health care and think that we’re suffering from some sort of deep cultural sickness.”