"It is the American way to reward ability"
About this Quote
A neat little civics bumper sticker, with all the strategic vagueness that makes politicians purr. "Reward ability" sounds like praise for merit, but it also smuggles in an argument about deserts: if America rewards ability, then the people doing well must be able, and the people struggling must be less so. That implication does real ideological work. It converts messy outcomes - inheritance, geography, race, schooling, unions, luck, policy - into a moral ledger.
Gregg, a long-serving Republican senator associated with fiscal conservatism and budget hawk politics, deploys the line as a defense of an economic order where market winnings are treated as evidence. The "American way" framing is key: it wraps a contested claim about how rewards are distributed in a flag. Once it's national character, disagreement starts to look like heresy. You're not just debating tax rates, wage policy, or social insurance; you're allegedly questioning America itself.
The quote also uses "ability" rather than "work", which is revealing. Ability can be innate or credentialed; it flatters elites, professionals, and "talent" in the abstract, while skipping past the unglamorous labor that keeps the country running. In an era when inequality was becoming harder to ignore, this kind of line reassures the comfortable that the system is fundamentally fair - and warns critics that reform risks punishing excellence. It's less a description than a permission structure: keep rewards concentrated, call it merit, and let patriotism do the rest.
Gregg, a long-serving Republican senator associated with fiscal conservatism and budget hawk politics, deploys the line as a defense of an economic order where market winnings are treated as evidence. The "American way" framing is key: it wraps a contested claim about how rewards are distributed in a flag. Once it's national character, disagreement starts to look like heresy. You're not just debating tax rates, wage policy, or social insurance; you're allegedly questioning America itself.
The quote also uses "ability" rather than "work", which is revealing. Ability can be innate or credentialed; it flatters elites, professionals, and "talent" in the abstract, while skipping past the unglamorous labor that keeps the country running. In an era when inequality was becoming harder to ignore, this kind of line reassures the comfortable that the system is fundamentally fair - and warns critics that reform risks punishing excellence. It's less a description than a permission structure: keep rewards concentrated, call it merit, and let patriotism do the rest.
Quote Details
| Topic | Success |
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