The GOP Is Trying to Undermine Social Security With Zombie Lies—Don’t Be Fooled.
Throughout history, Americans have recognized when Republican opponents of Social Security were lying. With Trump returning to power and Congress under right-wing control, we must be vigilant once again.
In addition to seeking to expand Social Security, those fighting for greater economic security must always continue to play defense. There have always been those who want to end Social Security. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower once described them as “a tiny splinter group” that seeks “to abolish Social Security.” He explained, “Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” Unfortunately, that tiny group now controls the Republican party.
Most of the time, they hide their true feelings, knowing how popular and important Social Security is, even with the Republican base. Sometimes, though, the veil drops and their true feelings are revealed. That happened most recently last month when Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) decided to share his true feelings about Social Security in a lengthy Twitter thread. Elon Musk, the soon-to-be shadow President of the United States, amplified the thread, calling it “interesting.”
That “interesting” thread was simply a rehash of lies first uttered by Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican nominee for President, who lost in a landslide. These lies are not just falsehoods but zombie lies, which are used to try to undermine support for Social Security, over and over again.
Every time, Americans have recognized that they were being told lies, and the opponents of Social Security failed. We must be vigilant and make sure that these current efforts fail, too.
Enemies of Social Security willfully refuse to see it as what it actually is: insurance against the loss of wages due to retirement, disability, or death of a family breadwinner.
Let’s review just a few of those zombie lies told by Alf Landon in 1936, Senator Lee last month, and numerous other opponents in the decades in between. They mischaracterize Social Security as individual savings and then claim people would be better off saving on their own. Indeed, they claim, in the words of Lee, that “the government routinely raids” our money. Some even slander our Social Security system by calling it a criminal Ponzi scheme.
These enemies of Social Security willfully refuse to see it as what it actually is: insurance against the loss of wages due to retirement, disability, or death of a family breadwinner. They ignore that Social Security is most working families’ only disability insurance, largest life insurance policy, and most secure, effective and efficient retirement income.
While you can outlive savings, you can never outlive Social Security. The liars refuse to acknowledge that Social Security is strikingly superior to its private sector counterparts—more efficient, secure, universal, and fair. Its one shortcoming is that benefits are too low.
President Franklin Roosevelt responded to Alf Landon’s lies eloquently, in words that are as true today as when he spoke them:
Never before in all our history have [the wealthy] been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred…[They] are not happy. Some of them are desperate. […]
They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit…
They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. That omission is deceit…
But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy.
Everyone should save, if they possibly can. Everyone should also have adequate insurance. Savings are necessary for short-term emergencies and expenses; insurance, for large losses that are predictable for groups, but not individuals.
The liars refuse to acknowledge that Social Security is strikingly superior to its private sector counterparts—more efficient, secure, universal, and fair. Its one shortcoming is that benefits are too low.
To manage the risk of the financial loss associated with the loss of a home as the result of fire, homeowners purchase fire insurance; they do not simply save for the contingency. Similarly, car owners have car insurance, not car-accident savings accounts. And to manage the risk of lost income as the result of disability, death, old age, or unemployment, everyone who works for wages needs wage insurance in the form of Social Security and unemployment insurance.
In addition to the disinformation and the lies, Alf Landon, Mike Lee, and many other Social Security opponents claim that Social Security, in the words of Mike Lee, “is government dependency at its worst.” In truth, rather than undermining freedom, Social Security unlocks the freedom to change jobs, change careers, and change life circumstances while providing some measure of peace of mind that your earned Social Security benefits are there if misfortune strikes in the form of disability or death leaving dependents. They are also there if you have good fortune in the form of a very long life.
Perhaps Republican President Eisenhower said it best:
Retirement systems, by which individuals contribute to their own security…have become an essential part of our economic and social life. These systems are but a reflection of the American heritage of sturdy self-reliance which has made our country strong and kept it free; the self-reliance without which we would have had no Pilgrim Fathers, no hardship-defying pioneers, and no eagerness today to push to ever widening horizons in every aspect of our national life. The Social Security program furnishes, on a national scale, the opportunity for our citizens, through that same self-reliance, to build the foundation for their security.
Senator Lee’s zombie lies about Social Security may be appealing to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who will do whatever he can to avoid paying his fair share. But these lies will never convince the American people to abandon their overwhelming support for our Social Security system.
Lies about Social Security may be appealing to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who will do whatever he can to avoid paying his fair share. But these lies will never convince the American people to abandon their overwhelming support for our Social Security system.
Those lies have failed to change the narrative for 90 years, and they’re not going to work now.
It’s no surprise that Musk wants to undermine support for Social Security and is eager to amplify Mike Lee’s lies to do so. Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” is designed to target our earned benefits, with Republicans already admitting that “there will be some cuts” to Social Security and Medicare.
We must not let that happen.
