this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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It's more strategic. Student loan debt is a mechanism for controlling the employment prospects of college grads.
Public debt forgiveness becomes a method for funneling students into low paying, morally hazardous jobs (prosecutors, police, the public side of the MIC, education in underfunded neighborhoods, bureaucrat in a corrupt or underfunded agency) where you've got an incentive to keep your head down and do the work rather than organize your office or resist deplorable government policies.
Private industries, similarly, offer the better salaries doing the more morally repugnant work - mining and chemical manufacturing, big finance and HFT, pharma, automotive, credit and collections - which draws in the most talented people to apply their talents in the worst ways.
You're constantly asked to sell out your principles for a paycheck/debt relief, or the most invasive and obnoxious applications of technology. You're never going into business for yourself to challenge a corporate behemoth or pursuing public work that both benefits people and pays well. You're never going into activism or politics without a corporate paymaster.
Ever notice how many SCOTUS judges and Senators are in the Federalist Society or from the Heritage Foundation relative to the Sierra Club or the ACLU? A big part of that is simply about the money.
I think you're ascribing much deeper thoughts and foresight to the average Republican voter than is warranted.
It's much bigger than "Republican voters". You'll find plenty of blue states with students drowning in debt and "business-friendly" politicians espousing the exact same "it wouldn't be fair" anti-debt relief rhetoric.
Eh, I don't think this strategy needs to go much farther than the halls of wherever the RNC is meeting that week. If this is the overarching plan, the political moves the party makes are other things that support this outcome. In this case, any narrative that amounts to "loan forgiveness is bad" is all that needs to be sold to the voter. In fact it's better that way since they'll be compelled to vote against their own interest.
TL:DR: "support your corporate overlords you peasants" doesn't sit well with most people so they just say something else instead.