Why Americans are resistant to Obama's plan to end inequality

President Obama Speaks On Iran Nuclear Deal
President Barack Obama in the State Dining Room at the White House on Nov. 23, 2013 in Washington, D.C.
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President Obama has a rough road ahead if he plans to push for policies requiring a collective movement against inequality, says Thomas Edsall in a recent New York Times op-ed.

In a speech earlier this month, Obama discussed government efforts to counter inequality, but stressed the importance of community efforts:

I've never believed that government can solve every problem or should — and neither do you. We know that ultimately our strength is grounded in our people — individuals out there, striving, working, making things happen.

Edsall says Obama's use of liberal ideological terms could hurt his effort to bring the country together on the issue.

"This bifurcation — conservative in theory, liberal in practice — suggests that by using broad terms with liberal ideological connotations like 'inequality,' 'more widely shared' growth and 'decreased mobility,' Obama risks activating voters' 'theoretical' conservatism, as opposed to a strategy that stresses specifics in non-ideological terms, a kind of practical liberalism: raising the minimum wage, raising tax rates on unearned income, job training, early education," he writes.

We'll dig into recent polls to get a picture of the national climate, particularly working class people who would most likely benefit from redistributive policies. Why are many Americans reacting to severe inequality by becoming more individualistic?

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