The GOP to the Working Class is Like Colonel Sanders Promising a Good Life to Chickens
STEPHEN PIZZO FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
I was there when it happened, but I'm still not entirely clear why it happened. I am speaking of the late 1970s when working Americans became Reagan Democrats... Democrats who voted for Republican Ronald Reagan, and have since largely voted for GOP candidates.
I suspect a big cause was because establishment progressives... you know, the Ivy League bunch who'd never done a lick of physical labor in their entire lives -- lost touch with the real lives of real working Americans. Instead of tending their working-class base, these guys and gals spun off onto one highfalutin tangent or another, until the policies they poured their energies into had little to nothing in to do with the lives and struggles of average Americans.
That's not to say that Republicans stepped up to lend working Americans a hand. But, like hyenas they knew an easy kill when they saw one. They wasted no time poaching that lonesome working class flock. Democrats, the GOP told Americans struggling with Carter-era stagflation, have failed you. They've become arrogant snobs who think they are smarter and know better than working stiffs. And, unlike most of the nonsense that now pours from the GOP, there was truth in that claim.
And so this new voting block emerged; Reagan Democrats, the oxymoron of all times. Since that hijacking, Republicans have kept these wayward voters in their grasp by convincing them that the rich are really their true friends, because the rich are "the job creators." And, they are warned and warned again, that the last thing they should want are taxes because taxes supposedly prevent the creation of jobs.
But wait, there's more. Republicans promised more than just jobs in return for low taxes - They also claimed that some of the tax money that was saved by the rich would "trickle down" into the pockets of working Americans.
And they bit. And they continue biting.
What the Republicans did is akin to convincing a flock of chickens that Col. Sanders has nothing but their best interests at heart. The Tea Party today is the latest incarnation of the Reagan Democrat - working class folks held captive to an ideology that's ultimate goal is to reduce workers to indentured serfs. Think of it as the political equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome.
You'd think that after more than a quarter century of getting their lunch eaten by this gang of GOP thugs, Democrats would have gotten a clue. Forget about it. Look no further than to those who received a trillion dollar bailout while working Americans stood in unemployment lines. A flat learning curve if ever there was one.
I was there when it happened, but I'm still not entirely clear why it happened. I am speaking of the late 1970s when working Americans became Reagan Democrats... Democrats who voted for Republican Ronald Reagan, and have since largely voted for GOP candidates.
I suspect a big cause was because establishment progressives... you know, the Ivy League bunch who'd never done a lick of physical labor in their entire lives -- lost touch with the real lives of real working Americans. Instead of tending their working-class base, these guys and gals spun off onto one highfalutin tangent or another, until the policies they poured their energies into had little to nothing in to do with the lives and struggles of average Americans.
That's not to say that Republicans stepped up to lend working Americans a hand. But, like hyenas they knew an easy kill when they saw one. They wasted no time poaching that lonesome working class flock. Democrats, the GOP told Americans struggling with Carter-era stagflation, have failed you. They've become arrogant snobs who think they are smarter and know better than working stiffs. And, unlike most of the nonsense that now pours from the GOP, there was truth in that claim.
And so this new voting block emerged; Reagan Democrats, the oxymoron of all times. Since that hijacking, Republicans have kept these wayward voters in their grasp by convincing them that the rich are really their true friends, because the rich are "the job creators." And, they are warned and warned again, that the last thing they should want are taxes because taxes supposedly prevent the creation of jobs.
But wait, there's more. Republicans promised more than just jobs in return for low taxes - They also claimed that some of the tax money that was saved by the rich would "trickle down" into the pockets of working Americans.
And they bit. And they continue biting.
What the Republicans did is akin to convincing a flock of chickens that Col. Sanders has nothing but their best interests at heart. The Tea Party today is the latest incarnation of the Reagan Democrat - working class folks held captive to an ideology that's ultimate goal is to reduce workers to indentured serfs. Think of it as the political equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome.
You'd think that after more than a quarter century of getting their lunch eaten by this gang of GOP thugs, Democrats would have gotten a clue. Forget about it. Look no further than to those who received a trillion dollar bailout while working Americans stood in unemployment lines. A flat learning curve if ever there was one.
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