by Chad R. MacDonald
Considering how repugicans constantly attack the poor, they
shouldn't have a chance with anyone who isn't already rich. So why do
they?
The repugicans
like to say they are all about personal responsibility. Then of course,
they support the SCOTUS decision taking personal responsibility away
from citizens
and placing it in the hands of corporations.
They lie about a war, have us believing in non-existent weapons of mass
destruction, and then try to blame the situation in Iraq on the
subsequent administration.
The repugican cabal advocates slashing food stamps, denying unemployment
assistance, opposing affordable healthcare, and cutting taxes for the
wealthy. They constantly demonize poor people, and think the
economically disadvantaged deserve only scorn and insults. If you’re
poor, you’re just lazy. End of reasons. Yet they get heavy votes from
lower income Americans. How are they doing this?
“People don’t vote to say ‘thank you,’ do they? They vote to say ‘fuck you!’” ~ Bill Maher
There are many factors as to why this is so, including gerrymandering districts, such as
what just made news in Florida, and
voter suppression.
But these particular elements have been covered extensively, and they
aren’t the only reasons for this phenomenon. The repugicans rely on a
myriad of tactics to keep their poorer constituents voting against their
own economic interests.
One tactic is misdirection. They paint Democrats as
irresponsible whenever they can. They call our President, a man
graduating manga cum laude from Harvard Law School, a community
organizer. In short, they use smear tactics.
Meanwhile President Obama has proven eminently effective as leader of
the nation. He has made healthcare accessible to millions of Americans,
kept the USA out of a handful of wars, boosted the economy, and fixed
some of the mess left behind by the the shrub junta. Yes, he has a
long way to go and he’s far from perfect, but Obama has faced an uphill
battle of repugicans refusing to work with him even before he took
office.
Yet many wingnuts who know better say that the President hasn’t
done anything to help the country. Or, hilariously, that he’s some kind
of tyrant, right after saying he’s weak on foreign policy for not
starting enough wars.
You also can’t ignore the infiltration of wingnut talking points
into the faith of Red Staters. Evangelists, televised or not, spearhead
the
religio-wingnuts and are awful for “us against them” sermons and mentality. Don’t believe me? Look to Pat Robertson and his
hateful rhetoric against LGBT Americans, Chic-Fil-A, or, again, the recent Hobby Lobby ruling for just a few examples
These people believe that their god is a wingnut. The #cwot (christian wingnuts on twitter) hashtag gets heavy use. There you will find christians tweeting anti-Obama, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, and
anti-Democrat statements. And all of them believe god is on their side.
It is the very definition of zealotry.
Throw Faux News into the mix, which
Politifact recently reported
as disseminating more false information than truth. When you travel
through Red States, Faux News is on in most gas stations, fast food
restaurants, and public areas. An unabashedly wingnut media outlet,
Faux News continually broadcasts a wingnut agenda to its viewers.
They blame
The Other; immigrants, ethnic minorities, LGBT Americans, and women, while saying people need to “
take America back”
They repeatedly bash the President, give platforms to lobbyists and
corporate shills, and constantly work to undermine progress and support
obstructionists. They do all of this while telling the viewer that they
are the chosen people of god and America.
Then they tell you the most important part, everyone
else is lying to you. Don’t touch that dial. Faux News creates fake “
wars”
on Xmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and whatever will shock their
audience. This paranoia is sown to distract their viewers from voting
from the repugican cabal’s
real war on poor people.
With Red State
Education kept slashed,
distrust against science and critical thinking is sown and everyone is
highly encouraged to go to cult for more political divisiveness and
false moral superiority. And
Faux News backs all of this up. That’s how you get voters opposing their own health care, supporting corporations
poisoning their water, or advocating cutting taxes for the wealthy.
This is a pure definition of the French word
ressentiment.
Yes, it sounds like the English “resentment” and is somewhat similar in
definition. But it defines the phenomenon of an electorate voting
against their own economic interests. “
A generalized feeling of
resentment and often hostility harbored by one individual or group
against another, especially chronically and with no means of direct
expression.” It’s textbook population control.
This also plays into how many wingnuts get made fun of as
ignorant hicks, as they are manipulated to be this way. They swallow
whatever story is spoon-fed to them, no matter how ridiculous.
Birther crap. Benghazi
mistruths. Even that
Obama is the anti-christ.
They cannot and will not accept that what they are saying is not true.
They will not compromise or reason in debates, no matter how crazy their
argument.
That
gets seen by everyone else, correctly, as a willingly obstinate
ignorance and even pure insanity, absolutely frustrating anybody dealing
with them. This leads to insults, both sides of the debate dig in their
heels, nothing gets accomplished, and the conservative thinks they have
“won.” Meanwhile the political divide widens even more.
“Divide and conquer,” remember? Clear thinking Americans realize
that their President is not a
Kenyan/muslim/Fascist/Socialist/Communist/Tyrant/Weakling/King/Coward/anti-christ/Whatever.
But if you inject enough irrational fear and/or loathing into your
base, they won’t question you when you say someone else is to blame for
their troubles.
And there you have the roots of the majority of America’s divisive
issues and why poor people continue to vote against their interests.
This problem is so deeply ingrained it will take generations to die out.
And by then, we’ll have a whole new set of problems if we haven’t been
defeated by the current ones. But you tell that to the kids today and
they won’t believe you.
