Blowhards and Real Americans

[Donnachaidh]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/stephen-pizzo/37375/blowhards-and-real-americans

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 the 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 after another, until the policies they poured their energies into had little to nothing in to do with the world 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, the last thing they should want to tax because, if they're taxed, they can't create jobs.

More at the link --