Republicans, it should by now be generally known, possess hubris in spades. So to hold the common man and his well being over a barrel in their steely determination to look out for the fat cats among us – all the while acting like this bit of dumping on the less privileged was all patently innocuous – is par for the GOP course. At its core the party has the wherewithal to do it to you without batting an eye. The attitude being: “You may be convinced this is bad medicine but take it; we say it’s great.”
What’s great for Republicans is that their numbers seem well enough crammed with stokers of demagogic mischief to keep teeming innocents confused ad infinitum with mangled truth and wisdom. Indeed, in the age of Obama such deception becomes an even easier sell, a large swath of the target audience predisposed to wholesale swallowing of any and every connivance hatched by detractors of this president.
Upshot of which is that Republican refusal to support something like extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed doesn’t draw the vehement condemnation it warrants from that hate-filled, willingly manipulated segment of vox populi, simply because it is not an issue viewed on its merits, but one instantly discredited on the basis of having had incubation with Obama and the Democrats. Never mind the ignoramus complex surely including some much in need of the relief provided for by those extended benefits, so can “good” demagoguery effectively achieve capsizing of any rational order of things.
Ditto, on the matter of a one-time payment to Social Security recipients to help offset the cost of living increase they didn’t get for the current year. It was truly an object lesson in class confrontation to see one Republican after another rail against a $250 payment to the elderly and infirm, for many of whom it would be coveted supplementary income, while at the same time championing permanent tax cuts for the society’s wealthiest. And again, certain of the underclass, duly brainwashed, could be counted on to ride herd with the political shysters doing the bidding of their moneyed interests.
Strange enough, the justification frequently proffered for cementing this tax break for the well-to-do was that it would fuel their job-creation impact on the economy. If we should use as a barometer what the fat cats’ efforts have produced by way of jobs in the devastating meltdown since 2008, it doesn’t exactly leave us brimming with confidence going forward, does it? Let’s see. The Bush tax cuts have been in effect. The GOP/Tea Party mantra is that not by government action but in the private sector is where jobs get created. And yet the private sector’s employment picture has remained in negative territory. With typical bluster, though, the clamor from those movers and shakers and their apologists in politics is for the Bush bonanza to continue indefinitely, multibillion dollar drain on the deficit be damned! These guys have it made, having mastered sleight-of-hand even to the point of winning endorsements from their sham victims.
That old saw about Black folk being taken for granted by the Democratic Party is still trotted out by some of the innocents and/or misguided among us as a line that makes sense, would you believe! It’s a line that some few on the Republican side of the divide have touted, who think more of a smidgeon of “color” in their ranks isn’t a bad idea. This, of course, is that inconsequential GOP element pretending that courting people of color is a genuine party objective. What a crock!
As everyone familiar with the narrative knows full well, the gravitation of Blacks to the Democratic Party wasn’t done on a whim. Blacks made a determination, in the early 20th century, that on the social front, Republican policy positions ran counter to the best interests of people of color. Republican opposition to FDR’s New Deal agenda clearly drew a line in the sand re Blacks and Republicans. And there’s been nothing about the party’s behavior ever since to manifestly change any informed reading of where the GOP is coming from.
Their crusaders have never been shy either about showing the underclass the back of their hand. There may have been some extra bite to it since November of ‘08, but what we see today is nothing new, coming out of the crowd already in Washington and those about to join them in January. Republicans unabashedly throwing in their lot with the haves and unconcerned about their show of disdain for the rest is one reason not much of a progressive nature figures to be accomplished during the remainder of this administration. Get used to it.
