Wednesday, November 28, 2012

47% Redux

The election is three weeks in the past, and Republican strategists remain defiant in the face of loss.

Stuart Stevens, a Romney campaign advisor, said this week that while Barack Obama may have won a majority of the popular vote Mitt Romney received a majority of votes among those earning $50,000 or more a year.  Stevens claimed this was a victory for Romney, as it demonstrated that the Republican Party retains the support of the middle class.

Romney won the majority of voters making over $50,000, but lost the popular vote, so obviously the majority of Americans make less than $50,000.  What does that tell you?  Among other things, it shows that the American middle class of yore is shrinking in the face of a three-decade effort of conservatives to shift a greater share of the nation’s wealth into the hands of a few. 

Another inference one can make is that a good number of the fifty-grand-and-up club probably aren’t making too much more than that.  Ignoring the crass pronouncements of GOP bigwigs, Republican voters just a layoff away from falling into the bottom 47% or worse continue to quaff the Kool-Aid. 

It’s a matter of time before cognitive dissonance sets in.  On the other hand, perhaps not.  Americans rarely accept realities that do not comport with their worldview.  The conservative myth is seductive, entrancing even those who stand little or no chance of benefitting from its promises.

Until the electorate wakes up and votes in its true interests, we can’t expect anything besides more of the same.   

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