Sorry that I've been neglecting this blog for so long. This post started out as a response to a Republican friend of mine on Facebook. If you decide to de-friend me after reading this, that's fine with me. You can't argue with a stone, after all.
The people have had enough of being lied to. Yet R-Money and his mini-me continue to belch forth the same old Reaganomics trope that if taxes are cut on the richest Americans and 'the shackles be cut away' from Big Business, that prosperity for all will come forth.
BULLSHIT.
You people don't get it. It didn't work then, it isn't working now, it'll never work. And trying to fix the mistakes of the past thirty-plus years is not somehow 'socialism'. Regulation - as in making corporations play by the rules and be responsible, respectable members of society - is not 'socialism'. It's just right, as it was when more honorable Republicans were President, like Eisenhower for example. Ike would never have suggested dismantling Social Security and Medicare into voucher systems that essentially turn working people's money into more gambling money for Wall Street. It is deregulation, the dismantling of seventy years of regulations – enacted after the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression – that caused the economic collapse we are still experiencing today.
The irony is that our current President is essentially what used to be a moderate Republican - careful, patient, prudent, fairly conservative yet willing to compromise for the betterment of the country as a whole. Yet today's Rethuglicans call him a dictator, a tyrant, question his faith and nationality, and continue to do so despite having no proof whatsoever to their claims. Some even make veiled statements that should he be re-elected, it may be time to create a 'Second Amendment solution' to remove him from office. In other words, they're calling on their followers to assassinate the President. Why?
There has been no effort to curtail gun sales in the last three-plus years, and the Supreme Court rejected – and rightly so – the attempt to ban handgun sales in Washington, DC. Yet if you listen to the echo chamber, you'd think that the President is going to personally kick in your door and take your guns away from you - preferably while forcing your children to have gay sex and abortions at the same time. Why?
There has been no attempt to raise marginal tax rates on the wealthiest American to the levels that existed in the Fifties (well over 80%), yet even trying to let the top marginal tax rate of roughly 33% go back to 38% by letting the Bush tax cuts expire has been met with cries of 'class warfare' and of course, 'socialism'. Why?
The answer to all three question is simple – racism. Today's Rethuglican party has moved so far to the right, that it now gives tacit endorsement to voices and opinions that thirty years ago would've been the realm of lunacy and madness. Now it's the mainstream – the uneducated, violent, ugly mainstream. Just below the veneer of phony hyperpatriorism and their even phonier form of Christianity (let's just call it Xtianity) lies everything that Christianity stands against – racism, sexism, greed, hatred – are you getting the picture? That racism is what's driving minorities to vote Democratic in droves, effectively freezing the Rethuglicans out of meaningful inroads to Black and Latino voters who might otherwise be copacetic with other tenets of the party's social conservatism. And I have two words for you as to why women will vote Democratic: Todd Akin. Need I say more? Oh, I do need to.
The people are sick of being lied to. Yet the lies flow unabated from the politicians and hate-talk-radio spewers, aided and abetted by billions – yes, billions – of dollars from those who would seek to consolidate their wealth and power, and create a second Gilded Age, where the country's wealth is controlled by no more than a few hundred people who place themselves not only above society, but from the law. What ended the Gilded age was Progressivism – led by, of all people, a Republican. Theodore Roosevelt was the first Progressive President, remember? No, I'm sure you don't. Today's Rethuglicans would call Teddy a commienazisocialistlibrul – just like they do President Obama.
And here's one more thing that ought to really get your knickers into a twist – R-Money has no chance. Hell, he might not even make it out of the Convention. Y'see, despite his best claims to being a 'true Conservative', a lot of people in the inner workings of the Rethuglican Party aren't buying his bullshit, and plan to make their feelings known at the Convention. At the State level, many Rethuglican party organizations have been taken over by Ron Paul supporters, aka 'Paultards'. The Paultards want their man on top, and they see Romney as a fraud. Which is entirely accurate. The truth is that Romney is also a moderate Republican, yet forced to kowtow to the hate-mongering base of the party that wants war instead of compromise.
And should he make it out of the Convention as the nominee, he still has no chance. While national polling suggests a neck-and-neck race to the finish, national polling is utterly useless. State-by-state polling shows Obama winning the Electoral College by a wide margin, by winning the largest, most populous states easily (for example, Obama's constant lead in California polls is so wide that neither campaign is bothering to make any stops there) and taking enough swing states to make the difference. That's why the President has come to Reno (where I am right now) twice in the last four weeks.
In the end, it comes down to this: what would you rather have? A more equitable society, or a more inequitable one? It's very clear who would bring that equality, and who wouldn't.
That's why I'll vote for a second term for my President, Barack Hussein Obama. And if you don't like it....
FUCK YOU.
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