Herman Cain's ascendancy in the Republican Party doesn't mean the GOP has abandoned its racist roots--but it says a lot about what else the party wants for America
Because they're lowering taxes for the rich and only raising taxes on the middle class and the poor.
It makes total sense when you consider that the GOP is a pack of greedy thugs who are only interested in lining the pockets of the rich and who want the poor anyone making less than ~$200k/year dying in the streets.
I know, right? :( It's so much freaking bullshit. And it's so obvious, but everyone (not on ONTD_P) that I talk to about it has no freaking clue. It's enough to make a girl want to Hulk Smash her friends and relatives.
I had a guy try to convince me yesterday that someone making $200k was "middle class" and I just. no, I can't with the GOP. I can't. I'm gonna chill and listen to the Portal song, "Still Alive" until I relax. :\
And then there are the people making peanuts who still somehow defend these policies because they know that with the rich paying less in taxes, they'll invest more in businesses which will employ more American workers, because . . . we've seen over and over that that's exactly how it works!
Oh god, yeah, that's always... fun. And by fun I mean makes me want to yell and hit things.
I just don't understand how people can be so fucking ignorant. Well, yes, I do understand, but I loathe it. They've been force-fed this crap their whole lives just like everybody else, thanks to the GOP and Faux News and all that crap. They just haven't taken the blinders off yet.
There's another thing going on besides the forcefed bullshit, I think, and that's the sort of cognitive dissonance. The many people who will admit, "I played, the game, incurred my student debt for a high degree, didn't get the job I want, and am now barely making headway paying down my debt with a salary well below my education and experience level," but instead of thinking, oh my god, I'm one random layoff/health disaster/fire/whatever away from big trouble take the despite my low income I'm making ends meet and if I can do it so can anyone route instead. Like, they can't acknowledge how close they are to the lazy entitled them -- of whom so many have TVs, so obviously they're not really that poor anyway! -- so they bounce way over in the other direction.
Well, you know, it's all those not-poor people taking away their jobs and their tax money through food stamps and free lunches that are keeping them from moving up.
Oh yeah, I have definitely seen that. I think a big part of it is just that people don't want to think about the fact that any major event could topple them over and destroy everything they have -- and that's understandable. But the lack of empathy, the lack of ability to see that other people have different points of view, capabilities, and circumstances, is inexcusable.
eta: I once had someone tell me I couldn't possibly be poor because I had an iPod and a TV and some other shit. I was like, "...seriously are you nitpicking my Christmas presents and ten-year-old television? That belonged to my aunt before she gave it to me?" This at a time when I was making all of $30/week, if I was lucky. >>;
Yes, this. The meritocracy myth is the only thing keeping them going - a lot of people will fall into despair, or - maybe worse - realize that they have the hard work of trying to change the system ahead of them instead of Easy Street. It's easier to just keep believing that if they work hard enough, one day these things will come to them.
I don't have much of a problem with people thinking that someone making $200k is middle class (especially in some parts of the country NYC, etc.). It's when in the next sentence they talk about how teachers making $45k/year are living high off the hog that my head explodes.
I have a problem with it, not least because if $45,000/year is middle class, $200k should not be in the same category. :\ At all. And I don't know that it depends on the part of the country, either (at least not to that degree) -- my aunt and I live in Manhattan, very well, and she makes less than half $200k (I don't like to specify figures, but you get the idea). Granted, we don't feel the desperate, undying need to live in a Midtown neighborhood, but I wouldn't consider people living in neighborhoods like that "middle class," either. :|
I guess it depends on how close to the middle you need "middle class" to be. I'd definitely consider $200k to be on the upper side, even in New York or San Francisco, but I don't think it's quite high enough to be "rich". I guess I just don't have a term for what would be inbetween.
Yeah, I'm not sure. I guess "moderately wealthy" or something like that. On the lower end of being ridiculously wealthy. idk. I just know I sure as hell wouldn't consider that "middle class." If only because I think that's a little insulting to the people who are considered "middle class" by the numbers but are struggling financially right now.
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It makes total sense when you consider that the GOP is a pack of greedy thugs who are only interested in lining the pockets of the rich and who want the poor anyone making less than ~$200k/year dying in the streets.
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I had a guy try to convince me yesterday that someone making $200k was "middle class" and I just. no, I can't with the GOP. I can't. I'm gonna chill and listen to the Portal song, "Still Alive" until I relax. :\
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I just don't understand how people can be so fucking ignorant. Well, yes, I do understand, but I loathe it. They've been force-fed this crap their whole lives just like everybody else, thanks to the GOP and Faux News and all that crap. They just haven't taken the blinders off yet.
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eta: I once had someone tell me I couldn't possibly be poor because I had an iPod and a TV and some other shit. I was like, "...seriously are you nitpicking my Christmas presents and ten-year-old television? That belonged to my aunt before she gave it to me?" This at a time when I was making all of $30/week, if I was lucky. >>;
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