Recently a friend offered the following brilliant bit of political theory: “the lower classes are natural Democrats, the productive classes natural Republicans, and the upper classes uniformly bolshevik”.
Translation: If you’re a productive, hard-working, red-blooded American who feels put upon by financial pressures and seemingly unfair circumstances, it’s big government, lazy welfare slobs, unions, liberals, and pointy-headed intellectuals who are to blame. Pay no attention to the people who took all the money. Look down the ladder, those are the people to hate.
It’s a bit of misdirection and deception that Houdini himself would envy. The people who took all the money have somehow managed to convince their victims to blame each other. Pay no attention to the people who took all the money!
The rich and powerful 1% are very pleased, thank you very much, that the so many of the 99% are distracted by the sideshow of left vs right, that shopkeepers and petty professionals are pitted against the working poor. If Faux News and MSNBC can keep you distracted with red states, blue states, liberal-bashing, gay-bashing, etc., you will fail to notice that the system has been rigged for someone else’s benefit.
When times are tough, the question is always, cui bono – who benefits? In today’s politics, it’s all too obvious.
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