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applegrove

(118,011 posts)
Mon Feb 29, 2016, 08:53 PM Feb 2016

Folks Before Kochs

Folks Before Kochs

By Reihan Salam at Slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/02/donald_trump_killed_the_gop_here_s_how_republicans_can_bring_it_back_to.html

"SNIP..........



Why wouldn’t they be furious? The Republican failure to defend the interests of working-class voters, and to speak to their hopes and fears, has made Trump’s authoritarianism dangerously alluring. Trump recognized that elite Republicans—a group rooted in affluent coastal metropolises and dominated by members of the credentialed upper middle class, which has shielded itself from the social and economic devastation that has wreaked such havoc in less-privileged corners of the country—often fall prey to wishful thinking about the rank-and-file voters who actually elect GOP candidates. They imagine that working- and middle-class conservatives are passionately devoted to the things they care about—tax cuts and entitlement reform—when these voters are far more passionate about other issues: economic nationalism, limits on less-skilled immigration, and minimum-wage hikes.


Having recognized this chasm separating the Republican donor class from the grassroots, Trump has exploited it brilliantly. He has defended entitlement programs, and he has bashed bankers. He has defied the elite consensus on trade and immigration. He is channeling the Republican id, and in doing so he may have already dashed conservative hopes of winning the White House. Why can’t his GOP opponents convince Republican voters that they would do a far better job than Trump of defending middle-class economic interests? The answer is that they are trapped by the delusions of the donor class, and they can’t break free.

...........

There is only one way forward in the post-Trump era. The GOP can no longer survive as the party of tax cuts for the rich. It must reinvent itself as the champion of America’s working- and middle-class families. In every campaign, Democrats and Republicans talk about getting the working class and the middle class back on their feet. Those are almost always empty words. The GOP must now become a genuinely populist party, putting the concerns of voters ahead of those of donors. The alternative will be a decade or more of marginalization and defeat, during which the left will have free rein.


............SNIP"
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applegrove

(118,011 posts)
1. LOL! No chance in hell the Kochs and other right wingers will allow the GOP to fight for the working
Mon Feb 29, 2016, 08:54 PM
Feb 2016

class. Wages up? HA!

Chasstev365

(5,191 posts)
4. Couldn't agree more
Mon Feb 29, 2016, 08:58 PM
Feb 2016

The GOP only has the goal of making the uber wealthy even wealthier, even if it means destroying the USA in the process.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
2. I hope the Kockroaches continue to bleed off all their money or enough of it until it hurts
Mon Feb 29, 2016, 08:54 PM
Feb 2016

them solidly. They really need to have working class jobs, so they can see how bad it is.

applegrove

(118,011 posts)
3. They seem to really care that working people have nothing what with the establishment
Mon Feb 29, 2016, 08:57 PM
Feb 2016

candidates talking about doing away with the IRS and entitlement programs and Obamacare.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
5. They understand how well slave labor works from running companies in third world countries.
Mon Feb 29, 2016, 09:00 PM
Feb 2016

I think by now everyone should realize they want America to be a third world country so that there is no minimum wage nor can workers sue or seek grievance against their employer.

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