I have been thinking about this issue, and writing about it, quite a bit. I think that the Republican party is about one thing, class warfare, and they wrap their warfare in other issues, issues which drive people to vote against their own interests. When I called Sean Hannity a few months ago, I yelled this at him a number of times:
You use your programs to get people to vote for your tax cuts on your $5 million a year, and against their own self-interest. You are making a fool out of your listeners."
When I hung up and listened, his voice was shaking. Ahhhh, I thought: I got it. THIS is what it is all about. And Krugman highlights it:
http://select.nytimes.com/...
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The money quote, in my view, below:
But if the real source of today's bitter partisanship is a Republican move to the right on economic issues, why have the last three elections been dominated by talk of terrorism, with a bit of religion on the side? Because a party whose economic policies favor a narrow elite needs to focus the public's attention elsewhere. And there's no better way to do that than accusing the other party of being unpatriotic and godless.
I wish every member of the Democratic party would read that paragraph over and over:
Because a party whose economic policies favor a narrow elite needs to focus the public's attention elsewhere.
This is the issue, in my view, which will win back voters. This is the issue which only John Edwards has been regularly speaking of. The purposeful destruction of the middle and lower classes. Everything, even the Iraq War, can be discussed in these terms: the lower classes are fighting this war, the middle and lower classes will need Social Security, the middle and lower classes are losing health insurance and, consequently, health care, the lower and middle classes are hurt by oil prices. Almost every single thing can be discussed this way:
Today's Republican Party does not have the average American's best interest in mind or heart.
Easy to understand, easy to remember, and it has the added benefit of being true.
The Rovian tactic of distracting the voter by waving the red flag of bigotry has worked very well. Thus, Krugman says that, while he will not give Democrats advice on what to do or say, he will say this:
So what should we do about all this? I won't offer the Democrats advice right now, except to say that tough talk on national security and affirmations of personal faith won't help: the other side will smear you anyway.
But I would like to offer some advice to my fellow pundits: face reality. There are some commentators who long for the bipartisan days of yore, and flock eagerly to any politician who looks "centrist." But there isn't any center in modern American politics. And the center won't return until we have a new New Deal, and rebuild our middle class.
Krugman also recommends a book about this issue: "Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches" and discusses the relationship between economic inequality and a divided America. He says that when there is a strong middle class, America is not divided, and that when there are strong economic inequalities, we are divided.
If you can get a copy of the entire Op-Ed, it is worth a read. Krugman has continually written about the destruction of the middle class, and he is now saying that it is intentional, done to enrich a "narrow elite."
Any Dem looking for an effective characterization of today's Republican party need look no further than this piece.