This is a classic case of bait and switch, because while the GOP needs the votes of working class Americans (and by that I mean anyone who works for a salary,) it's policies of tax cuts to the mega rich and kissing up to corporations end up hurting Average Joes.
To get working people to support the polices of the upper class, the GOP has a powerful array of weapons in it's arsenal, homophobia, race, religion and when those doesn't work you can always throw in the red scare (communism.) In addition, the GOP now has a whole network, FOX News, and talk radio dedicated to spreading it's propaganda.
But now the country is struggling to get out of the worst Depression since World War II. Millions of Americans are suffering from long-term unemployment. Before if you were laid off it would take three t0 six months to find employment, now we are looking at a year or more. It is not unusual to find Americans who have been out of work for up to two years.
And how does the GOP choose to respond to this economic crisis? By bashing the poor of course. According to GOP propaganda Americans are unemployed, because they're lazy, too choosy or just spoiled. Republicans seem to thinking the whopping amounts of money unemployed people make (about $200 per week) is enough for people to live high on the hog and quit searching for work. The GOP has stonewalled on a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits for millions of Americans. All of a sudden they are concerned about deficits, even though the Republican controlled Congress voted for Bush's wars and tax cuts, which inflated the deficit.
Now let's say an American worker made about $50,000 a year, which is an average mid-level salary, that works out to be about $4,000 per month. An unemployment check of $200 per weeks, works out to about $800 per month, less than a quarter of what that person would be making if they worked.
But GOP firebrands like Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle are convinced that Americans prefer couch surfing, instead of making real money. Angle implies that extending unemployment makes Americans comfortable, in an interview with a Nevada political show she said, "I would have voted no, because the truth about it is that they keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where people are afraid to go out and get a job because the job doesn't pay as much as the unemployment benefit does. And what we really need to do is put people back to work."
If Angle would actually talk to people on Planet Earth she might realize that finding a job is anything but easy. Statistics show there are about five applicants for every job. And even if workers are willing to drop their pay demands, they face resistance from employers. Age discrimination and degree discrimination are rife. (Many workers over the age of 50 have opted to take early retirement because they know that few employers want to hire an employee who is close to retirement.)
As someone who was unemployed for more than a year, I saw personal evidence of this. I sent out about 5,000 resumes and also applied for entry-level jobs. The problem is department stores at the mall are not going to hire a 40-something professional worker for a minimum-wage job, where his supervisor is going to be half his age.
Plus many of those companies would rather hire wet-behind-the-ear high school or college kids who will be happy to work for next to nothing, and won't have the balls to complain about labour abuse.
For those working class people who still cling to Conservative principles, I ask what more will it take to come to your senses? The GOP despises you. They use wedge issues to garner your votes, but side with corporations who are always looking for the bottom line, even if it means exporting American jobs to China, where they can pay less than a quarter of American wages.
Working class Republicans are like an abused wife who keeps going back to a husband who keeps giving her black eyes. But as Albert Einstein, the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Democrats are not perfect, but at least they seem to be trying to do something about the situation, and they are not openly contemptuous of the poor.
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