By Mike Starry
Oil, gas and coal interests spent years blaming President Obama for everything and millions to help elect Republicans in 2014. Their use of diversionary tactics, “Look over there!” and scapegoating, the basic theme song of Fox News, works on fearful voters.
Their audience will vote for someone who will support policies that will result in them losing the family farm because they think that if they vote Democrat then gays will be kissing each other in San Francisco. They are that dumb.
While the cultural basis of capitalism, the Protestant Ethic, favors individual effort, the Republican lobbyists favor dismantling voter rights, a hallmark of the 18th century
Enlightenment’s development of democratic individualism. As Fox News whipped up anti-Islamic scapegoating during President George W. Bush’s invention of the Iraq war, many people deferred thinking about the war because “the President knows what he is doing.”
Conservative politicians whip up fierce indignation and activism by threatening the loss of American moral values because it gets them votes. The middle class will support tax cuts that give them nothing and the rich more money and power. They do not need a free, fair and open society.
Yeah, they are that dumb.
