This article from The Onion hits the nail right on the head...

[Kid_A]

Normally I'd post a link to an Onion article in the Lounge, but this one deserves to be here.

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4045

NATION'S POOR WIN ELECTION FOR NATION'S RICH

"The Republican party—the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite—would like to thank the undereducated rural poor, the struggling blue-collar workers in Middle America, and the God-fearing underpriviledged minorities who voted George W. Bush back into office," Karl Rove, senior advisor to Bush, told reporters at a press conference Monday. "You have selflessly sacrificed your well-being and voted against your own economic interest. For this, we humbly thank you."

"My family's been suffering ever since I lost my job at the screen-door factory, and I haven't seen a doctor for well on four years now," said father of four Buddy Kaldrin of Eerie, CO. "Shit, I don't even remember what a dentist's chair looks like... Basically, I'd give up if it weren't for God's grace. So it's good to know we have a president who cares about religion, too."

Kaldrin added: "That's why I always vote straight-ticket Republican, just like my daddy did, before he lost the farm and shot himself in the head, and just like his daddy did, before he died of black-lung disease in the company coal mines."

*****************

This would be a whole lot funnier if it weren't absolutely true...

[hlthe2b]

1. Dark humor is about the only kind I appreciate, right now...

[ewagner]

2. Scary!

The Onion got it right in 2000 when they said Our 8-year nightmare of Peace and Prosperity are finally over.

[liberal N proud]

3. When the Europeans call the American people stupid

All we can do is say "Yes I know"

[requiem99]

4. The Onion is at its funniest when its being fabricating TRUE stories.

That other media won't touch.

[kittenpants]

5. you really just have to laugh at this stuff or go insane

I'm alternating between those two options.

[wishlist]

6. I knew Bush would win when I saw all the pro-Bush low income voters

I worked at a N.C. precinct where there was a huge turnout of rural poor and blue collar workers from factories, service businesses and construction. From their remarks and the Repub flyers they were holding, it was obvious that most of them would vote for Bush, even the ones who were registered as Democratic.

Many of them seemed barely literate and Kerry did not stand a chance against the combination of their RW churches plus the endless anti-Kerry propaganda churned out for months from our local Sinclair Broadcasting station.

Bush succeeded with his simple message that he would uphold Christian values while Kerry would be weak on terror and raise taxes, and that everything bad that happened in the past 4 years was not Bush's fault.

[K-W]

7. You know things are really messed up when...

The Onion has a better grasp on reality than the New York Times.

[K-W]

8. Just a plug for "What's the Matter With Kansas"

by Thomas Frank

Explores this exact issue.

[ProfessorPlum]

9. Here is the straight-news version of that story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26469-2004Nov4.html

quote

They are precisely the people the Bush campaign built its reelection strategy on -- people who would put faith-based moral values above every other consideration when it came time to vote, including the war in Iraq, terrorism, the economy and, in the Leslies' case, a life that has been in financial peril since Sept. 11, 2001.

He is 29. She is 27. They have a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 6-month-old, and they are thinking of having one more. They oppose abortion, favor a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman, and want more Supreme Court justices like Anton Scalia and Clarence Thomas. They eat at home and shop at Wal-Mart. They home-school their 5-year-old and are members of the nondenominational Church on the Rise, which is "committed to helping families hold down the family fort in the 21st Century," according to its literature, and where the senior pastor says 90 percent of the 1,200 congregants voted for Bush.

"Religious kooks," Cary says, imagining how some people might think of them. His own description: "We're pretty boring people. Normal people."

Normal people who, as this week has progressed, have found themselves increasingly happy about the state of America.

"We're definitely going to celebrate," Tara says of Bush's victory, but what that means is constrained by the changes in their lives that occurred during Bush's first administration.

On Sept. 10, 2001, Cary was earning about $55,000 a year. On Sept. 12, the decline began. No one was flying. No one was renting cars. Down went the commissions Cary gets when customers sign up for insurance coverage. "Maybe $35,000," he says of what he earns now, and that includes income from a second job he took a year ago, delivering pizzas on Friday and Saturday nights.

Forty hours a week at the car-rental counter, 12 hours a week running pizzas, the pinch of gasoline at $2 a gallon, savings drained, the realization that he and Tara are "kind of the working poor" -- and still it was moral concerns, rather than economic ones, that guided both of them on Election Day.

endquote

[Jessica]

10. Some News in Brief from The Onion:

Bush Promises To Unite Nation For Real This Time
WASHINGTON, DC—A week after winning a narrow victory over Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, President Bush promised to "unite the divided nation, but for real this time." "Just as I pledged in 2000, I promise to bring the two halves of this nation together—only this time I'm really gonna do it," Bush said Tuesday. "I'll work hard to put an end to partisan politics. Seriously, though. This term, I will." Bush then requested the support of all Americans for his agenda of cutting taxes and extending America's presence in Iraq.

Liberals Return To Sodomy, Welfare Fraud
BERKELEY, CA—No longer occupied by the 2004 election, liberals across the country have returned to the activities they enjoy most: anal sex and cheating the welfare system. "I've been so busy canvassing for the Democratic Party, I haven't had a single moment for suckling at the government's teat or no-holds-barred ass ramming," said Jason Carvelli, an unemployed pro-hemp activist. "Now, my friends and I can finally get back to warming our hands over burning American flags and turning kids gay." Carvelli added that his "number-one priority" is undermining the efforts of freedom-loving patriots everywhere.