Republicans getting away with attacks on the middle class

[Onlooker]

Man, I remember when the Republicans were so good on spinning everything into attacks on the middle class: welfare, food stamps, affirmative action, you name it. They were all attacks on the middle class. When the Democrats wanted to anything for the disadvantaged, the Republicans declared the Democrats were against the middle class. It was an effective strategy that helped Reagan create today's evil, basically whites-only Republican Party.

Now, all across the country, Republican politicians are attacking the middle class -- cutting pensions, cutting benefits, cutting the jobs or ordinary, honest, government employees. These people are not rich. They don't earn fortunes. Chances are they could have done better if they worked in various parts of the private sector. But, now they are being painted as greedy and useless. This is part of the Republican's effort to protect the wealthy. This time, instead of blaming the poor for the plight of the middle class, they are blaming parts of the middle class, especially government workers and union workers. Sure, government workers may in some cases earn more than private workers, but that's because those in the private sector are underpaid, not because those in the public sector are overpaid.

Why are the insipid Democrats letting the Republicans get away with this. Why aren't the Democrats defending the middle class?

[LiberalEsto]

1. Why aren't the Democrats defending us?

Because they've sold out to the Corporate Masters. Not all of them, but far too many.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

9. could it be that many of them are busy defending themselves from people on the left of the spectrum?

[ProgressOnTheMove]

2. It's because the middle class stayed at home last November, that's the message they most listen

to bottom line.

[4dsc]

3. We lack LEADERSHIP!!

Like many others in our party I keep harping on the fact that we don't have any LEADERSHIP in this party to take care of these issues.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Almost 78% of new Reps in Congress voted FOR the Patriot Act Extension...

Congress is bought and paid for.

Corporations go off shore.. use slave labor... ship inferior goods back to the U.S. duty-free.... and then keep their profits off shore tax-free.

We have NO REPRESENTATION in Washington.

[Autumn]

5. Because they are busy attacking the poor?

I no longer expect Democrats to defend any one, their concern is being reelected. Would be nice to be surprised.

[QC]

6. Fear not! Obama will protect us from the Republicans! n/t

[sofa king]

7. Your sarcasm is noted, but your statement is correct.

All this Republican attack on the middle class is doing, and is going to do, is further push the vast majority of the American people into our ranks for the 2012 election. Why? Because the way Congress is set up, none of this crap Republican legislation is going to go anywhere.

I've been watching the past several months in admiration, because it's easy for me to see that the Democratic plan for 2012 was plotted out even before the last election. But what I didn't realize is that practically nobody understands how Congress works. Not the idiot talking heads on CNN, nor the print journalists, and especially not the frothing commentary here at DU and elsewhere.

There are at least three different ways all this legislation is going to be strangled in the crib. Let's assume the moonbats run the House and every bad Republican idea passes there. Once it gets to the Senate, it can be 1) sent to a quiet death in Democratically controlled committees and subcommittees, where it will never be brought to a vote; 2) for bills where we can get some mileage out of killing them directly, they can be brought to the Senate floor for a full vote, where they will be killed with much fanfare. "Dems save women!" is going to be one recurring theme we'll see over and over.

Or, 3), the language of the bill can be subtly changed, or hung with riders changing, diluting, or reversing the original intent of the legislation. Then the bill has to go into conference between House and Senate, and the Republicans will be faced with the prospect of having to compromise their original bill out of existence, or voting down their own bill.

Since their voters are even less in touch with the actual workings of Congress, they're even more likely to be disgusted when their Cadillac of a bill comes back as a Chevy Chevette on blocks. More of them stay at home in 2012, while more of us, the fires of our outrage burning with the intensity of a thousand suns, go to vote in numbers that cannot be statistically explained away, as they were in 2004.

If there are hard decisions to make, we get to blame the Republicans for them. They take all the flak while providing the President and Dems in Congress with the chance to look moderate and sane. We also get to pick and choose among dozens of former Bush Administration criminals to prosecute, to keep us ahead should their media manipulation skills improve.

Many of us here at DU have been pointing out that the greed of the Republicans prevents them from running government effectively, and we're seeing it right now. The genius of President Obama is that, time after time, he finds a way to pivot the issue on that Republican greed, knowing that they'll sacrifice everything else--including their viability in the next election--to pay off their benefactors.

[great white snark]

8. Damn, well said sofa king.

:kick:

[sofa king]

10. Thank you. I've, um, been saying it a lot lately.

But that's okay. This is an excellent place to inform folks, and so many of us are so used to being screwed over for a decade that it's not easy to see it or believe it when our politicians actually succeed--wildly, as it happens.

But this is the way we're going to push back The Man, through overwhelming public support. It's okay to be upset, and we'd be fools not to distrust our leaders. But right now, we're painting the Republicans into a corner and it's going to be a long time before they can walk out. Every day of this nonsense is translating into weeks of Democratic control down the line.

Edit: ...and it looks like I've killed yet another thread by saying it.