Hey Reagan Democrats: Now Do You Get It?

"Well, what happened to them? I thought they were extinct...?"

"Almost, but as you can see for yourself, a few rare specimens survive to this day, carefully preserved under highly controlled conditions. But most of them are long gone now, the victims of natural selection. That was especially ironic, of course, since one of the fairly tales they were sold – and happily bought – was the dogmatic religious bit about evolutionary theory being false. Oops! In any case, they were essentially full participants in their own fleecing, until there was just nothing left anymore. For three decades they sucked down the mantras of right-wing political propaganda, just as they sucked down their anesthetizing carbonated alcoholic preparations. For three decades they belched their way into the voting booth to choose Republican candidates who advocated attacking some third world country, or ending affirmative action, or fighting against the secular war on Christmas, or denying food benefits to some poor kid living just two blocks away, or keeping women in their place, or – especially – cutting taxes.

"And for three decades these victorious Republican politicians marched off to Washington, whereupon they played a little at tokenist fulfillment of these campaign promises, but meanwhile set about in great earnestness and energy to do what they had really come to do. Namely, to fleece the people who had put them there, the Reagan Democrats. And so they did. Massively, and continuously. Until there was nothing left to fleece anymore.

"And thus ends our story, my young friends, and I thank you so much for coming to the Human Zoo today. I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit!"

"But, excuse me, sir. One last question, please. Could they really have been that dumb? Even after three decades of being ripped-off, did they not ever wise up?"

"Well, I say, you really are quite a smart little whippersnapper, aren’t you, young lady?! Another very good question. As a matter of fact, yes, some of them are reported to have begun to figure this out toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. After all their selfishness, after all their aggressiveness, after all their self-loathing, and even after all their beloved tax cuts, they began to notice that they had not gained an inch in their standard of living from where they had been three decades earlier, when they abandoned the progressive politics that had helped put them in the middle class to begin with, and in fact they discovered that they had lost ground enormously. Moreover, they noticed that the plutocratic class had become fantastically wealthier during that same time period. Indeed, in three decades, the richest ten percent of Americans had gone from bringing home about a third of all national income to about half, just like it had been in 1929.

"Oh, and speaking of which, it was a nearly letter-perfect repeat of the Great Depression – complete with Republican governments, massive tax favors for the rich, deregulation, Gilded Age style polarization of wealth, and a devastating global economic implosion – that finally began to awaken many Reagan Democrats from their slumber. The capper was what the Republicans did in an attempt to ‘bail-out’ the sinking economy. The very people who had failed to regulate the folks causing the Even Greater Depression of the early twenty-first century now took $700 billion worth of taxpayer money and handed it to those same financial ‘industry’ crooks, without any requirements at all on what they could do with the money, not even restrictions against bonuses or getaways to five-star resorts. But when the blue collar auto industry wanted just $15 billion to keep millions of middle class jobs afloat, the Republicans wouldn’t give it to them.

"This was altogether just too much, and by this time even acephalic Reagan Democrats began to figure out they’d been duped. And while many could never admit their stupidity and their greed, some quietly returned to being just regular old Democrats again.

"Indeed, in 2008, not only did many of them vote for a Democrat for president, they even voted for a black Democrat. Amazing!

"Of course, he did promise them tax cuts...

"Well, anyhow, thank you once again for joining us on the tour here at the Human Zoo. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay.

"Please do be careful as you exit. As always, the way out is to the left."

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