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Edited on Tue Aug-02-05 02:05 PM by joemurphy
Who are the Republicans? (Revised)
I've thought about it some more and based upon the comment received from my earlier post, I’ve made revisions.
1. The Rich. They basically own this country. The top 4 or 5% own around 45% of the wealth. They are usually well-educated and often have a generational ticket into the country’s best schools. They see the Democrats as a threat because the Democrats like to tax them, redistribute their money, and minimize their capacity for increasing their wealth. They vote Republican because they see it as being in their economic best interests to do so. Republican governments make them richer. They oppose governmental regulation because this is expensive and cuts into their profits. They see government as needlessly bureaucratic, inefficient, and wasteful because it is not run along “business principles.” They see themselves as managers and better suited, by education and sense of entitlement, to run the country. They like corporations because they insulate owners from liability and are run along hierarchic lines. They hate unions for the same reasons they hate governmental regulation.. Free trade attracts them because it lets them do what they want (unless, of course, things go south -- then they want, and usually get, subsidies or bailouts). They hate paying taxes because it cuts into their wealth and because the money is used for public and not private purposes. The most wealthy of the Rich didn't do much to get their money in the first place. Generally, they inherited it. Although they worship Horatio Alger stories about self-made men and giants of industry, most of their wealth is passed on to their children who have done nothing to earn it. Unfortunately, the rich are numerically few and need the votes of others to win elections to maintain their profits and their cozy status quo. This unfortunately requires them to make distasteful compromises and wed themselves, for pragmatic reasons, to strange political bedfellows. This set of circumstances requires them to throw in with the following other types of Republicans so that they may continue to manage and generally run things:
2. The Fundies. These worry most of all about societal permissiveness. The secularism and irreverence of the Democrats repels them. They are often activists. Abortion genuinely troubles most of them. They see homosexuality as perversion and a sinful life choice. Pornography and sexual permissiveness deeply repels them. They aren't often deep thinkers because for them faith is seen as more important than thought. They are usually uncomfortable with social change because it challenges what they regard as inherently correct traditional mores and values. They find the answers to most of their individual and societal problems in one passage or another of the Christian Bible – usually the Old Testament side of it. A multicultural society worries them because such is necessarily secular and not exclusively Christian. They like the state of Israel because they see its existence as foreordained in the Bible. But, paradoxically, they don’t care much for Jews because the Jews aren’t Christian. Muslims, Buddhists, and Catholics are to them, strange, foreign, and very troubling. These people long for certainty in a world that is constantly changing and that isn't simply black or white. As a consequence, they see the world as somewhat threatening and they are never really happy with the way they see it developing. As a consequence they fortify themselves in their homes, churches, and families – prefering the company of their co-religionists to outsiders. These are the people that home-school their kids, are sickened by the thought of gay marriage, and see nothing wrong with institutionalizing Christian prayer in the public schools. Because they believe in salvation only through Christ, believers in other theologies or agnostics are seen as misguided sinners. This causes them to be often self-righteously intolerant of the religious beliefs of others not like themselves. Some Fundies are Millenarians – believing that the end of the world is near. Others are Creationists. Still others are of the pro-life ilk that gave us the Terri Schiavo carnival. The Rich, who really run the Republican party, throw the Fundies an occasional bone -- a pro-life Supreme Court appointee, an anti flag-burning amendment, or a proposed Constitutional amendment allowing prayer in the public schools – usually just to solidify their base. But, in truth, the Rich aren’t really comfortable around Fundies and personally don’t really care for them. The Pentacostal, John Ashcroft (who felt the need to hang a cloth over the naked breasts of the statue of Justice), for example, was privately considered something of a joke by other non-Fundie Republicans. Mollifying the Fundies is not a major concern for the Rich (who generally set the agenda for the Republican party) because the Rich know that, outside of the Republican party, the Fundies really have nowhere else to go.
3. The Libertarians. This is a strange group of people that simultaneously espouse laissez-faire economics and social permissivism. The economic side of the equation, however, is usually more important to them than the social side, and they usually can be trusted to vote Republican. The Libertarians are usually well-educated,although not particularly wealthy. They view government, and particularly governmental regulation, as a bad thing per se -- the only thing that has kept them, or that is now keeping them, from climbing to the top of the economic ladder. Aside from having an army, they don’t see much use for government. The Rich are idolized because the Rich are incorrectly perceived by Libertarians as having acquired their wealth by dint of hard work and honest effort. Lots of Libertarians are small businessmen. They think that they too can be rich if the government would only get off of their backs. Libertarians hate taxes for obvious reasons. Many Libertarians see themselves as intellectuals, finding their philosophy embodied in the writings of Ayn Rand. They view themselves as rugged individualists that just want to be left alone and thereby become free to do what is necessary to maximize their economic and individual potential. Libertarians are often extremely naive about what kind of a world their philosophy would lead to. The fact that there has historically never been a real Libertarian society (the closest thing in America being the era of the “Robber Barons”) is one of the most telling criticisms of their doctrine. If history is any indication, Libertarianism doesn't work. Most Libertarians simplistically forget that there are reasons that we have the Fed, the FDIC, Social Security, and an FDA. Orthodox Libertarians are pro-choice. They also, quite logically, love guns. Gay marriage doesn’t bother them. Socially, they would even legalize heroin and allow prostitution. But politically, Libertarians they almost invariably ally themselves with rednecks and Fundies when it comes down to voting. Go figure.
4. The Anti-Liberals. This is the biggest group of Republican voters in my opinion. They are usually white, mostly, but not always male, and their chief common denominator is an inability to empathize with anyone other than themselves. They may or may not be well-educated. Their overriding characteristic is that they are very self-absorbed. They are usually not very interested in politics and are seldom activists. They tend to vote Republican simply because it’s something they’ve always done and see no reason to change. Because they've never been hungry or homeless, they find it hard to relate to those that are. They view themselves as hard-working but regard the poor as lazy. They don’t care much for blacks, Hispanics, or gays because they have never been any of these things, can't relate to them and really don’t care to make the effort to understand them. These are the kind of people that see affirmative action as reverse discrimination. They often mistrust people that they perceive as being intellectuals because they view them as unpragmatic and lacking in common sense. The Anti-Liberals are the kind of people that called Adlai Stevenson an "egghead" and felt more comfortable voting for Eisenhower. They like Bush because he's like them -- the kind of guy you could enjoy having a beer with. They don't read much and aren’t much for “big ideas”. They revel in their own societal milieu --NASCAR, Fox News (because it reinforces their view of the world), country music, traditional values, and the latest story about a missing white woman. They aren't often extremely rich, but would like to be and think someday they can be. They see the Rich as deserving of their wealth. They are attracted to flat taxes because they see them as egalitarian and simple. This group REALLY likes guns and includes a lot of hunters. Oddly, despite their purported love of the outdoors, they aren’t big environmentalists. They generally see Democrats as naive, lacking common sense, and as stupidly tender-hearted. They love Rush Limbaugh because he talks like them and thinks like them. They are extremely patriotic, usually in the “my country right or wrong” sense of the term.
5. The Heirarchs. I call these Heirachs because my prior words for them, “Supremacists”, conjures up inaccurate images of Terry McVey and Militiamen. By Heirarchs, I mean, instead, those people that see themselves as superior to the unwashed masses that they perceive as populating the Democratic party. The Republican Party, being whiter and more Anglo-Saxon, is more the Heirarch’s cup of tea. Heirarchs are the sort that think Blacks are mentally inferior to whites and view Hispanics as fit only for menial labor. Heirarchs generally won’t actively attack Blacks, Hispanics, or gays, but they would never do anything to help them either. They see themselves as being on top of an economic, racial, or genetic pecking-order. They are often economic and social Darwinists, who believe that the poor are that way largely because there is something inherently inferior about them. Some Heirarchs are sort of effete racists that sit in ivory towers. These are the people that find Al Sharpton an amusing joke – people like George Will or Tucker Carlson. Others are the kind that would view their neighborhood as falling apart if a black family moved in. In that event, they would find it necessary to move out. The less educated of the Heirarchs shade off into what we usually think of as “Rednecks” -- the kind of people that like to fly the Confederate flags as a badge of honor and that see themselves as the superior and true sons of the still-defiant old South. Most Heirarchs tend to live in rural areas or in gated suburban communities – where minorities are thankfully few -- rather than in cities. Heirarchs, particularly of the Redneck variety, also love their guns. A few of the Heirarchs are outright bigots – the dangerous sort that burn crosses, beat up gays, or deface Jewish cemeteries. There aren’t very many of these, thankfully, but they certainly aren’t Democrats. Most Heirarchs aren’t so blatant. They simply prefer to structure their world in such a way as that they don’t have to see or live with minorities.
This mixed bag, in my opinion, constitutes the hard-core Republican voting bloc. These people are the 30%-40% of the country that can be reliably counted upon to vote for George W. Bush (or any other candidate the Republicans put up) come hell or high water, in good times or bad, and irrespective of how badly their candidate may have screwed up in the past.
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