BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
by Mark Karlin
Editor and Publisher

May 5, 2008

John McCain and Hillary Clinton are spouting a "summer gas tax relief" in the same way that Marie Antoinette cried out, "Let them eat cake."

Ever since Nixon, the GOP game has been one of a populist bait-and-switch. It's quite simple: use the machinations of demagoguery to portray an enemy who is responsible for all the ills of the working class -- and a libertine threat to the personal "values" of "God-fearing" people, and then ride on a wave of pseudo patriotic tin "flag lapel pin" fervor to the polls.

And when denunciation of "liberal elites" won't be sufficient, appeal to fear. Use Osama bin Laden in a commercial as Bush and Clinton have done, or threaten to "obliterate" our "enemies" -- as Bush, McCain and Clinton have done. Of course, the fear factor has been a key Republican tactic since Nixon, emerging full force in the infamous "Willie Horton" ad of 1988, which combined race and fear into one neat appeal to the most base of emotions. Since 9/11, Willie Horton has morphed into Osama bin Laden and "the other": Arabs, Mexicans, and now the "angry black man" (Rev. Wright, who isn't running for any public office as far as we know, but Clinton, McCain, and the mainstream media are determined to raise the fear that Obama is a Manchurian "angry black man" candidate because Wright was his minister.) Horton has morphed into Obama "Hussein" bin Laden.

Discussing class divisions has scared the living daylights out of Democrats as the Republicans since Reagan have worked to turn America into a third world nation of the very rich and the working poor -- and just plain poor. So, instead of offering the working class the real possibility of changed circumstances that will improve their job prospects and standard of living, some candidates offer them temporary gas tax break gimmicks: "Let them eat cake."

The irony here -- and a tragic one for the so-called "Reagan Democrat" and the senior citizens who vote for Hillary -- is that the real elitists are the Bushes, Cheneys, McCains, and Clintons who believe that they have all the answers for us, that they are empowered with a special knowledge that we are not privy to, that they are smarter than us and know what is best for us. That is elitism at its core. It's about people who think that we are passive participants in a government by the entrenched ruling class who must make decisions for us because they -- in their Straussian narcissism -- believe that they have the answers of "the privileged," damn whatever we believe.

But the working class is an easy mark for the RepubliCrat elitists. Displaced by jobs sent overseas and the lower wages and standard of living brought on by the emergence of international corporations who view American labor as a downsizable commodity, victims of the largest redistribution out of their pockets and into the bank accounts of the wealthy in our nation's history, threatened by the sharing of the American pie with minorities and women, many in the white working class will succumb to fear and the offer of a free piece of cake, instead of voting for long-term solutions that can improve their lot.

And, yes, we are talking about the white working class here. The Clinton campaign in particular -- and BuzzFlash was the first Internet site to hammer away on this -- has used race (and staffers have admitted it anonymously at times) to "box" Obama in as "the black" candidate, and to create fear in the white working class mind that he is really a front for the "angry black man."

In a recent commentary in the Chicago Tribune, history professor Leon Fink [1] recalled his days as a park supervisor in Indianapolis in the summer of 1968: "I watched as the balance of political yard signs switched from Robert Kennedy to George Wallace in the months following the former's assassination. Clearly, the community was being pulled in conflicting directions."

A political candidate can appeal to our basest instincts and fears or summon what is best in us in terms of American values of embracing diversity, legal justice, and economic justice. They can emphasize diversionary tactics of trivia in pursuit of their elitist goals or ask us to be part of the solution as John F. Kennedy did.

The GOP and the Clinton campaign have bet that the working class can again be bought with a piece of cake, and -- as Obama has noted -- Senator Clinton is doubling down on that strategy.

It's worked so often for the Republicans that Democrats such as Clinton are copying it instead of offering an alternative.

No one wants to be called a chump, but the working class white voter, in a democracy, can decide whether they want to wake up in the morning out of a job with cake crumbs on their lips -- or take the risk of working together with a national leader to create a retooled America.

The true elitists are the ones who want to make the decisions for us and divert us with insulting campaign promises of summer gas tax relief. (It doesn't have a chance of even being brought up in Congress and would take billions of dollars away from providing good paying jobs for repairing our nation's roads).

Will votes be cast in hope of a few crumbs and racial fears?

We'll see yet again on May 6.

If Ohio and Pennsylvania are any precedent, Clinton's elitist belief that only she can save America -- the ultimate elitism -- will triumph once again (at least in Indiana).

In the last few weeks, the Clinton campaign has started to do something well: out-fear the Republicans.

But what the working class needs is someone who offers hope and solutions for the future, with citizens working as partners with their elected officials.

We've had enough of lies, evasions, and people who think that they are the only ones with the right answers.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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