Tweet
The American people overwhelming perceive the Republican party as the party of the rich. According to a new Pew Research poll, 63 percent think the GOP favors the wealthy while just 23 percent think it favors the middle class, and almost no one thinks the party favors the poor. By comparison there is a more equal distribution regarding what income group people think the Democratic party favors. From Pew:
This perception is also consistent in the presidential race. The poll found 71 percent believe Romney policies would help the rich while only 37 percent think Obama’s policies would. 40 percent think Romney’s policies would help the middle class, while 50 percent think Obama’s policies would help the middle class. When it comes to the poor 60 percent think Obama’s policies will help people with low incomes while only 31 percent think Romney’s policy will help those the worst off.
What is remarkable is that even though there is such a huge gap in which income groups the parties favor, it does not seem to have dramatically impacted the election. Obama and Romney are basically tied, and in the generic congressional ballot polls Democrats and Republicans are also basically tied.
25 Comments
Matt Taibbi effectively described why GOP voters – who know that their party favors the rich at their expense – continue to vote for them anyway several years ago in an article titled “The peasant mentality lives on in America“:
It matters not which party the voters identify as ‘representing the rich’ if few identify with the poor:
That’s Edelman’s take on this.
p.s. – Taibii wasn’t the first to make this observation:
- “Working Class Hero”, John Lennon
The “perceived” huge “gap”, Jon, the one that myth inculcates … honest evidence MUST suggest otherwise.
So, the “horse-race” requires a specific “ignorance”, a superficial “understanding”, rather than an engaged awareness …
Were there increasing time and space given to permitting voices beyond the legacy parties to be heard, how might that change the dynamics?
You are not, for example, claiming that the Republicans favor the wealthy and the Democrats do not, are you, Jon?
You are “reporting” what “people” claim to, or are said to … “believe”, is that not correct?
The media, the “fourth estate”, as it was once quaintly known, is PART of the political class and enforces the perceived “truths” of the Kabuki.
For anyone to claim that the Democrats actually favor and “work” for the interests of the middle class or the poor, is absurd and indefensible nonsense, it is blatant propaganda.
DW
Most Americans who have allowed themselves to become nothing more than idiots identify with the Republicans because they have been led to believe they are only 1 lottery ticket or one lucky pull on a one armed bandit away from becoming wealthy beyond their wildest imagination and therefore “secure” and in no need of “government interference.”
Very well stated. Personally, I find Walker’s post shallow at best.
“What is remarkable is that even though there is such a huge gap in which income groups the parties favor, it does not seem to have dramatically impacted the election.”
That is what the TV is for.
What is remarkable to me is that so many people think Democrats favor the middle class and especially the poor. By what evidence exactly? Well . . . again that’s what the TV is for.
There was a time when the Democratic party favored the middle class. It was a time when the Democrats’ main special interest was organized labor and the unions were much more powerful than they are today. Now both parties favor the rich, but the Republicans are more extreme and obvious about it.
Great, succinct summation from Taibbi (and Lennon). In a word: Authoritarianism. From God to the President to the local cop, the dynamic is the same.
Polls are part of the same MSM propaganda machine that makes the result possible. Stupid is what stupid does. Do previous polls influence the results of subsequent polls? That’s why there are so many polls; not to inform but direct thought.
All this poll seems to highlight, IMO, is that, at this time, people have a gi-normous mis-understanding about who so-called “Democrats” represent.
If this poll is even accurate in representing what some smallish sample of the US populace “believes,” then it’s correct about who the so-called “Republicans” represent (aka, the 1%). But citizens are utterly mis-informed or deliberately in denial about who the so-called “Democrats” represent (aka the same 1% represented by the GOP).
Of course, good little authoritarians, one & all, most US citizens reflexively continue to vote the way they always did… just because… where’s the clicker?????
Exactly, the 32% who label the D’s the party of the poor must have been R’s indicating their opinion as they boarded their Gulfstream Jets.
And of course there are a lot of Americans who are under the delusion that someday they will be rich and firmly believe that it is the government that is preventing this.
Comrade DW. Take a gander at this table from the Pew poll. It would appear that Amerikan partisans have different strategies for denying their party are of elite lackeys. The Demonkeys claim Repugnants only work for the rich. The Repugnants claim the Demonkeys work for the poor.
It is in fact the Demonkeys who define the enormous gap in elite affinity between the two parties.
To each his own delusion, eh comrade?
Very discouraging that a majority of people don’t recognize the Democratic Party as also serving the rich. Nothing short of startling that the percentage of people who believe the Republicans are the party of the rich isn’t at least in the low 90′s…
The Gawd bullshit has much to do with this. The Gawdly are willing to sacrifice the ungawdly first. The Gawdly are willing to pay too, put only after the ungawdly do.
His will be done. Gak!
They do, comrade. But those same Demorats put their mobsters at 6% elite affinity. I think they’ve run out of ways to lie with these particular statistics …
Thank you, Ludwig. To the degree that polls MEAN anything, the table you link to is … most interesting.
Jon should have included that table as well, in the interest of further clarity and, possibly, understanding.
Delusions R Us …
DW
The most important thing now is to avoid a nuclear holocaust brought on by right-wing paranoia. On that score it’s a toss-up. The Dems are less likely to pull the trigger, but they are congenitally so craven they might just do it. The Thugs are paranoids, but maybe if they had full power they’d be content with only screwing us and not the rest of the world. As I said, it’s a coin toss.
If we can’t have it, nobody will …
Lots of “Democrats” infest this Insane Empire.
“Americans” for the most part are more ignorant than a bag of sand.
The fact that both Obama and Romney have a good shot at getting more than 45% of the popular vote says that public awareness of the problem is not what it needs to be. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if 2012 saw the biggest ever drop in voter turnout between presidential elections so it’s not unlikely that the powers that be are rapidly losing control of the narrative.
As long as the democrats give republicans 98 percent of whatever they want, there’s not much to be excited about. I hope enough Americans see the need for a third party someday very soon, or even a new system entirely.
I think the Republicans are more likely to brazenly joke about using them but to be fair, the Democrats are the only ones who have ever actually done so: President Harry S. Truman’s nuclear assault on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I have a ton of acquaintances that think that THEY will become part of the rich. The result is that they do not want too much regulation, too much taxation, too much government interference in their transition to the “RICH.”
I laugh and am appalled. They continue to bet against their best economic ideals in hopes of someday striking it rich some day. Most believe that they will find a solution one day that solves all of their problems while gutting everything that they need to find that solution.