the Republican lie

I'm reading an excellent book called Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War, by Joe Bageant. Mr. Bageant has returned to his small hometown in Virginia after many years and uses it as a back drop for a discussion about the sad state of affairs for this country's tens of millions of poor laborers (mostly white, uneducated). Most interestingly, he discusses how the Republican party has so successfully deceived this part of the population into believing that the GOP is the party for them, despite the reality that it is the party least likely to fight for their well-being. They've pulled this off by feeding on the fear and ignorance of these people, telling them that the Dems are going to give away their jobs to Mexicans, that the Dems want to destroy religion, that the Dems want to take away their guns, that the Dems are Commies, etc. The list goes on and on.

I've always been so frustrated by this, by how poor whites vote against their interests. I'm not under the illusion that the Democrats would sweep in and take care of all these people's problems, but I don' t think there is any question that the Dems are the ones most likely to fight for bettering these folks' lives through better education, social programs, support of labor, and more. The problem seems to be that the Dems gave up on this portion of the population, concluding that they were already lost, and so, especially during the Clinton era, became more the party of the liberal elite, the intellectual, Volvo-driving environmentalists. (Which in turn only turned these people away even more) WHat the Dems need to do, and what it seems that they are finally doing under the Obama campaign, is re-engaging the poor rural whites, sitting down with them and explaining why they and not the GOP understand their pain and will fight for them. If Obama wins, this will be a why, a return to a Democratic party that truly fights for all people. There may yet be some hope for this crumbling nation...