Supporting the Elite Instead of Ourselves
Working people supported DJT as a protest vote.
They wanted someone in office who would fight for them, not the elite!
Yet the elite are still running things.
Take taxes. Most of us will get a tiny tax break but the rich get a huge tax cut…
…paid for with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, living wages…
Meanwhile the Republican healthcare plan was really a plan to cut taxes on the rich…
…paid for with healthcare cuts to the rest of us. And hurting Trump voters most of all!
West Virginia had the highest support for DJT of any state, and 1/3 of West Virginians benefitted from the Medicaid expansion — which would be cut to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
What happened?
***
The elite run government while Trump makes America great
Since Trump is bored by policy he probably offered Mike Pence the same deal made to John Kasich to entice him to the vice presidency:
Gov Pence, you will be in charge of domestic and foreign policy!
And what would Trump be doing? Why, making America great again. Doing rallies and symbolic gestures like saving a few jobs for workers here and there.
Pence was Charles Koch’s #1 choice for President in 2012. And Charles Koch is one of the wealthiest men in the world. He and his brother David have bought the Republican party and they seek to get rid of things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit…
The Kochtopus: Support the elite over yourselves
In fact, the Koch brothers have established a regular “Kochtopus” that richly supports candidates they like, threatens candidates they don’t like, and that supports think tanks that feed “news” to Rush Limbaugh and FOXNews, encouraging working people to support the elite instead of themselves.
The Kochtopus
(E.g., they pay Rush Limbaugh’s syndicate $2 million to bash the Affordable Care Act and deny climate science… The Koch brothers make their money from oil. But we will suffer more — and harsher — hurricanes and tornadoes, coastal flooding, cold winters, hot summers, fires and drought in the West — for which we need to build dams and desalination plants or truck water in…)
Anyway, once Pence got on board the Kochs may have feigned lack of support for DJT — just to bolster working-class support for Trump — but David Koch was at the victory party in November.
Trump’s choices are the elite’s choices
As the transition started up you could see that Trump’s choices were Koch’s choices:
They got rid of the EPA, they’re trying to get rid of the Department of Energy and they deny climate science.
They also seek tax breaks for the rich paid for by cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and sundry other things that help working people.
And no Wall St regulations! Main Street will bail out Wall St again!
Ironic since the Kochtopus is actually why middle-class Republicans rebelled and voted Trump: The Republican party had stopped listening to their constituents.
Republican elite vs Republican voters
Now Republicans are having a hard time passing legislation on healthcare and taxes because their constituents are at odds with the funders (Koch and Co.)
A lot still slips in. Here’s what has passed so far:
- Wall Street deregulation that will leave Main Street holding the bag
- Dismantle environmental protections — leaving the rest of us with poor health and the effects of climate change
- A Supreme Court nominee who will likely vote with other conservative appointees to protect big money in politics — which puts a mute button on the rest of us
Heaven help us!
Related Posts
- No Longer Blinded by the Right
- Vote to Help the Rich, Hurt Yourself
- Big Money Drowns Out Citizen Speech
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Posted on August 24, 2017, in politics/class inequality and tagged Big money in politics, Koch brothers, Kochtopus, Republican elite, Republican health care plan, Trump tax plan. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
BroadBlogs 
If they Democrats really wanted to do all that stuff, they could have when they had the house, senate and white house all at once at the beginning of the Obama administration. They didn’t.
Neither party cares in the least about the lower and middle class, other than getting their votes. The Dems rigged the primary election to give the nomination to Hillary, and ignore the voters that wanted Bernie.
You might want to look into how George Soros got all his money… shorting stuff in the financial markets that hurt the small people…
They’re all rat bastards…
I meet with both Dems and GOP on economic issues and Dems support strengthening unions (not busting them), a higher minimum wage, an Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, food stamps (75% go to children, elderly, disabled, working poor).
Look at their voting records!
We must get money out of politics — it’s legal bribery that helps corporate elite over us. Look at the Supreme Court: Republican appointees support big money in politics, Democratic nominees vote to get it out.
And Dems DID do something for working people during the first 2 years of Obama. (You can only focus on one big thing.) Many more people got insurance coverage and didn’t die. Some of my friends an family got it for the first time.
Think about this: nearly 40% of Americans pay NO income taxes. Nothing! Ziltch! Zippy!
And you would have me believe that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been really fantastic for average Americans?
Look at President Obama’s record. It really speaks for itself. Record # of Americans on food stamps. Cost of daily living such as food inflation at record levels (thanks to Green Energy and Ethanol subsidies), lowest labor force participation rate in 40 years, lowest home-ownership rate in 30 years, record number of Americans living in poverty (50% children).
All you Democrats do is talk a good game. But, HRC and Obama are elitist bastards too!!! You just want to take from the most productive members of society and give to the least productive. I say BS! You want to buy votes? Use your money and not mine!
I notice you always want to pick on WVA. Why is that? Is it because you also despise them? Because they have low education and voted for Trump? What is it with liberals and their disdain for ordinary Americans?
Look at how this fits the narrative of the wealthy who benefit from this line of reasoning (and who feed ideas to Rush Limbaugh and FOXNews):
Nearly 40% of Americans pay NO income taxes?
But they pay more than the wealthy in payroll tax and sales tax (the wealthy spend a higher proportion of their money on investments). Overall they have a higher tax rate.
Look at President Obama’s record:
Record # of Americans on food stamps? Lowest labor force participation rate in 40 years, lowest home-ownership rate in 30 years, record number of Americans living in poverty (50% children):
Wealthy elites deregulate Wall Street and gamble with our money. Then Main Street bailss them out — even as we lose our homes. Wealthy elites send jobs overseas and automate everything else so that workers lose their jobs. It’s a good thing we have food stamps.
Cost of daily living such as food inflation at record levels (thanks to Green Energy and Ethanol subsidies).
We need to get money out of politics — it’s legal bribery. Now look at the Supreme Court: Republican appointees support big money in politics, Democratic nominees vote to get it out.
All you Democrats want to take from the most productive members of society and give to the least productive.
Nope. We want workers to share in the profits they help to create. That means strengthening unions (not busting them), a higher minimum wage, an Earned Income Tax Credit. Without those things the wealthy elites take all of the profits for themselves and don’t share with the workers.
I notice you always want to pick on WVA. Why is that?
I’m not picking on West Virginia. I’m pointing out that Trump isn’t helping them. The only way he will help them is if they push him to — not if they support him regardless.
And then this part of your comment: “Is it because you also despise them? Because they have low education and voted for Trump?
How this fits the narrative of the wealthy elite: Don’t pull the curtain back (from what Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity feed them — talking points the elite pay them to say)… that would hurt the elite!
Why don’t you Trump voters push him to help the middle class instead of support him when he doesn’t on healthcare and taxes? I don’t get it.
I think movie scenes can be powerful because they can speak to us and reflect a truth to what has happened or is happening. The scary thing is this movie came out in the 1980s, early 1980s. And even then the truth about the “mirage of democracy” but actual plutocracy, and that was then and then you think now with things having moved even more toward that. The movie Wall Street, I actually just saw it, but god it’s kind of haunting seeing it and thinking of our times and the truth to it even more so nowadays. Very short clips, I wish I could find martin sheen’s scene that was good when he challenged gordon gekko, but I’m past the quote to it and Lou gave some interesting advice to, to Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen’s character).
Lou’s advice, while Charlie was wrapped up in the prestige, “high life” you know makes me think of that mike posner blog. I love the last quote by lou.
And this between Bud Fox and his father.
I wish I could find the clip, but the scene when gordon meets bud fox’s father and his father’s execs about investing in blue star. And this quote from Bud’s father, (Martin Sheen)
“Carl Fox: “There came into Egypt a Pharaoh who did not know.”
Gordon Gekko: I beg your pardon, is that a proverb?
Carl Fox: No, a prophecy. The rich have been doing it to the poor since the beginning of time. The only difference between the Pyramids and the Empire State Building is the Egyptians didn’t allow unions. I know what this guy is all about, greed. He don’t give a damn about Bluestar or the unions. He’s in and out for the buck and he don’t take prisoners.”
This just seems to relevant of our times and your post here so I thought I’d share. I’m sure you’ve seen the movie before right?
Oh yeah, that’s a really important movie. I saw it a few years ago and it really speaks a lot to how greed actually isn’t good.
There are some other movies that show how Wall Street greed hurts the rest of us:
Th Big Short:
Inside Job
The Warning
And everyone should really read Dark Money. I’m planning to blog on it from time to time
this happens every where Georgia….. its the elite ones who take the maximum benefit……
Yeah it does. 😦
The American Dream was one of democracy, but we have become a plutocracy: government by the wealthy.
And it will stay that way unless the American people see what is happening and start voting differently.