Class Warfare

Here is a very good post by Paul Krugman on his NY Times blog pointing out one of the tricks that the Republican right uses in the US to shut up its critics:

‘Class Warfare’

Aha. Paul Ryan is whining about people playing the class warfare card. That, folks, is the sound of desperation.

Actually, for the most part critics of his plan haven’t focused on the distributional issues so much as on the nonsense he’s talking; they’ve been playing the arithmetic card, not the class warfare card. But yes, the Ryan plan does impose huge sacrifice on the poor and the middle class, while cutting taxes on the rich and corporations.

And this is, of course, the game conservatives have played over and over again since Reagan. Without exception, their policy proposals call for sacrifice on the part of most people, but lavish tax cuts on high incomes — and when you point this out, they yell “class warfare”.

Again, the big problem with the Ryan plan isn’t the unfairness — although there’s plenty of that. It’s the fact that the plan is a fraud.

This "game" of crying class warfare is wearing thin. For 40 years the political right has promised "trickle down" while delivering nothing to the bottom 90% and lavishly rewarding the top 1%. I'm amazed at how long the lie can live. People are simply far more gullible than I would have ever thought possible.