Fanfare for the Common Man

Last Friday Cindy Borgne said:

There was someone who said the democrats come across as the party of the foreign man and the republicans are now coming across as the party of the common man. I forget where I read that, but it really sounds true. 

Just think, for the next 4 years this guy is POTUS

This irritates me because there is almost nothing in the Republican platform that benefits "the common man." Economically, they prefer cutting taxes for the rich with the excuse of "trickle-down economics" that has been proven time and again not to be effective.

Famous economist Paul Krugman reviewed Trump's "infrastructure plan" that's also being called a "jobs plan."  Guess what?  Yeah, it doesn't provide any real money for infrastructure or provide any "shovel-ready jobs" people bitched about with Obama's economic stimulus.  What does it actually do?  It gives tax breaks to private investors.  Again, trickle-down bullshit that if we give money to rich people they'll use it to help out us po' folks.  It sure as hell ain't the New Deal.  More like the Raw Deal if you're in the 99%.

The other day I was reading in Mother Jones about Pencecare in Indiana, something which could soon replace Obamacare.  It cut costs slightly, though not as much as just going straight-up Medicare did for poor people.  The only way it saved money was by being so costly and confusing that people dropped off it.  Hooray!

Republicans hate unions.  In states like Wisconsin as soon as a Republican governor takes over, he tries to dispose of public unions.  Why?  Because without unions it's easy to push teachers and other public workers around because they have no leverage.  So you can cut their wages and benefits to almost nothing and there ain't shit they can do about it.  Trump claimed credit for a Ford plant not moving to Mexico, but in reality it was because of union contracts.  I worked for a union for 13 years and while I hated much of the job, people, and city the perks were top-notch, especially compared to a non-union job like I have now.  Sure I'm glad just to have a job, but it was sure nice when I got Black Friday off, had an employer-contributed 401K, health/dental/vision insurance all paid entirely by the employer, and more vacation/sick days than I could use.  Yes there's corruption in unions and not all unions are that effective, but on the whole it's better than being on your own against management.  Unfortunately Republicans have been successful demonizing unions, especially in the south while membership even in Michigan is waning.

Recently Obama's executive order that made millions of people eligible for overtime was overruled.  An executive order was needed because of course the Republican Congress wouldn't support giving people overtime pay; that would be bad for Big Business!

Also in red states like Wisconsin they've passed ridiculous restrictions on welfare money.  They ruled out things welfare recipients can't use their money on.  Some like fast food make a little sense but then it gets into this whole long list of things as basic as ketchup.  Ketchup!  If you watched The Martian you know how essential ketchup is for some foods.  And remember this is the party that claims it wants "small government."  Ha ha ha.

About the only benefit for "the common man" is that Republicans hate brown people, any religion except Christianity (or non-religions like atheism), and any foreigner not worth a couple million.  But at least they aren't coming for your guns, right?  That'll be handy when you're broke and need to rob a liquor store to pay the rent.

Honestly, the problem here is that people just don't think.  If they actually considered any of the stuff I just said, they'd realized Republicans are not the party for them.