Racist Batshit Republicans

(I am not sure this link will work, because of "Times Select",) Paul Krugman makes an argument in today's paper that one of the problems that the Republicans face today is that their base is, in essence, made up of white racists. The Republicans decided to appeal to the racist right because the core message of the Republican party, which can be summed up as "hooray for the rich and fuck the rest of you," wasn't selling so well.

While I agree with Krugman's point (like you expected otherwise), I think that the other message of the Republican party should be examined. The Republican party seeks to turn back the clock to the 1890s by getting rid of the following:

1. Wage and hour laws. They not only want to get rid of the minimum wage, they want to get rid of all overtime rules.

2. Employment discrimination laws. If you're a minority or a woman and the white guy doing the same job is being paid a lot more, then too bad, so sad, hard cheese.

3. Pure food and drug laws. You want safe food, pay more.

4. Safe drinking water regulations. If you don't want to drink or bathe in the in the hot and cold running sludge coming out of the tap, buy bottled water.

5. Pollution control laws. If you have enough money, you can afford not to live next to that smelly factory. This, by the way, was how it really worked. The upscale neighborhoods in Akron, Ohio were on the west side, which were upwind of the tire factories.

6. Automotive safety regulations. Forget the fact that if we now had cars as safe as we had in 1964 and, given the much higher amount of miles driven each year, that we'd be killing about 150,000 a year in accidents. You want a safe car, buy one from Volvo.

7. Education regulations. If your child is learning disabled, the Republicans are all for warehousing the kid until he or she is old enough to swamp floors in a whorehouse. And if your local schools are piss-poor with more than fifty kids in each classroom and if you can't afford to send your prize rugrat to Andover, then get richer.

8. Product safety laws. According to Republicans, it's not the government's concern if your baby's nightgown catches on fire or if kiddie toys are painted with lead paint or if the kitchen implement you are using has a propensity to electrocute its users. You want a safe product, buy a more expensive model.

And let's not forget that Republicans want to get rid of all taxes that rich people pay. Republicans, at their core, are fine with sales taxes and taxes on wages, because those are taxes that working people pay. They are not in favor of taxes on investment income, gift taxes or estate taxes, for those are taxes that primarily the rich pay.

If you needed to put all of the above on a bumpersticker so that Chimpy could read it, it would be:

GOP, the Party of White Greedy Racists