Welcome to your Tuesday open thread. Is it Tuesday already? The week passes fast when you’re having fun! Share what’s on your mind.
John Cole called this “A Modern Parable:”
A unionized public employee, a teabagger, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, then looks at the teabagger and says “Watch out for that union guy—he wants a piece of your cookie!”
Republicans may be lousy at math but they really do understand human nature. For many years they’ve successfully deployed the politics of resentment. Pitting middle class public workers against other middle class workers (like in Wisconsin) is a classic example. We are all supposed to be resentful and not rest until union benefits are as crummy as ours.
So that’s where we are. A first lady campaigning against obesity and in favor of breast feeding is now the target of all-out war from the right. I imagine that if she were taking on illiteracy, teenage drug use, or planting flowers, the Republican Party would suddenly find itself opposed to reading, defending Mexican drug cartels, and in favor of vacant lots. And yet we’re supposed to take these people seriously.
It’s sad what Obama derangement syndrome will do to your mind. I think it would be fun if Obama would start doing some reverse psychology on them – like saying he wants to cut taxes on the rich only – to see if the ODS sufferers come out against tax cuts for the rich.