The Republican Party's Big Tent

Read Tom Tomorrow.

This week's cartoon illustrates perfectly the fact that the so-called Republican coalition is nothing but a marketing strategy.

Tom Tomorrow gets it exactly right with his characterzation of the GOP's hostility toward non-white non-males. However, he misses one important component of the "Big Tent" big lie. That is the contempt the Republican power structure has for its electoral base, which is composed of tens of millions of working-class Americans who have been suckered into voting against their own interests.

The boldest, most successful fraud in American political history is the degree to which the GOP has convinced working families that they have more to gain than they have to lose in the Republican economic scheme.

Consider the spectacle of the popular outrage over the estate tax. This is a tax levied against inherited estates worth $2 million dollars or more. Yet, people struggling to support their families on a household income of $30 thousand a year became absolutely convinced that they had a stake in the debate over its repeal. How? The party started calling it the "death tax." It was that simple. These people, whom I call 30k Republicans, are now passionate foot soldiers in the war against a tax that neither they nor their heirs will ever pay. How can you respect somebody that gullible? You can pity them, certainly. You can exploit them, as the GOP has done. But, respect them? Not so much.

I belong to one of the groups that Republicans hate. Like most people, I would rather be loved than hated. However, I would much rather be hated than snickered at, and make no mistake, when GOP power-brokers get behind closed doors to talk about the poor rubes who vote for them year after year, they just laugh and laugh and laugh.