As Ernst lauds virtues of plastic bags...

[DirkGently]

16. More empty Republican identity politics.

While living a certain way or being in a certain group may grant a useful perspective, Republicans / American conservatives try to substitute identity for ideas all the time.

It's what people do that matters, not who they are or where they come from. Being poor is no guarantee of understanding what needs to be done about poverty, just as being a woman has not helped Ernst understand what's wrong with the "personhood for zygotes" law she supports.

Rather than show sympathy for the poor, or for women, or for people of color, they simply find "one of them" and put them in front of a microphone, so long as they're willing to say that the status quo is fine, fine, fine.

Ernst didn't talk about helping the poor. She didn't talk about solving the issue. She didn't even express sympathy or empathy. She just claimed ownership of it, to lend credence to whatever nonsense she was spouting -- I really couldn't even tell what she was blathering about through her horrendous, staring, blank-eyed tour bus cadence.

This is a person who called Obama a dictator, and claimed that the U.N. has a secret plan to kick Iowans off of their farms. Her claimed qualification for office was some kind of creepy joke about castrating hogs (so she will be able to "cut pork?&quot .

Republicans get creepier and creepier. This one is some kind of shiny sockpuppet with the same glittering sociopathy in her eyes Mitt Romney has.

She may have grown up poor (or not?) but she has a an entitled rich white man's grasp of the world.