What is it going to take for the Feds and States to realize "trickle down" is a big fucking scam?

[Liberal Veteran]

Our infrastructure is crumbling, people are being threatened with layoffs, services to the poor and needy are being cut, teachers are having to take wage cuts, pensions are being raided, rural hospitals and clinics are being cut, parks and services are being scaled back or shut down altogether, jobs are being outsourced, workers are given less wages and more furloughs, people are no longer able to retire due to the costs of living...

Meanwhile, corporations are reaping huge profits and paying very little into our coffers and speculators are making billions off making nothing at all and being given golden parachutes and enormous bonuses, and the stock market is soaring.

30 years of the same old shit and people still cling to this phony scam that if we just cut taxes and deregulate more, everything will magically correct itself.

It's insanity.

What is it going to take for people to wake up? A Soviet style collapse?

[hobbit709]

1. They know it

They keep repeating the lies because:
1. Some are scared shitless of what will happen when the people find out that they've been had.
2. Some have a vested interest in stealing us blind.
3. A few true believers think the world is coming to an end soon so it doesn't matter how much suffering
they cause now.

[KharmaTrain]

2. Ignorance Is Bliss...

Welcome to the ultimate game of divide and conquer. Pit your enemies against one another and watch them do your dirty work.

This country is based on greed and self-interest. Many of us knew "trickle down" was bullshit in the 80s but our society had become self-absorbed. We used to call the 80s the "all for me, screw you 80s". Many have grown up in a culture where one's worth is strictly based on income and thus those who made the money (no matter how they got it) were considered the "virtuous" while those who didn't have money just didn't cut it. Not rich? That was your fault...and if you kiss rushpublican ass maybe some of their money will rub off on them. It didn't trickle down, it dribbled...

Today we have a segment of our population that has fallen for the lies and false promises and still do...so much so they're willing to vote against their own intersts in hopes that those "above" will reward them with a couple of crumbs.

You ask what it will take? How about large lines for food and millions unemployed. As bad as things are, this country is still not feeling the pains of 30 years of rushpublican excesses abeted by "go-all get-along" democrats. Our political system is now geared strictly to those who write the big checks...the little guy only matters for the few weeks around election time...otherwise, you're on your own.

[JHB]

3. Some already know, but that's fine with them...

...for ideological and/or financial reasons (mostly "and"; they tend to go together).

For many of the rest, they're very heavily invested in The Way Things Are Right Now. Or as Upton Sinclair put it:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

[mmonk]

4. When they quit being paid to believe it.