How does the GOP get away with the Ayn Rand, John Galt crap AND calling the LEFT cultural elitist?

[yurbud]

I saw a Roger Ebert review of ATLAS SHRUGGED and it occurred to me the GOP's open embrace of Ayn Rand's shtick should be repugnant to their base of lower middle class whites--or is their base so stupid that they fancy themselves John Galts when they are really the toilet paper the financial elite wipe their asses with?

[The Magistrate]

1. You Hit It In One, Sir: Their 'Base' All Think they are John Galt....

[quaker bill]

12. Concur!

[SpiralHawk]

15. Who is Donald Gallt?

[inademv]

2. Specifically because it is Orwellian

[white_wolf]

3. They do think they are John Galt.

I've even seen pictures of Tea-baggers holding signs saying "I am John Galt." I doubt any of them have read Atlas Shrugged though. If they had they would know the GOP's real feeling towards them: Parasites, not worthy even life. That is the message of Atlas Shrugged and the Gospel of Rand: Only the rich matter, the rest are parasites. What do they think happens at the end of Atlas Shrugged, the "producers" don't help build a new society, they destroy and leave the world to burn.

[leftstreet]

4. You call GOP base "lower middle class whites" and wonder why the left's "elitist?"

facepalm

Tell me you didn't really mean that

[The Magistrate]

5. Do You Consider the Description Inaccurate, Sir?

[leftstreet]

6. Yes

By and large, the descriptions of both party "bases" are media driven.

[The Magistrate]

7. Then What Would Your Description Be, Sir?

[leftstreet]

8. Working class people choosing between two parties with similar economic policies

Where the media are tasked with describing vast differences, which fall to social issues like abortion, religion, gay marriage, etc.

Witness the "tea party." There's no such thing. It's a media creation. They're just rebranding the same handful of racist, bigoted, bizarre people who've been around for decades.

[The Magistrate]

9. Working Class Is Certainly Proper Enough, Sir

'Middle class' as used in our present political discourse here is only a euphemism for 'worker with an income over the poverty line', since one of the great open secrets here is that labor and workers are despised in our culture and social arrangements.

Most of the people who vote for Republican candidates consistently would, however, describe themselves as 'middle class' or 'lower middle class', and describe the source of their travails in life as having to support 'poor people' with their 'hard-earned taxes'.

The most reliable indicators of Republican voting are racial (white), gender (male), religiousity (frequent church-goer, evangelical or 'born-again' protestant), residence (outside a city, in rural or semi-rural district, or outer suburb bed-room community).

[Hippo_Tron]

10. One doesn't need media spin to define a party base

All you need to do is look at a few exit polls to see that the people voting most reliably Republican are non-affluent and white. If you narrow it down to white evangelical Christians, they are even more reliably Republican. Likewise the people voting most reliably democratic are African American. Single women, young people, and a few other demographics are good predictors of being a solid Democrat. Y

What the polls can't tell you, though, is what the demographics that are reliable swing voters. And that's because there are none. That's where we get media creations like "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads".

[jmowreader]

11. The nascent John Galts also think they're going to be in the top tax bracket any minute now

If John Galt really existed and he did what he did in that book, his company's owners would exploit his invention while denouncing Galt in public.

I don't know how many of you suffered through that movie (there's an online review of it somewhere that has a comment following, "everyone who attended the movie liked it." I am certain they did, since the only people who are going to that thing are leftists who are out of syrup of ipecac, and teabaggers) but late in the movie there's a bridge they made from Rearden Metal. The bridge is a mile long with no center supports. This is a metaphor for Teabag Nation: the second that bridge is tested, it will collapse.

[SheilaT]

17. Bingo!

Most people have both no idea of the actual degree of income inequality in this country, and incorrectly believe that they themselves have a realistic chance of rising up to the top 10%, or maybe even the top 1%.

[quaker bill]

13. A few things

The bulk of the tea party types living around me are somewhat wealthier than I am. While I am by no means wealthy, my income is well above the median. I would not use the "lower middle class" brush to describe them, drop the "lower" part and you are probably near accurate.

What the fans of objectivism and nihlism miss is that while both discuss and favor a "superman" (ubermench) and trash social leveling / collectivism of any sort, the concept of the "superman" is restricted to very rare individuals. It is not the special olympics, everyone is not "super", the thousands get the privledge of serving the one. Those who do not serve are cast off as parasites.

It is a vision very much opposed to the "American Dream", a notion where anyone can in theory start from rags and through hard work and dedication end up with riches. Objectivism holds most are born as servants to the Galts and destined to stay there.

Both notions are fantasy. There is not enough room for everyone to be a Galt, and curiously if there were enough room, there would be nothing special about becoming one. If all are "super" then "super" has just become the new word for average.

We all like to think we are special in some way, and perhaps in some way we are. Statistics being what they are there are very good odds that despite our perceived differences, the vast bulk of us are average.

[Bucky]

14. Well, besides the shared tendency toward hypocricy, it's hard to be elite when you're stupid.

True Randians Objectivists don't actually practice what they preach. They pay their taxes, they accept the love-based largess of others when they hit hard times, when they prosper and hire other people they employ workers educated and trained by the state and their businesses profit by the social goods generated by the commonwealth like roads, police, safety & health regulations, national security, and the voluntary communal goodwill on which civilized society depends.

When you get right down to it, Objectivism isn't so much a philosophy as a parody of a philosophy, as it has no practical application. The only people who espouse it are either deluded by poor education or are the willing tools of capitalistic pirates who suck off the profits of a civilized community and give nothing back to benefit the community that allows them to thrive.

But that's just my opinion.

[madrchsod]

16. the majority of the people that buy this shit do not realize that...

ayn was a sociopath who based her writings on a psychopath.