Andre Bauer, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor and candidate for governor, recently compared people who receive public assistance to “stray animals” who “don’t know any better”. It must be primary season, when Republicans of all stripes do their best to one-up each other to score points with a base who has nothing but scorn for government and the people who use the social services government provides (never mind that we all use government services to some extent). We’ll almost certainly see more of this kind of mocking disparagement of the poor and marginalized from conservatives in the coming months; it’s a predictable and depressingly effective campaign tactic.
As Obama reconstitutes his political operation in preparations for the midterm elections, his team should develop strategies for calling out candidates who engage in such cynical demagoguery and unapologetically label it as hateful and unAmerican. This rhetoric can’t be politely dismissed as a difference of opinion. One of the Democrats’ biggest problems is that they distance themselves from the people they claim to represent. It might dawn on them that such aloofness doesn’t inspire voter allegiance.
