Plutocrats against Democracy

Last Friday's Krugman:

So Mr. Leung is worried about the 50 percent of Hong Kong’s population that, he believes, would vote for bad policies because they don’t make enough money. This may sound like the 47 percent of Americans who Mitt Romney said would vote against him because they don’t pay income taxes and, therefore, don’t take responsibility for themselves, or the 60 percent that Representative Paul Ryan argued pose a danger because they are “takers,” getting more from the government than they pay in. Indeed, these are all basically the same thing.

For the political right has always been uncomfortable with democracy. No matter how well conservatives do in elections, no matter how thoroughly free-market ideology dominates discourse, there is always an undercurrent of fear that the great unwashed will vote in left-wingers who will tax the rich, hand out largess to the poor, and destroy the economy.

More here.

Krugman often nails it, but sometimes nails it much harder than other times. And today he's totally in the hammer zone: this is the great struggle of our era, the great political problem, the issue deciding whether we continue being a great nation or descend into third world banana republic status. This is what the NOW is about. I already know I'm on the right side of American history with this. Are you on the right side, the American side?

Or are you one of the dupes? One of the millions of suckers and tragic fools willing to sell out his vote and citizenship for a false sense of psychological well-being coming from sucking up to the wealthy and powerful? Better get it together before it's too late. History will cast you as a minor villain. Very minor. And dressed in a clown suit.

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