Electoral Dismay

I am admitting to more than a little dismay regarding the characteristics of the electorate. Interestingly enough I have little problem with those who are disengaged. A dear friend is just so. The disengaged see the political negativity, the venality, and very little difference between the two parties, so I understand their desire to keep such at arm’s length.

The feeling of dismay I have is associated with the quality of thinking behind those who are engaged enough to have chosen a presidential candidate already. One candidate has changed his mind about everything and often changes his mind back and then back again. He clearly represents the interests of rich people and proffers policy suggestions that benefit the rich and disinherit the poor, the elderly, and the infirm. His policy suggestions are often illogical and can’t be challenged by facts as the response will always be “my policy will work and it will help” or “my policy will do X” with no details regarding the mechanism (where God is).

The other candidate may be accused of some incompetence, but every legislative initiative he has taken has been filibustered which means it can be blocked by a 40% vote in just one of the two houses of Congress, which is abuse of the majority by the minority if I have ever heard of it. The last two Congresses have set records for filibusters. This candidate has gotten some things done, even though opposition to anything getting done is immense (the most recent Congress has set an all-time record for getting the least done). This candidate seems sincerely concerned with the poor and less advantaged and seems to want to help. He also seems concerned regarding civil rights, except when it comes to the Patriot Act (sic).

Yet, the race is near a dead heat.

How is it that so many ordinary Americans are “for” the rich guy who has boldly stated that he will reduce rich peoples taxes a great deal more than poor peoples’ or the middle class’s. His 20% “across the board” income tax reduction should pay the rich handsomely. The bottom 47% who pay no income tax because they do not make enough money? Let’s see a 20% discount of $0.00 is exactly $0.00. Twenty percent of the approximately $3 million dollars the candidate paid in taxes in 2010, would be a net gain of roughly $600,000. Oh, and he wants capital gains taxes done away with. Let’s see the poor and middle class pay roughly, uh, nothing in capital gains taxes. The candidate pays almost all of his taxes based on capital gains, so his tax rate stands to drop from the 11-14% of the last two years to approximately 0%, a saving for the candidate of roughly $3,000,000 a year. Oh, and the candidate doesn’t want to produce his tax records from previous years so that Americans can see how much he stands to gain personally from his own policies. (Nyah, nyah, nyah.)

And ordinary Americans are lining up saying, “Yeah, give me some of those policies. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, that’s what this country is about!”

I can feel nothing but dismay.