Hillbilly Voters

Despite the intense degree of acrimony that was shared between us supporters of President-Elect Obama, and some of the more virulent supporters of Sen. McCain, I feel compelled to extend an olive branch of sorts, and provide you with this information. It is now being revealed that a McCain aide characterized the Palin family as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast."

If you voted Republican because you identified with Sarah Palin and felt that the GOP represented you and those who are like you, the term, "Wasilla hillbillies" should really disturb you. You identified with Gov. Palin and felt that she was like you so that means that the Republican Party leadership thinks that you are a "Hillbilly" and they mean that in the least flattering way possible. I have always believed that the Republican Party has two major constituencies, the very wealthy and those who are very poor and angry. I believe that they serve the wealthy with legislation that protects their wealth. They serve the very poor and angry mostly with sympathetic rhetoric, occasional legislation that placates some burning cultural itch (gay marriage, for example). What they will never do however is to legislate an issue to the benefit of those who are very poor and angry and to the detriment of the very wealthy. The poor and angry are there merely to provide the voting numbers to keep the party in power.

I offer the example of immigration. Regardless of what your politics are, the undeniable reality is that undocumented workers come to the United States because they can find work here. If the Republicans really wanted to stop the flow of such people into the United States, they could certainly have come down hard on employers who hired them. But that was the one thing that they never did until about a year before the election rolled around, and even then the raids conducted against such employers were very few, but very high profile. In many cases, the press was there to document the raids as they happened. Now how do you suppose the press knew when and where those raids were going to happen? Were they just lucky? If you believe that, I have a bridge that you might be interested in purchasing. The reality is that undocumented workers offer an endless source of cheap labor for wealthy business owners while keeping the wages of the poor, hard working citizens of the country depressed. If over the last eight years, the administration had cracked down on the companies that hire undocumented workers, there would be markedly fewer of these undocumented workers and wages for these lower paying jobs would have gone up in accordance with the laws of supply and demand. Life for the very poor and angry would have improved as wages for those low paying jobs rose and more of those jobs would have become available. Wealthy business owners however, would have lost money to higher wages. The clever path that the Bush Administration took was to get tougher on the actual undocumented workers knowing full well that this would not stem the tide of these workers, but would give the appearance of being an administration that took action. So why didn't the Bush Administration crack down on companies who hired undocumented workers? Because you are not their top priority. You are there to keep them in power and nothing more. They know that by appearing to share your anger (in many cases, I'm sure they actually do share your anger) they can keep your votes, but do not be fooled into believing that they will ever put your interests first. As a matter of fact, during this most recent election, they actually convinced you that you should rally to defend the tax cuts for the wealthiest 4% to 6% of Americans. They told you that without those tax cuts jobs would be lost. Tell me this, how well have we managed to increase or even keep jobs over the last eight years with those tax cuts? Yet even as more and more jobs are hemorrhaged, and your pensions plummet further and more and more of you lose your homes, you continue to defend them.

I know that you and I were at odds through this entire election, but I truly offer this essay out of concern. Pay close attention to your interests and ask yourselves if your party is really, genuinely protecting those interests. I wish you peace.