The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[Santander]

^odd definition of "high quality" there.

This is Tony we're talking about.

[Santander]

Economic anxiety.

[Santander]

A true Christmas miracle.

[Santander]

"Leprachauns"are real with dwarfism in the Human race

lol the green text

[Santander]

Short snappy posts are not what this thread is for. F**k off please.

If you have to scroll to get your point across in an Internet forum, you're either too lazy to edit your post for conciseness, or just engaging in self-indulgence. An Internet forum is not intended to be your personal newspaper column.

(not saying a one-liner qualifies as a "good" post, but still)

[Santander]

Lots of people here need to read Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter with Kansas?.  It actually gives some insight as to how the Democrats managed to actually lose their status as the party of the Working Class (an unthinkable thought in my youth). 

With the decline of the Political Bosses and Organized Labor, the Democratic Party has become, disproportionately, the party of Lawyers, especially Trial Lawyers.  Much of what is called "The Swamp" is actually a massive network of Law Firms and Lobbying Firms (often headed by lawyers) that are very much attuned to the special interests of their clients, while being incredibly disconnected from the broader swath of society.  The Republicans, on the other hand, have (at least until recently) very much been the "Business Party".  They're certainly the party of SMALL business, and they are (still) the favored party of Corporate America (so long as we're not talking about Trumppublicans). 

Whatever you want to say about "businesspeople", I would argue that entrepreneurs and corporate types, as a rule, have their finger on the pulse of the average citizen far more than the lawyer and consultant class do.  This doesn't mean that they're necessarily more altruistic, but their BUSINESS depends on knowing what people want, what they can afford, what they view themselves as "needing" versus "wanting", etc.  Small business owners are far more living "where the rubber meets the road" on any number of issues, and this constituency is an almost exclusively Republican constituency.  And the Small Business Owners that are elected to office are almost exclusively Republican in most places.  (This goes back to the New Deal when Big Business could afford to accomodate New Deal regulations that were burdensome on Small Business.) 

This makeup makes the GOP the party more attuned to the pulse of America.  Whether they use that to serve or manipulate is another matter.  But the GOP is FAR more aware of what the average American thinks these days, and it gives them an advantage, even when they advocate issue positions that the average person might not support if they looked at the issue.

That is a standard Fuzzy stupidpost.