New York Times Asks Is Limbaugh's America Gone? Liberals Reply Yes, Time for 'Growing Class Warfare'
In a piece for The New York Times “Campaign Stops” blog, liberal political writer Thomas Edsall asked “Is Rush Limbaugh’s Country Gone?” In other words, is Rush right in his post-election analysis that America is in danger of its producers being outnumbered and outvoted by the government dependents? Did we just prove the old George Bernard Shaw aphorism that “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul”?
Leftists enthusiastically answer in the affirmative. Edsall quoted Robert Borosage in a fit of glee: “In our Gilded Age of extreme inequality, with a middle class that increasingly understands the rules are rigged against them, this was the first election in what is likely to be an era of growing class warfare.”
Borosage was convinced that somehow the election results were a repudiation of “the revolt of the rich,” and “Middle class populism triumphed....Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin won by standing clearly with working people against the money interests.”
It makes a conservative want to make a poster with President Obama attending his fundraiser in September at gangsta-rapper Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan – the nightclub that features a champagne tower of 350 bottles of $300-a-bottle Armand de Brignac Brut Gold, worth $105,000. Put Obama and Jay-Z in front of that spectacle with the slogan “Middle-class populism standing clearly with working people against the money interests.” But no one from Mother Jones went begging for secret recordings of this event.
Obama wants to drive a post-election deal that steamrollers the congressional Republicans, pretending the voters have given a mandate that it’s Class Warfare Time. Never mind the fact that House Republicans were also returned to their majority. He can count on a media elite of multi-millionaires who conceive of themselves as today’s Franklin Roosevelts, “traitors to their class,” as if “middle-class populism” is exactly what defines snooty liberal stars like Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams, and Anderson (Vanderbilt) Cooper. Liberals know they can try to build a mass movement for redistribution of the wealth with the cheerleading of every Occupy Wall Street ogler in the media mob.
Edsall essentially admitted the “objective” media are an ally of the Left: “Much of the focus in the media in recent years has been on the growing hard-line stance of the Republican Party. At the same time, there are significant developments taking place as a new left alliance forms to underpin the Democratic Party.”
Our media spent the last two years raging against the “hard-line stance” of the Tea Party demanding no increase in tax rates. That sales job was so impressive that the Pew Research Center is touting their finding that 53 percent of respondents are prematurely prepared to blame the Republicans if there is no agreement on the “fiscal cliff,” compared to only 27 percent who would blame Obama.
This might be because the network anchors can’t even acknowledge the Democrats have a no-compromise crowd of their own. Obama met last week with “progressive” and labor groups who are just as staunchly opposed to any deal restricting or changing the spending or eligibility requirement on the current menu of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid programs. ABC, CBS, and NBC didn’t even report the meeting occurred on their TV “news” shows.
On one network – NPR – the Left sent its message. SEIU president Mary Kay Henry plainly spoke of no surrender: “I think compromise is important in a situation when everybody has enough food to eat, where people can make ends meet by working one job, and that's just not the situation for the majority of Americans.”
NPR anchor Audie Cornish was a little surprised: “what are you prepared to give on?” Henry suggested nothing: “I have to tell you, Audie, it makes no sense to me to have that conversation in an environment where it is not clear that we can break the logjam on the question of the wealthiest paying their fair share. And that is the beginning of understanding whether there's an agreement can be reached. And that's why I'm unwilling to acknowledge what you are asking me to do in terms of compromising on spending cuts.”
Henry told The New York Times “we're hoping that the extreme right wing in the Congress is willing to listen to the mandate of the people and work with the president to have the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.”
Like a good liberal journalist, Edsall employed the usual logic that “the rising American electorate represents a direct threat to the striking array of government benefits for the affluent that the conservative movement has won over the past 40 years.” Edsall and The New York Times define “government benefits for the affluent” as tax cuts for the rich. Taxpayers never earn their own money, they “never built that.” All money is issued by Washington.
Edsall is defining the battle line liberals would like to draw. They’d like to erase every tax reduction Ronald Reagan ever won, and go back to the economic-growth glory days of the Stagflation Seventies. The class warfare is back, and our media are pretending to have trouble locating the battlefront.
