Remember "What's The Matter With Kansas?" That was liberal native Kansan Thomas Frank's extended kvetch over the refusal of average Jayhawkers to engage in class warfare by supporting soak-the-rich policies.
The same mindset was on display on Morning Joe today. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein asserted that the failure of many less-than-rich Americans to support tax increases on the rich amounts to voting "against their own self interest." View video after the jump . . . including the amusing moment when Stein sulks about getting interrrupted by Scarborough.
Stunning how Stein doesn't seem to understand something that those average folks he's so frustrated with do: that taking more money from entrepreneurs and sending it to Washington will hurt, not help, prospects for all Americans. And don't miss the moment half-way through the clip where Stein sulks over being interrupted by Scarborough.
SAM STEIN: From 2009 to 2011, corporate profits went up I think 46% roughly. Meanwhile, during the same period employee compensation went up about 5.7% So the actual disparity of wealth is growing, and it's not a political issue in the slightest. And it's remarkable that --
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Hold on, hold on --
STEIN [visibly irritated by Scarborough's interruption]: It is your show.
. . .
STEIN: When you have a concentration of wealth, by logic you would think that people at the bottom, which constitute the majority, would be very outraged by it. And a lot of times you have people who vote against their own self interest. And I think that's what really galling for a lot of Democrats who look at the situation and say, how can we have a president who hasn't made or prosecuted the case that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy need to be done with? I mean, that is what is driving a lot of the angst of the progressive base.
