The Great Scammers

More and more evidence of the fundamental fact that Republicans have become a party that caters to certain voters, mostly white, generally male without college degrees and definitely ethnocentric.

Pretty much the same type of audience that is targeted by various groups such as white nationalists and the Klan, and which, at least for a short time and based on the electoral college can win the Presidency, if all falls out right.

However it is at best a tenuous majority so part of their strategy is to make that vote count extra and suppress by any means possible the votes of everyone else, at least where it matters.

This was a successful strategy in many cases as they were able to get control of many State governments and then gerrymander the congressional districts, pass restrictive voter rules and do everything they could to maintain power.

Sadly they don't use that power to help that group, they use it to help their rich donors and business owners who theoretically will create jobs for this group like they used to have.

They aren't, at least not to any great degree.

To be fair, the group we are talking about ere generally the primary builders of much of this country, not the people alive today so much as their ancestors.  In return they were able to live in a prosperous country with good jobs and good benefits.

It may not be a completely accurate picture, but companies and workers, especially as unions got strong, formed a sort of partnership. However, the workers represented a cost and s businesses became less patriarchal and more businesslike, that cost was viewed as a problem that needed to be reduced.

This led to the movement of work to non-union states and eventually to other countries, as well as outsourcing and automation.  The good paying low skill jobs effectively disappeared and with them went the union benefits.

The people doing this were the business owners, or more correctly corporate boards that became dominated by people with MBAs and no ties to the communities they operated in, outside of some needed public relations.

The blame for this, is it requires blame is purely on the decision makers in the business, but the blame was deflected fairly successfully to unions, liberals, immigrants, trade deals and the establishment in Washington who catered to the politically correct.

None of that was or is true, it was a matter of economics, not politics and most of the policies blamed were in fact inspired by those same businesses that used the Republican party to get them done.

The success of these policies hinged on what is best called deflection, you lost your manufacturing job, look at all those people crossing the border.  They, by the way weren't getting those jobs either.

What about those people disrespecting the flag, or trying to take your guns or making you be politically correct.  None of that had anything to do with the economy, and weren't generally even true.

It was and is one of the biggest cons ever and the fact that it worked as long as it has is a tribute to the dedicated scammers who pulled it off.

Pity though.