Bruce Thornton, a highly intelligent and eloquent writer is one hundred percent wrong in attributing the Republican election loss to the alleged fact that 47% of the country are now “takers” from government. If Thornton is right, how is it that Republicans were the minority party in 1960 and 1964, before Medicare and all the entitlements that followed the Great Society programs were in place? I say that 47% takers is an “alleged fact” because millions of veterans receive benefits that they made sacrifices for, and millions of older people receive medicare and social security assistance that they also paid for. Moreover, millions of Republican voters are among these so-called takers, and millions more have children who took government loans to get through college.
Asian Americans voted 70% for Obama. Because they are takers? These are entrepreneurial, traditional value, family oriented Americans. They have Republican values. They are welfare averse. Yet they voted for Obama because he persuaded them that he cared about minorities, and Republicans didn’t. That is they didn’t communicate to America’s minority populations that they cared for them. It’s always so easy to blame others for your own screw ups.
The 2012 campaign was all about message. Romney and the Republicans were tarred and feathered for imaginary crimes – wars against women (no free contraceptives), minorities and the middle class. The Democrats’ message machine blistered their opponents day in day out. Anyone remember a Republican attack ad? Republicans didn’t lay a finger on Obama and the Democrats for their wars against women, minorities and the middle class. They hardly mentioned the suffering of these groups under Obama’s policies. They didn’t dare raise the issue of his betrayal of all our soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq to keep it from falling into the hands of Iran. They were silent over his criminal betrayal of our embassy in Benghazi, and the fact that he has aided and abetted the Muslim Brotherhood in its conquest of the Middle East. That he is supplying weapons to Al-Qaeda.
There is a famous poem by Bertolt Brecht called The Solution about the revolts against the Soviet occupation of East Germany. It’s a sad day when Frontpage and a gifted writer like Bruce Thornton embrace this solution:
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
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