For several years, I’ve been writing about Bushenfreude, the phenomenon of angry yuppies—who’ve hugely benefited from President Bush’s tax cuts—funding angry, populist Democratic campaigns. I’ve theorized that people who work in financial services and related fields have become so outraged and alienated by the incompetence, crass social conservatism, and repeated insults to the nation’s intelligence, of the Bush-era Republican Party, that they’re voting with their hearts and heads instead of their wallets.
[…]If the exit polls are to be believed, those making $200,000 or more (6 percent of the electorate) voted for Obama 52-46, while McCain won the merely well-off ($100,000 to $150,000 by a 51-48 margin and $150,000 to $200,000 by a 50-48 margin).
Right-wingers tend to dismiss such numbers as the voting behavior of trust funders or gazillionaires—people who have so much money that they just don’t care about taxes. That may explain a portion of Bushenfreude. But there just aren’t that many trust funders out there. Rather, it’s clear that the nation’s mass affluent—Steve the lawyer, Colby the financial services executive, Ari the highly paid media big shot—are trending Democratic, especially on the coasts. Indeed, Bushenfreude is not necessarily a nationwide phenomenon. As Andrew Gelman notes in the book “Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State,” the rich in poor states are likely to stick with the Republicans.
But in the ground zero of Bushenfreude, Fairfield County, Conn., it was practically an epidemic last week.
And many, many looked at McCain and saw W.
People with money know that money doesn’t buy you power. Money is power. Campaigning for prezi doesn’t come cheap, candidates take money from everyone they legally can without regard for the political views of the contributor. In this way they end up aquiring commitments with certain ‘interest groups’ who later through lobbyists remind the candidates of their points of view by making more contributions, gifts, throwing lavish parties, etc.. People with money know that they will always be favoured because they have the power.
Maybe, just maybe, people voted for Obama because they saw he was the better candidate.
I estimate that 2/3 or more voted for their candidate simply because of party affiliation. Dick Cheney would still have gotten the base Republican vote as would Jesse Jackson the Democrat vote. The question is why did the other people “think” this time around.
Capable leader = strong country = general prosperity = an opportunity to earn more. To me, it is well worth few extra tax rate points. Personally, I don’t see voting for Obama as counter-productive. Extra taxes that I am to pay will be off-set by more earning opps. And this is just the tangible side of it.
Why is it not in the interest of the rich, who protect their wealth through tax shelters, to raise taxes on the middle class to prevent them from joining their club?
No doubt also that those in financial services want to see more taxpayer money funneled to them in the form of bailouts. Obama so far looks like he’s going to dole it out more freely given that his advisors are the original architects of deregulation (Summers, Rubin, etc.).
Yeah, 10 trillion dollars says there is no such thing as a tax cut, and taxes find their own level as with everything else in a free market. Yeah, Bush temporarily cut taxes. We will all still pay those same taxes, either in future tax revenues, or in opportunity cost.
The real question is, what was the money spent on? Do you have something to show for all those monies sent to the government? Well, we got a few more years out of the petrol economy for the tax dollars we sent to DC for last decade (and next).
Now you have to pay those taxes back in inflation, and the subsequent reduced opportunity. Seems like it would have been better to pay a little bit more in taxes which are predictable, rather than the uneven and unpredictable circumstances that inflation will cause.
If you have wealth, you are against inflation, for the same reason that inflation reduces debt… Inflation makes it smaller.
this makes perfect sense.
neo-con financial policy erodes the middle class on two fronts:
1.) by allowing a small portion of the population to become super-rich, driving the price of necessities faster than the rest of the population’s wages increase, reducing their purchasing power.
2.) by foisting an “every man for himself” ethos on the marketplace encourages greed and greed leads to thievery and cheating, and who gets screwed when banks crap out? the middle class.
four more years of neo-con meets trickle-down would mean that more middle class people start joining the ranks of the poor, unable to make a decent living.
we have to move forward as one. sustainability is key.
p.s. i have seen lots of beemers and caddies with obama stickers.
“Richie Rich Voted For Obama — Voting Against His Own Interests?”
Not really. 75% of US company CEOs supported McCain, not Obama.
For years I’ve seen the less-well-off vote against their interests and let past administrations unravel the social safety net the working class depend on. The “I’ve got mine now f-you” attitude that came in with “supply side” economics has reached its end, and we have to learn the lesson that bombed-out Europe and Asia learned after WWII: we’re all in this together. Joe the Plumber seemed to sum up the whole story in one individual: he was by no means in the richest segment of society, and will probably never be in the upper class, but is willing to support “f-you” policies because his dream is to be in that class someday. Supply-side, like many economic systems, looks good on paper but fall apart when labor is not longer the primary means to generate wealth.
As Mencken said: “For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong.” And people have finally learned that “cut taxes” and “make government impotent” are simple, neat, and wrong.
Traveling overseas, I’ve lived in pockets of wealth surrounded by poverty. It is a life in a gilded cage, and I for one don’t want to see our great country be reduced to that. So for the better off to pay the rate they have in the past to raise all the boats is not a bad thing. (And if a rich person can’t hire a good attorney to shelter or defer much of their income they’re not smart enough to have all that money anyway.)
#9 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>Not really. 75% of US company CEOs supported
>>McCain, not Obama
Is it any wonder? CEOs who voiced support for Obama were subjected to disciplinary action, up to and including termination:
http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=2315
The current crash is, inarguably, the direct result of right-wing deregulation and a right-wing investment strategy that’s all about short-term “turnover” profits instead of long-term investments in real products and services.
How on earth is the Republican crash in *anybody’s* interest, rich or poor?
# 11 Mister Mustard said, “Is it any wonder? CEOs who voiced support for Obama were subjected to disciplinary action, up to and including termination:”
If a CEO of a Car company supported a person who wanted to ban cars, I would expect the Board to cashier him.
The stat I’m referring to was a poll where names weren’t disclosed. So, nice non point.
#13 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>If a CEO of a Car company supported a person who
>>wanted to ban cars, I would expect the Board to
>>cashier him.
Obama doesn’t want to “ban guns”.
Nice irrelevant point.
paddy, come on now.
simply cutting taxes and reducing government is not a complete solution.
sounds great, but there’s more to it than that.
we need a leader who can understand the larger picture and we got one on the way.
i just hope that when obama cleans up this bush’s mess the way clinton cleaned up the last bush’s mess that the democrats can put forth a better candidate than al gore or john kerry (obviously an easy feat, but democrats are notorious for picking overly wonky boneheads.)
#10
That sounds very much like Johnson’s flawed idea of the great race. “All of us are in this together” is very much akin to “all of us end the race at the same time.” The only way to do that is to drag down the faster runners so that the slower ones can catch up and no one ends up succeeding.
> And people have finally
> learned that “cut taxes”
> and “make government
> impotent” are simple,
> neat, and wrong.
History has taught us the lessons of giving too much power to a central government; they turn into tyrannies. Are we really doomed to repeat those mistakes? The Founding Fathers designed a decentralized government with separation of powers intentionally. They feared a power central government.
Generally, you shouldn’t be worried about the person that accumulates new power to their position in the government. You should be worried about the couple of people. The person that accumulates new powers will always be under scrutiny to use those powers wisely. People eventually get lulled into a sense of security about the use of those powers until the next person comes along.
#16
Errata:
“They feared a powerful central government”
“You should be worried about the next couple of people.”
#12 – “The current crash is, inarguably, the direct result of right-wing deregulation and a right-wing investment strategy that’s all about short-term “turnover” profits instead of long-term investments in real products and services.”
That’s an odd statement since the current, Republican administration (blamed for everything since the Crucifixion) spent years trying to regulate the excesses and lending stupidity mandated by Democrats. Bush was shut down by Barney Frank who, “… didn’t see a problem.”
#15 – “i just hope that when obama cleans up this bush’s mess the way clinton cleaned up the last bush’s mess …”
That would be the Republican Congress of 1994 which cleaned up the mess of 70’s era stupidity by Carter and Nixon, as well as Bush I’s stupid tax increase.
Fundamentally, the most amazing thing reading all this is that so many people have swallowed the Kool Aid that government is better at running a society than letting people run their own lives. When big government has failed everywhere it has been tried, and is being pulled back in all those lovely EU countries so many love, all these people seem to want to go to the DMV for their health care and retirement.
To quote Peter, Paul, and Mary, “When will they ever learn?”
Following quote is from a famous person known for the saying that the most helpful for his cause are STUPID RICH YOUNG people in the West who will support him to their own end:
“Get young away from religion… Make them superficial, destroy their ruggedness. Get control of all
means of publicity… Divide the people into hostile groups by
constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance. Destroy
the peoples faith in their leaders by holding up the latter to
ridicule, contempt and obloquy. Always preach true democracy but seize
power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible… By specious
argument cause the breakdown of the old moral virtues: honesty,
sobriety, continence, faith in the pledged word, ruggedness. Cause the
registration of all firearms on some pretext,…”
This almost to the word describes Obama’s campaign. Written by Lenin. Who apparently still gets help from stupid young rich people in the West.
# 15 grog said, “paddy, come on now. simply cutting taxes and reducing government is not a complete solution.”
I think you are on the wrong thread. I simply stated that the headline was wrong and is the opposite of the researched facts.
As to why, ask the people surveyed.
#19 – Stalin had a name for them, Useful Idiots.
Sadly, Santayana was right and history is repeating itself. I pray we escape most of the ‘doomed’ part.
Educated rich voters tended towards Obama. They will vote against their pocket books if they think Washington can deliver. If they don’t deliver, then the Republicans have an opportunity.
#18..if what you wrote in the last paragraph were only that simple. People have no trouble running their own lives, thankyouverymuch.
But government needs to regulate because companies, left alone to do whatever they want, abuse their position to the point of destruction. History abounds with hundreds of examples, and Enron is a classic.
“Big Government” means what, exactly? It’s a talking point for the right, no question, but it’s also code for greed.
There’s a middle, and we’re not there right now.
#22 – Cubie
#22 – Cubie
>>Educated rich voters tended towards Obama.
Educated voters of any economic stratum tended towards Obama. I guess there’s something about having some knowledge that makes a person not want to vote Republican.
You guys are over complicating a simple issue: Regardless of side, money doesn’t buy intelligence.
That should be pretty obvious by now.
#23 – Big government means what it says, but, as some guide posts:
– Combined local, State, Federal taxation of more than 20%
– Nationalization of major parts of the economy, e.g. healthcare, banking, auto manufacturing, retirement.
– Large amounts of welfare, corporate, retirees, individuals, etc.
– Restriction on human rights, free speech and assembly, firearms ownership, victimless crimes, etc.
Could all be summed up as The Nanny State.
#23 Olo, I think you’re dead on. I think people voted for effective government, hoping the Dems can do it. The Republicans have used the “government is evil” argument to win elections for a while. My guess is that voters are saying “government is necessary” so please be good at it.
The Dems have successfully tapped into this. The right should retool around “smart, effective government” if they want to get back in the game.
The reason we voted for Obama is simple the McCain campaign turned it into a slogan or even a Mantra
Country First
The reason we voted for Obama is simple the McCain campaign told us to even turned it into a even a Mantra
Country First
#18, Jeffy,
That’s an odd statement since the current, Republican administration (blamed for everything since the Crucifixion) spent years trying to regulate the excesses and lending stupidity mandated by Democrats. Bush was shut down by Barney Frank who, “… didn’t see a problem.”
Can you, or any right wing nut, please post the “regulations” that Barney Frank shot down. I’ll give you a hint, they weren’t what you think they are.