This is the problem I have with these arguments from people like Sirota: This notion that Democrats have somehow denigrated the working class.  Sirota, who constantly has his panties in a twist over stupid shit, such as Obama mentioning Reagan's effectiveness on an ideological level (thus committing the sin of telling the truth and somehow revealing himself a traitor to the David Sirotas of the world), is happy to give in to Republican horseshit when it suits his goofball faux-populism.

It betrays a hopelessly misguided view of history that portrays the mythical working class -- one that Dems apparently don't win, even though they, you know, do every time -- as being treated as beneath Democrats when, in truth, this small group of working-class voters who switched sides did so because for many reasons.  Some economic, sure, but this amounts to a convenient excuse for many whites -- and let's be clear that this small group within the working class is entirely white -- not being happy about Democrats becoming the party of crazy kids and emboldened blacks and broads.

"Blowjobs, more important than job-jobs," as I've put it.

This idea that pointing out the fact that Sarah Palin isn't qualified to run the McDonald's down the road from me, let alone serve as vice president, somehow implies that I'm talking down to small-town America is nonsense, and it says a lot more about small-town America than it does about those of us who point these things out.  Wasilla is a small town in the middle of nowhere, and her contributions to it were banning books, firing people she didn't like, and turning it into the largest crystal meth supplier in the state.

This is somehow insulting to people in small towns -- how, exactly?

People in small towns are pandered to on matters of culture constantly in our idiotic discourse.  As Sirota enjoys palling around with uber-xenophobe Lou Dobbs, one of the chief architects of this garbage, I would've thought he'd get that.  We're constantly under the barrage of The Heartland^TM, that wonderful place where simple people -- they's jess folk -- live out good and decent lives with family and Main Street and Jesus and Dorothy and Toto and the theme from Cheers always playing, without the degenerates from the cities around to fuck it up.

Or something.

But it does serve to illustrate a key similarity that Sirota and others have inadvertently picked up on: That there's always another bogeyman for the Right to capitalize on.  If it isn't the blacks rising up against them with the end of slavery, then it's women bringing their emotions into the voting booth, or blacks on welfare, or Latinos stealing jobs, or kids hating the troops, or drugs and sex and Rock And Roll corrupting us all, or Democrats being too much of a bunch of pussies for whatever it is they're too much of a bunch of pussies for this week, or Democrats not grovelling sufficiently in front of the Dumb Hick demographic.

There's always another bogeyman.  Always another excuse for stupidity.  It can't be the segment of voters who are stupid, can it?  No, it's gotta be the party and its supporters.  And God help us if someone ever finally has the balls to stand up and point out that the real welfare queens in America are in places like Alaska and Iowa, not New York and "Taxachusetts" (as they oh-so-cleverly call it out there).

A not-insignificant chunk of small-town America believes Barack Obama is a Muslim who will raise their taxes, while John McCain is a Christian who will lower them.  A not-insignificant chunk of small-town America believes Jimmy Carter was a disaster while Ronald Reagan was one of the nation's greatest presidents.  A not-insignificant chunk of small-town America believed John Kerry was a traitor while George W Bush was an American hero.  A not-insignificant chunk of small-town America believes the Rapture will come in its lifetime.  A not-insignificant chunk of small-town America believes John McCain would make a better Commander-in-Chief purely because of the fact that he speaks seriously about killing brown people in faraway places without rational decision-making.

But then a not-insignificant chunk of small-town America believes we found the weapons of mass destruction.

Oh.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.