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A comment on Why are Americans so angry?. Parent comment

Re:Why are Americans so angry? by humanrebar on Tuesday February 09, 2016 @12:29PM (#11066997)
> The 2008 election's obsession with Joe the Plumber, and his concern for taxes on people making over $250,000/year. He didn't make anywhere close to $250,000.

You've entirely missed the point of the Joe the Plumber exchange. He was, yes, concerned about taxes, but he was also concerned that the most powerful man in the country would fundamentally see him as an enemy. Look at Obama's response: "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too..." [1]

At some point between then and now, the Democratic Party abandoned even the pretense of fair-handedness and made establishment of an other (the 1%, corporations, etc.) a core part of their party culture.

What concerns me is that this is happening on both sides of the aisle. Trump is a demagogue. Full stop. He probably doesn't have much more than 30% support of the Republican Party, but he's definitely affecting the tone and topics of the debate.

And we're not talking about vilifying individuals ("Nixon is a sonovabitch!"), we're talking about the rise of all sorts of bigotry against entire demographics on all sides of the political spectrum. Civility is eroding quickly.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber#Encounter_with...

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Re:Why are Americans so angry? by vkou on Tuesday February 09, 2016 @12:52PM (#11067168)
> but he was also concerned that the most powerful man in the country would fundamentally see him as an enemy

Would see which version of him? The barely-middle-class $40,000/year reality of himself, or the make-believe millionaire dream of himself? (Which, in my excuse, is the narrative that the media spun for the next two weeks.)

I have a hard time placing this, but that maybe because I fundamentally disagree with respect to progressive taxation being a declaration of hostilities against the wealthy.

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Re:Why are Americans so angry? by humanrebar on Tuesday February 09, 2016 @01:13PM (#11067357)
Read the link. He was about to buy a business that, theoretically, would put the business in the greater than $250k range. Depending on the tax code, it wouldn't matter if his take-home was much lower.

The whole exercise of figuring out which class this guy is in is part of the point I was trying to make, really. Do I have to know his income to figure out how I feel about the guy?

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Re:Why are Americans so angry? by vkou on Tuesday February 09, 2016 @01:32PM (#11067532)
"Regarding his statement to Barack Obama about intending to buy the plumbing firm that employed him, Wurzelbacher later said that the idea of buying the company was discussed during his job interview six years prior.[9] According to MSNBC and Fox News, court records show that Wurzelbacher made $40,000 in 2006.[19] Dun & Bradstreet's report estimated that A. W. Newell Corporation, the full corporate name, had $510,000 in annual sales and eight employees."

He discussed the idea of buying the company once. Given the state of his finances, the likely situation is that either he was betting on winning the Powerball, or he was just dreaming about buying the company.

He is the poster child for this phenomena!

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Re:Why are Americans so angry? by humanrebar on Tuesday February 09, 2016 @02:07PM (#11067812)
> Do I have to know his income to figure out how I feel about the guy?

You're missing my point, which is pointing out the need to find an 'other'.

I'm not sure it's important if Joe the Plumber has identity issues. It is absolutely important if it's normal to treat others like they're crazy, evil, alien, stupid, or nefarious.

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