When in doubt, call them poopy-heads

I've never really seen the strategy of the Right put so succinctly: The Right "...mobilizes voters with explosive social issues, summoning public outrage ... which it then marries to pro-business economic policies. Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends." And that, my dear readers, is how they get the poor (or at least an economically oppressed middle class) to vote against their best interests.

Gotta admit...given that people are ignorant and dumb, it's a clever way to circumvent the checks and balances of government to promote an agenda. I can't help but wonder if this is just a variation of a theme used in the Dark Ages (probably earlier, but it's the most obvious example I can think of). I've always wondered how such a small group of people managed to keep the rest of the population firmly entrenched in subservient serf-dom. The answer is similar, I suppose: scare the people with a variety of quasi-conjured threats (both spiritual [the devil, evil, etc.] and geopolitical [other countries]), then tie whatever agenda you want to those fears. If you want wealth and you've convinced people to be afraid of the devil and their place in the afterlife, voila, you have indulgences. (It's so adorable that anyone still believes that any human institution can ever be "infallible"...)