So this year the argument for voting Republican is the same that it has been since Nixon---a cadre of demonized people (non-white people, loose women, homosexuals, feminists, atheists, Muslims, people who read books that lack the reassuring presence of firearms mentions on every other page) who think they’s so great are about to win and make you, Joe White Voter, feel like even more of a loser than you are. So show them that this is still Asshole America and vote for McCain. Unfortunately, this sort of argument can be shockingly effective. It’s Mario Kart politics, of the blue turtle shell philosophy. The blue turtle shell is the most asshole of all weapons. Most weapons confer some strategic advantage on the bearer. Other colored turtle shells tend to take out people in your immediate vicinity, so that you can pull some places ahead. Mushrooms give you a boost of speed. Banana peels keep those behind you from catching up and passing you. But the blue turtle shell? All that does is fuck up the guy in the front, without conferring advantage to anyone but maybe the guy right behind him. It doesn’t help you.
Much, perhaps most, of the Republican voters are people of privilege who openly cling to that privilege and it’s purely a vote of self-interest. Most working class people still vote Democratic. But the middle class tends to split nearly 50/50. They’re up for grabs. And this “be resentful/be afraid” dog and pony show is for them. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote an interesting book in the 80s called Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, and what’s brilliant about it is that she put her finger on why middle class Americans relate so strongly to fear. It’s because our position in the middle class is tenuous. That’s even more true nowadays. People without health insurance worry about getting sick. But so do people with health insurance, who carry the knowledge that the coverage they’ve been buying all those years may end up being an illusion yanked on a technicality. It’s easy to dismiss people with full time jobs, the ability to purchase cars and make rent, and college degrees. But their fear is very real. They are one paycheck away. Some cope by pursuing hope---if we vote Democratic long enough, one day we’ll get enough power to rebuild the liberal state that made a stable middle class a reality in the mid-20th century.