Coalition Of The Angriest

Elections often are driven by angry people who form parts of political coalitions, in both major parties.* This election is no different, although the angriest of the angry are still in the Republican coalition, which contains a hardcore base of racists and bigots, who are just obsessed with the idea that there's a person of color in the White House. Any sense of moderation in the Republican Party has been lost, because even respected members of the party are too afraid to speak out against this element. When you see and hear the hatred these folks have for the President, this isn't about policy, this about something they feel far more deeply about, race. Further, there's an absolute anger at poor people, regardless of race. Further still, there are some former Hilary Clinton supporters who are just plain pissed that she lost to Obama in 2008. Forget about the country, they want revenge. Poor John McCain really doesn't have much of a constituency among the angry, except in reverse, as a number of people on the political right hate him, too. Pretty much the same with Romney, as he's just the wolf in sheep's clothing to get the political right back into the White House. If he wins, I don't see any way he controls the nastiest and nuttiest elements of his own party, who pretty much have contempt for him, and the way Republicans have been careening rightwards, that doesn't leave a hell of a lot for him to control.

All the while the income gap widens and wealthy interests can say, "Look, keep the anger focused on anything or everything, but us. Let the masses fight over whatever, who the hell cares. We'll just keep raking it in, increasing our take of the pie until the middle class is so squeezed, they'll turn on the poor, not us, because they want to be rich too, not that we're going to give them much opportunity to do that. Ever since Reagan we've had just great success in getting pretty much whatever we want, and the masses are too stupid and divided to pay attention to what's been happening. We ship jobs overseas, hell, we even ship whole plants out the country, we get tax cuts we don't need, we wanted illegal immigrants in the country to do a lot of the menial jobs for a pittance and we got 'em, we spend tons of money on candidates who will protect us, and what do Americans do? They lament the lost jobs and complain about all of the things we've named, but they still vote for our candidates. They even blame the other side for some of the problems we've helped create by our greed... I mean, by our desire for the money we're entitled to, and make no mistake about it, we ARE entitled to it. You'd think the dumb asses would listen to what just about every economist on the planet has been telling them about how we're picking their pockets for every dollar we can get and how upward mobility in American society has plummeted, but these idiots turn around and blame poor people! It's just too hilarious, and we laugh every time we look at our bank accounts, which is often. We want the estate tax repealed too, and that'll really keep the money under OUR control, where it belongs, and just about everyone not already rich can forget about ever becoming rich, unless they hit the lottery, good luck! Just keep up the good work (for us) America... VOTE REPUBLICAN, so we can get that estate tax repealed soon!"

* Democrats have angry people too as part of their coalition, but the energy still lies more on the Republican side.Not all members of both parties are necessarily angry, as many vote with their respective party out of tradition.

WORD HISTORY:
Zeal-The ultimate origins of this word are unknown, but is closely related to "jealous;" in fact, it is really another form of that word. It traces back to Old Greek "zeloo," a verb which meant "to emulate out of admiration, to be jealous." From this came the Greek noun "zelos," meaning "jealousy, fervor for a person or belief." Apparently the latter came from the notion of "emulation;" that is, if a person is so admiring of another to emulate them, they have fervor or total devotion. Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "zelus," with the same basic meaning, which then went into religious writings. English borrowed the term from Latin religious writings in the late 1300s, first as "zele," before the modern version.