Stupid bloggers pull another silly stunt. Anyone on the streets? No? Maybe it’s a silent majority kind of thing. Nope, it’s just Erickson, who can’t scribble three lines on a piece of paper without being wrong.
Who cares. Ignore.
53 who?
by Tim F| 46 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
David in NY
Yes, Sir!
jeffreyw
Make pizza not mobs!
sukabi
is CNN still employing this DF? If so, maybe they should get an earful about having their employees launching political endeavors…
Nethead Jay
Linky no worky. You fix ;)
cleek
Brokelink Blogpost!
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar puppies.
Linda Featheringill
The biggest problem with the 53% is that it is smaller than 99%. So they lose the quick-judgment-before-thinking score. Which side would you want to be on?
The second problem is that most people who earn enough to pay federal income taxes are also part of the 99%. And some of them know it. And some of that latter group are joining the 99ers.
The third problem with the 53%, of course, is, like, where are they? I don’t see ’em. Hmmm.
jwest
Via Ace of Spades, Michelle Obama’s Mirror has a great look at letters from “the 99%”.
http://minx.cc/?post=322453
http://www.michellesmirror.com/2011/10/people-of-ows-like-people-of-wal-mart.html
dopealope
If it was even worth the effort, this would look good on a tee-shirt:
99 > 53
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
@jeffreyw: Is that from Herm Cain’s Godfather chain?
jibeaux
What’s a misogynist got to do to stay banned around here?
Judas Escargot
Translation: “We 1% have succeeded so well in depressing your wages over the past 30 years, only 53% of you make enough to even be worth taxing!”
Brilliant framing.
beltane
@Linda Featheringill: Yeah, it’s like chanting “We’re Number Two!” instead of “We’re Number One!” The fail is strong with this one. At least the bags of road salt were useful on some level.
Villago Delenda Est
The problem with the 53% is that their leadership consists of assholes who should be put on an icefloe and never worried about again.
Spaghetti Lee
@beltane:
Did it create more demand in the rock salt mining industry? Because that would be the last time a Republican ever created a job.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@jeffreyw: Look a them grabbers!
jibeaux
@Judas Escargot:
or “only 53% of you make enough to escape Ronald Reagan’s baby, the Earned Income Tax Credit…”
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
I make about $40K a year. I still want these idiots who tell me I don’t make enough to pay income tax to explain to me why there’s a big box on my paystub that says INCOME TAX WITHHELD that has a dollar amount that’s about five times more than whatever refund I might get that year.
I pay goddamned income tax, along with a crapload of other taxes, and I’m with the 99ers.
JoshA
Link about being wrong is broken link. Unintentional comedy FTW?
Downpuppy
The other problem with the tumblr is that it’s total bullshit. They’ve basically cloned Samuel “Joe” not actually a plumber. “Paris” with 2 babies, a full time job, full time college student & a business?
Pull my third leg. If that was remotely close to the truth, her federal income tax would be sub-zero.
Satanicpanic
@jwest: Pointing an laughing at poor people, just like Jesus told us to!
RSA
Jonathan Bernstein writes that he wouldn’t be surprised if half of the people on the 53 percent bandwagon are actually part of the 47 percent but don’t realize it. Like the Hoverround Tea Partiers.
Morbo
@Downpuppy:
That’s the joke, isn’t it? I’d love to go through the tax returns of anyone posting on that tumblr. No wait, actually I’d love for someone else to.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Watch this get more play than the actual 99%ers because ‘OMG, real grassroots stuff, and they’re NOT HIPPIES!! THis is real American stuff!’
Niques
I want to ask them if they counted Bank of America and GE as part of the 47% who pay no Federal taxes. Also babies, toddlers and retirees.
Idiots.
ET
I am guessing the EE doesn’t realize that he is not part of the 1%.
latts
@RSA:
Yeah, I think there are plenty of people who stupidly assume that the 47% don’t even have taxes withheld from their paychecks, and never notice that their own income-tax refunds (after loaning the Feds money interest-free, amirite?) are basically everything they paid in over the year, maybe plus a bit from the EITC.
Personally, I’m part of both groups, and I hope that my federal income taxes all go to welfare moms & healthcare & education & foreign aid & anything Obama-related that infuriates the baggers. The military-industrial complex has been supporting most of my wingnut relatives for decades, so it can piss off.
Spaghetti Lee
This whole thing is so stupid that I can see them pulling it off. I mean, it makes no sense, but it’s so utterly non-sensical that I don’t really know how to respond. It’s like responding to a debate question by imitating what your opponent just said in a squeaky voice. Demonstrably stupid, but hard to ignore and hard to just brush off. There are a couple things that I think will cause it real trouble, however.
One, tea partiers have spent the last couple years preying on legitimate economic fears and subverting them into anger at the wrong people. Now that people are angry at the right people, the right suddenly has to say “Actually, everything’s fine! No need to get angry about the economy! Seriously, shut up, stop whining, and get back to work.” It’s awkward and blatantly obvious, and I think that’s going to turn off people who aren’t ideologically conservative and are genuinely angry.
Two, even a brief examination will show that it’s not just two groups here. Many, many, people in the 99% pay income tax, and there’s some people who think they’re in Erickson’s 53% who don’t. And just looking at the stories the 99% have to tell should convince anyone rational that these aren’t slackers. They’re people who have worked hard but gotten screwed anyway, and that’s very relatable.
Three, internal conflict. They’re basically saying that paying federal income taxes is a good and you should be proud of it, because you’re supporting the moochers, and they’re doing this with a group founded by conservatives and libertarians. Anyone else sensing a problem? Someone will quickly pop up and say that they hate paying income tax and don’t think they should have to, which would, of course, consign them to the 47% and mess up the binary argument.
But stupider ideas than this have succeeded. It all comes down to one thing-how much average people sympathize with the protesters. If they do, and don’t buy into the teabagger you’re-productive-and-they’re-not narrative, then I don’t think there’s anything the right-wingers can do about it.
Linda
Who ya gonna listen to, thousands of people willing to put their butts on the street, or a guy sitting at his keyboard? Honestly, this sounds like an Onion headline.
Special Patrol Group
Just so’s we’re all on the same page here: At a time when unemployment is at a very high level, poverty is increasing, millions are uninsured, and homes are being foreclosed at a stupefying rate, the Right Wing believes that the richest are overtaxed and nearly half of the people are not taxed enough. Really. This is what they think. They are objectively Pro-Sheriff of Nottingham.
RSA
@latts:
Me, too. I mean, that’s important stuff, worth paying for. What is it with magical thinkers who imagine that services in a first-world country come for free?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Special Patrol Group:
It’d be comforting if people didn’t fall for it despite the transparent IGMFY-ness of it all.
catclub
@RSA: yes, the math illiteracy is strong with this group. I just read about someone making $30k/yr who thought he was in the top 10%.
The comment that many american lower-middles think of themselves as embarrassed (soon-to-be) millionaires is on the mark.
catclub
@Spaghetti Lee: Another point: consider a retired veteran. The ‘We are the 53%’ crowd considers _HIM_ a useless moocher, they just don’t want us (and especially him) to realize it.
Southern Beale
You know, it was fine for these assholes to threatent to “Go Galt” during the Summer of Teanuts, you know, to teach all of us Soc1al1sts a lesson in how “valuable” they are to the economy. But get a bunch of poor, frustrated, unemployed workers out there and suddenly they’re “financing” the Occupy Wall Street movement.
IOKIYAR.
And also, how self-inflated can you get? No, you’re not financing the rest of us. You just THINK you are. Idiots.
Southern Beale
You know, it was fine for these assholes to threatent to “Go Galt” during the Summer of Teanuts, you know, to teach all of us Soc1al1sts a lesson in how “valuable” they are to the economy. But get a bunch of poor, frustrated, unemployed workers out there and suddenly they’re “financing” the Occupy Wall Street movement.
IOKIYAR.
And also, how self-inflated can you get? No, you’re not financing the rest of us. You just THINK you are. Idiots.
Maus
@sukabi:
hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahh
Cris (without an H)
That’s what’s so beautiful about the 53% thing. It’s a perfect illustration of the What’s The Matter With Middle Class Republicans? phenomenon. They are part of the 99%, but are so blinded by their privilege that they don’t even know they’re being screwed by their betters.
Maus
@Cris (without an H): I recall reading something on the psychology of conservatives that want the poors to suffer.
We used to say that they thought by making others suffer, removing all safety nets, and removing the minimum wage, they thought that they could be the captains of industry. Which was obviously not true, but more acurately:
They do it because they want to always have someone beneath them, even if it doesn’t raise them in social class one iota.
RoninJin
Shouldn’t their name be “We are the 27%”?
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
That’s because their ~$50K cutoff is assuming a family of four with a mortgage. If you’re a single renter, the cutoff for paying zero income tax is much lower, while if you’re a mortgage holder with a family of eight it’s much higher.
Svensker
@Satanicpanic:
Yup. Do you know what kind of degrees some of those loser college students got? Do you? Liberal arts degrees! Loser losers! Buncha fucking hippie losers. All the cool kids get engineering degrees. Or MBAs. That pussy history and language shit? For losers.
Svensker
Why the hell am I in moderation?
jake the snake
I never understood the meaning of “false consciousness until
I read the postings on the 53% tumblir. Most of those people have the perfect serf mentality.
It seems like they feel honored to get scraps from the Laird’s table.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
I’m a married (but childless) renter, so I understand why I pay income tax. I’m with Carole Lombard: “Every cent anybody pays in tax is spent to benefit him. There’s no better place to spend it. I enjoy this country and I really think I get my money’s worth.”
(And she was saying that in the days of 90% marginal rates on people like herself.)
I just wish these boobs running around complaining about moochers would understand it’s because we give extra tax breaks to people with kids and houses. And you know that the 53ers would scream like banshees if their mortgage and child tax breaks were taken away — after all, they deserve them, unlike, well, everyone else in the world.
DanielX
Consider the source: Erick son of Erick, originator of the Red State Strike Force. This guy is such a buffoon that he gives professional buffoons (like, say, Carrot Top) a bad name. As for his paying gig with CNN, consider Mencken’s comment about how nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public; a proposition that CNN certainly understands. Consider further the popularity of Rick Perry, a stupider and meaner version of George W. Bush (I know, it’s a stretch). Remember the general rule: at least 27% of the voting population will lap up whatever Erick hawks up.
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-crazification.html