Yes, but now it's OK to hate rich people. It's OK to blame everyone else for your being unemployed. It's OK to commit crime in cyclical economic downturns.
It's not okay. It's wrong. And yet, for some reason, telling people that the pain they are experiencing as a result of globalization is tough noughies does nothing to quell the hate-the-rich and blame-others mongering.
Since the gulf between the rich and poor is growing, and since there are many more poor, and since rich and poor alike enjoy the same franchise at the polls, tweaking them will only result in a government of socialism-heavy and outright looting, rather than reasonable compromises in such things as tarrifs, tax cuts, etc.
Your choice then, is to find compromise, so that you don't suffer as much looting, or piss many more people off and suffer greater looting, or renounce your citizenship as an American and flee to the freer markets of the PRC.
Free Trade Absolutists do not even enjoy a majority here at this Conservative chat room. Do you think the FTAs will fare better in the general elections when the dems and greenies will be added to the mix?
Bush needs to remember Reagan's blue collar faction under the big tent, or the whole matter of lowering taxes and raising tarrifs will be moot. Some dem will promise more jobs through even more regulation and simply raise both taxes and tarrifs.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to suffer four years of some failed dem experiment because a bunch of Bush's dickhead advisors are of the Scrooge, rather than the Ghost of Marley school of economics.
If Bush wants to play at compassionate conservatism then charity begins at home, not Africa, not China, not Israel.
God Bless America and my Fellow Americans - rich or poor.