What are the repugs so worried about if kerry gets elected?

[southernleftylady]

what are they so scared that kerry will do?

[H2O Man]

1. Go after their tax-breaks .....

....that's what the real republicans fear. The middle-class people who identify with their oppressors have a free-floating anxiety, because the real republicans have created a climate of fear.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. what are they so scared that kerry will do?

Act like a truly patriotic American? Please the founding fathers? Piss off a few corporations that are war profiteering? One can only hope. Perhaps these quotes are applicable... here, in this place.

"24.9 percent of American children live in poverty, while the proportions in Germany, France and Italy are 8.6, 7.4 and 10.5 percent. And once born on the wrong side of the tracks, Americans are more likely to stay there than their counterparts in Europe. Those born to better-off families are more likely to stay better off. America is developing an aristocracy of the rich and a serfdom of the poor - the inevitable result of a twenty-year erosion of its social contract."
Will Hutton

"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
Alex Carey

[burythehatchet]

5. anecdotal evidence.....

last week I was sitting in the lobby of the MGM resort in Las Vegas. I overheard a security guard talking to a maintenance man. These guys could not have earned more than 40,000 a year, if that much.

The security guard said "I know Kerry will raise my taxes but if he stops the Yucca mountain thing I'll vote for him".

[Hubert Flottz]

2. In three words!

Going To Jail!

[checks-n-balances]

4. Partly, they believe their own propaganda about the Democrats

That we'll take away their guns

That we'll mandate abortions

That we'll mandate gay marriage and "destroy the family"

That we'll tax them to death

That Hollywood will take over the country

That we'll lose the "war on terra" (like we haven't been already since the Iraq invasion)

That we'll keep God out of the schools and thereby take God out of the country (as if God is small enough to be "taken" in or out of anything by human beings)

That the flag will no longer be protected

etc. ad nauseum

Bottom line:

The GOP has effectively divided the country to where the Democratic Party is seen as the enemy. And as Clinton recently noted, since Nixon they have believed they were the "anointed" party and that they were always supposed to win from then on. Hence the fury that a Democrat should ever be in the White House.

Therefore (unspoken or unconscious, but it's there):

1. Losing would mean we have taken away a "true man of God" and we will lose our favor with God, then catastrophe is sure to follow for the USA

OR

2. Losing would mean the ("deserving") rich won't have as many advantages over the ("undeserving", because they haven't worked as hard as the rich) middle class & poor as it has had in the last four years. That would mean the end of corporate welfare as we know it (and we can't have that)!

In the most basic of terms, I think it's a combination/synergism of

FEAR (of losing power, money, and/or "God's favor")
GREED (loss of community & rugged individualism taken to the extreme)
IGNORANCE (with media complicit in manipulation by propaganda)

All three had to be present in order for GWB to be in office and to have stayed there for the past 4 years. And it couldn't have come about without exploiting 9/11 to the hilt, without criminal actions (e.g. stealing the election) or without takeover of all 3 branches of government.

That said, who knows what a few fanatics might do rather than give up the advantage and power they have masterminded or stolen for themselves? (Use your imagination.)

I could say more, but that's how I see it.

Edited to modify grammar

[WoodrowFan]

6. a wonderful summary

thanks, I think you hit the nail on the head.

[Sparkly]

8. Agree

I have a theory about the "fear" part -- that there are remnants of bigotry that go back very far, as far as the Civil War even.

The fear of "unraveling the social fabric of America" or "undermining the family" (they used to say "nuclear family," that's gone now) is fear of losing a status quo of empowerment for straight white men. They have an image of the straight white man as a norm, or a majority, which he never was (except in political and economic power); and of the Ozzie & Harriet family as the only legitimate and 'normal' family, which it never was.

What I don't understand is how many poor people and women seem to share that fear, and cling to the rhetoric of "family values" and such.

[checks-n-balances]

9. Oh yeah, I forgot about the "social advantage" part

that has been held by straight white men for centuries. Yes, I'd say it goes back even farther than before the first white man set first set foot on these shores.

I'd even say it goes as far back as whenever it became a part of the collective (majority) consciousness that surely God is a powerful white male!

IMHO, possibly many poor people and women - traditionally the most vulnerable in most societies - continue to feel vulnerable and to feel the need to be protected, and will follow those who sound confident enough to "take care of" them.

No coincidence that those with the most power in this administration (and those who benefit most from its policies) are rich white males.

[PsN2Wind]

7. SCOTUS

Shift the balance in the Supreme Court.

[molly]

10. The Rapture?

[chuck555]

11. Well I don't know,but

The Patriot act is,well,open ended. as we know now Terrorists are defined by whose in power.

[bushwakker]

12. They are petrified that he will succeed

it's become pretty obvious that the GOP can win elections but can't govern. For the Dems getting elected is the hard part. I have no doubt Kerry will help turn the country around if he can be sworn in on Jan 20th.

[Lefty48197]

13. They won't be able to loot the entire nation if shrubbie doesn't hold the

front door open.

[checks-n-balances]

14. You got THAT right - powerful image, too! n/t

[AP]

15. They lose their guaranteed wealth, and actually have to work to earn $