The “Joe the Plumber” Movement: A Pre-Emptive Tax Revolt

The reason the mainstream media have jumped on “Joe the Plumber” is that his question exposes the essential socialism of Obama’s tax policies.

I’m Joe the Plumber, too, as is Jimmie from JThe Sundries Shack. There are a lot of us out there, of all creeds and colors, and representing both sexes.

There’s more good stuff about the JTP issue, and what it has to say about Obama’s socialism, from Stop the ACLU. Here’s a taste; more at the link:

Uh-oh. It’s spreading. Ace of Spades has more.

Here’s another “Joe,” from Copious Dissent. I don’t know much about this guy, except that he’s very angry, and has a heavy East Coast accent (he had to say the word “hammer” four or five times before I understood it):

Bill Maher has a novel explanation for Joe’s skepticism about Obama’s tax plan—one I’d never heard before. Joe is racist! That explains it. (If only Joe had taken an extra moment to think of a guy who could tap-dance but wasn’t black, so as not to use the horrific phrase “Sammy Davis, Jr.” Somehow I think that if he has said “Fred Astaire,” it would have been racist as well—passing up a reference to an eminent black dancer and using a white dancer instead would have been just as racist. Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.)

Rod Liddle of The London Times also points to racism, and to that inexplicable oddball American resistance to socialism that couldn’t possibly be a matter of principle, and must therefore result from Yankee idiocy:

It’s entirely fitting, then, that the chap referred to as Joe the Plumber by both men is (a) not a licensed plumber and (b) not called Joe. His name is Sam Wurzelbacher and he has no professional plumbing certification. “Sam Wurzelbacher the Non-Plumber” has less of a ring to it, I suppose. Whoever he is, though, he is probably bad news for Senator Obama.

. . . . . . . . . .

On such things are elections won, I suppose – won already, so far as most of the British media are concerned, which has been yearning for an Obama victory ever since the candidate first emerged with that terribly winning aw-gee-shucks self-deprecating smile as a possible challenger to the scary and bloodless Hillary Clinton. Me, too, for that matter. But I am not so sure that it is as cut and dried as it seems.

In my mind McCain won the last debate by some margin and while this might not matter too much, his repeated point about Sam the Non-Plumber may, in the two weeks ahead, have some resonance. Much of the American public do not like the notion of tax increases which will impinge upon the income they think they might be earning in years to come.

This was the problem with Sam, who does not earn anything like the $250,000 a year which would put him in Obama’s punitive tax bracket, but thinks it entirely likely that he will soon do so. A large number of aspirant but blue-collar Americans think it highly probable that they will soon be living the American dream, no matter how fantastical this notion might be. They resent the idea that this hypothetical wealth of theirs might be hypothetically taxed. Obama’s redistributive instincts are not in tune with an electorally crucial tranche of the country.

And there is still the question of quasi-racism, especially in some of those bad-tempered, working-class Midwest states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are many millions of white Americans who would just love to see a black man elected president – but, y’know, maybe not this time around. Maybe later, some time. But not now. This contest is a long way from being over.

Emphasis mine. As any Briton knows, upward mobility is a “fantastical” notion, and if we knew what was good for us, we’d simply accept the socialism that our betters have prescribed for us.

There are some f***ing clueless Limeys out there.

And an extraordinary number of clueless Americans, according to the polls.

For more, please see Iowahawk, who had a rare Serious Moment as has been jump-starting the grassroots “I Am Joe” campaign.

(Adapted from a post at Little Miss Attila.)

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