Everything You Need To Know About Iowa Republican Caucus Voters

The "but Republicans will never tax me, just those other people" scam is arguably the most successful example of wishful thinking and voting against your own self-interest that I've ever seen.  From the Des Moines Register:

Two-thirds of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers earning less than $50,000 a year believe they personally would be better off or in the same situation under Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan, The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll shows.

Research-group reviews of the plan have found that most families making $100,000 or less would pay thousands of dollars more each year.

“The larger point is that people don’t really understand what the 9-9-9 plan actually is, and they’re assuming incorrectly that they may not pay one or any of these taxes,” said Joe Rosenberg, a research associate for the Tax Policy Center, a group based in Washington, D.C., that bills itself as a nonpartisan economic research institute.

That "incorrect assumption" is of course the entire point of the plan.  These are folks that expect the GOP to stick it to the "47% that pay no income tax" which of course would never, ever include any Real Americans voting in GOP primaries.  The cloud of ignorance that makes it so easy to lead the nation off a cliff is largely self-inflicted, and that's just how the GOP and their corporate masters like it.

More importantly, Iowa Republicans are honestly expecting the GOP's flotilla of flat tax nonsense to punish the Others, (you know, "welfare queens", "young bucks on the street corner", and "those people in the day labor parking lot") not any of them.  That's what the dog whistle semaphore is spelling out for them day after day on FOX and El Rushbo. They truly believe that the notion that a consumption tax would ever be levied against working-class Republican voters in the Heartland is nothing more than a cruel liberal media trick.

The rest of the flat tax supporters know full well they're being asked to pay higher taxes along with the Others but also think that the super rich will reward them for their suffering, like the Midwest is full of roaming packs of Job Creation Angels who will zoom out of the sky and tag the deserving like Oprah used to give away prizes to her audience.  ("You get a job and YOU get a job and YOU get a job and YOU ALL GET JOBS!"  Cue giant box of jobs.)  These celestial hiring managers of course only visit the worthy, so you'd better be able to take your suffering like a Real American.  They're counting on getting a little something from the guys up at the top the trickle pile and calling it rain.

The devil convincing the world he never existed, and all that.