Daily Kos Blogger: Today's Conservatism 'Anti-Democratic,' Sickeningly Elitist

February 18th, 2014 5:27 PM

Officially, of course, there's no such thing as "the face of the Republican party" or "the face of the conservative movement," but liberals, often with ulterior motives, often suggest candidates for those pseudo-positions. In a Sunday front-page post on Daily Kos, Ian Reifowitz claimed that venture capitalist Thomas Perkins is the very model of a modern conservative.

Reifowitz noted Perkins's recent assertions that people shouldn't be allowed to vote unless they pay taxes, and that voting "should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes." According to Reifowitz, those statements "expose[d] the elitism and fundamentally anti-democratic ideas the Right secretly believes but knows, correctly, it ought never utter publicly if it wants to win elections."

Reifowitz went on:

...Let's cut to the chase. From Tom Perkins to the tea party to Rush Limbaugh to Paul Ryan, the Right truly believes that the wealthy are better than everyone else. More worthy than everyone else. There is even a religious component to it, the so-called "prosperity gospel," according to which wealth is the way God rewards his favored...Thus, it is only logical that the moral superiority of the extremely wealthy should entitle them to a greater say in government. Never mind that Jesus said in Matthew 19:24: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

The elitism of the right wing...makes me sick...We have to understand what progressivism is up against...Our belief that all Americans should have equal rights and an equal voice in our democracy is not shared by our opponents.

We must make sure that the American people understand just what our opponents believe. We must expose them for what they really are.