Counter-Revolution Paid For By

Scott Walker's "easy win" over old line Democrat, Tom Barrett, shows the relative effectiveness of two strategies: buying elections and media, versus organizing "the masses." Maybe there weren't enough of the masses, or there were too many Fox consumers, but buying an election worked, mass organizing didn't. Also, Tom Barrett's moderate stance of "let's reason together," didn't work. He lost this time by more than last time, before Walker slammed public sector unions and women, and students, and, and, and.

Wisconsin was a laboratory for those freed by Citizens United to spend unlimited funds in order to buy the kind of government they want: slashed services, cowed workers and slashed taxes for the wealthy.

And they won. Big.

Walker is a hero of the right. To them, he's someone who stood up to unions, who stood up to uppity women: he called their bluff and cut taxes for corporations. All the outrage, all the organizing, all the demonstrations against him and the Republican coup d'etat comes down to this: Walker won with a higher percentage of the vote than he won in 2010, before he revealed how radical he was.

The real winners are the people I've called the Selfish Class. It's not clear, yet, whether their campaign spending (seven to one versus Democrats, reportedly, 2/3 from out of state, versus 1/4 for Democrats) or the longer propaganda campaign of Fox News and snide talk radio was most important in waging the counter-revolution. Both were paid for by the same kind of people: the selfish class, whether corporate donors, or billionaires wanting to protect and expand what is theirs.

What is clear is that even if Obama ekes out a win in November (18% of Walker voters said they'd support him), it is the selfish class that really won. Walker's agenda was tailor-made by them: bash unions into impotence, humiliate women into 1950's-type subservience and cow dissidents, minorities and students into hiding. Most important: cut taxes on the wealthy to the bone.

Obama may win against Romney by piecing together a coalition of feminists, gays, minorities and enough independents impressed by his anti-terrorist cojones, but you can bet he'll be reluctant to support strengthening unions, or pushing for a real stimulus, or going after Wall Street. He may be marginally better than Romney, but he's not going to undo the counter-revolution.

There is a real divide in this country, and much of the world. The uber-rich selfish class, like Fifth-century Roman Senators, has their hangers-on and their subservient serfs, who have been taught that their heroes' good fortunes will trickle down. And there are the rest of us, who haven't yet accepted the message.

We haven't accepted it, because it isn't true: with austerity, slashed services and increasing inequality, the wealthy will prosper, but, if they prevail, we'll be driven into a centuries-long depression, just like the fifth-century Roman Empire.