Unless you consider yourself to belong to the upper class–that is, if you are worth less than a few million dollars or make less than a hundred thousand dollars a year–then if you vote Republican, you’re a total idiot.

Republicans want to do away with most taxes on rich people by lowering the marginal tax rate by more than half to 15%, and by lowering to zero the capital gains tax, which is a major source of income for the wealthy.

At the same time, they want to raise taxes on the poor, as evidenced by (1) the 15% flat rate which would instantly raise taxes significantly on the poorest Americans, (2) their intense disgust that people making a pittance don’t pay income taxes at all and should start doing so, and (3) their favor of de-emphasizing income taxes (which presently favor the poor) with sales or VAT taxes (which would favor the rich and hurt the poor). All this despite their pledge to never raise taxes–a pledge they only seem to honor if it refers to taxes on wealthy people.

Then there’s representation. Republicans love the idea that corporations are people and elevated the practice of lobbying to a high art, assuring that institutions of wealth, controlled by the wealthiest people, have the most powerful representation and influence possible.

Meanwhile, through voter ID and other laws based upon utterly false claims of election fraud, they seek to suppress the ability to vote amongst the poor, the elderly, the young, and especially among minorities. This tendency is accentuated with the use of practices like voter caging, false representation of voting times and places, fraudulent registration scams, illicit “felons list” disenfranchisement, and a host of other exercises in what is actually election fraud.

But, according to Republicans, it’s liberals who are engaging in “class warfare.”

You might say that Democrats will raise your taxes. See above–unless you’re in the upper class, it’s the Republicans who have come out clearly for raising your taxes–while Democrats have lowered your taxes, though you probably failed to notice it.

You might say that Democrats spend more. This despite the fact that Republicans show every propensity to spend as much as if not more then Democrats. Not to mention that Democrats want to spend the money on things that you probably want, like Social Security and Medicare, while Republicans want to spend the money on Defense and fighting massive land wars in Asia, which you might approve of but nevertheless benefits you not at all.

And yes, Obama has spent a lot–but most of it has either been spending Republicans pressured him to spend, or else has been spent trying to undo the mess Republicans got us into. Had Obama become president in 2000, it is likely he would have massively underspent Bush.

You might say that you’re social conservative–but even that’s not much to go on. Most of the stuff right-wingers go on about in terms of social issues are things that are not real, like the “War on Christmas” or other imagined attacks on white Christians (usually males), or are things that Republicans are not actually trying to change because they work so well to rally voters like yourself.

It could very well be that there are things that Republicans actually fight for and achieve that you really believe are more important than all the things they do which make your life worse–but the chances are against it.

And if you long for the classic Republicans, the Republicans of the Reagan years, for example, then look no further: they call themselves “Democrats” nowadays.