Mr. Obama then fell into a rhetorical trap while speaking about white working class voters, a block whose support will be crucial in the tests ahead. In his essentially accurate yet insensitively expressed view, these voters “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” in order to overcome the bitterness wrought by their economic conditions.
Read Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times for a convincing refutation of this thesis. Krugman is no right-wing zealot. In fact, many of his economic ideas are the staple of leftist thought. The Hindu has published columns making the same claim before. In fact, the notion that economic woes are at the root of all political sentiment is the cornerstone of Marxist dogma. Compelling as it is, Krugman provides evidence that at least as applied in this manner, the view is simplistic and plainly erroneous.
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