Brad DeLong, national treasure

It's not even the politics of division, it's the politics of spite. I'll quote Prof. DeLong extensively because he's so good. His blog is well worth the at-least-daily visits it gets from me.

The Republicans are not just acting against the interests of the 99% and for the interests of the 1%. The Republicans are acting in the interests of nobody at all:

The 1% have an interest in full employment, high capacity utilization, and general prosperity just as the rest of us do.

It is true that the interests of the 1% differ from the interests of the rest of Americans in four particulars:

1. The 1% have an enormous material interest in making the tax system less progressive.
2. The 1% have a long-run material interest in hypnotizing Americans into believing that the current distribution of income and wealth is in some sense "deserved" or "just".
3. The 1% have a short-run ideal interest in being reassured that they are in fact good people whose wealth and incomes are deserved and just.
4. The 1% have a short-run material interest in not being reminded that it was the actions of many of them that played the key role in breaking the economy.

But the 1% have a strong material interest in the passage of the American Jobs Act. In acting to block it, the Republicans--and Senator Nelson--are betraying the interests of their contributors in the top 1% as much as they are betraying the interests of their constituents.

Professor DeLong's blog.