Variations of this point have been made in books and articles, including a recent WSJ piece (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122463199532056477.html) and in Bill Maher's Real Time show last weekend, but it's both fascinating and downright frustrating to see the GOP exploit the blue collar worker via a distortion of a perceived life v. their real existence.

In short - everyone can't be rich. The American Dream isn't that our ship will come in one day and we'll all strike it rich. The American Dream, in it simplest and purest form, is actually a middle class dream. It's the promise of opportunity - the promise that anyone can, through hard work and persistence, achieve a comfortable life with a roof over their head and food on the table. It's the promise that government will do all it can to provide services, promote policies and remove artificial or discriminatory barriers that would otherwise inhibit the pursuer of this dream. That's why people were coming to our shores - not because everyone wanted to strike it rich - but because the American Dream was that they could come here, free of discrimination, and make a life for themselves through hard work. It was the ability to get the house with the picket fence, the 2.5 kids and the dog.

Now, no one can dispute that Democratic Policies actually promote this dream. Whether it's tax cuts for the middle class, affordable healthcare, affordable housing, raising in the minimum wage, social security/Medicare or any of the other myriad of policies - it's all designed to help the lower and middle classes.

What's amazing about this whole thing is that the Republicans have somehow managed to pervert the American Dream, repackage it and convince everyone that it's about striking it rich. Then, they tell everyone that any "attacks" on the rich, such as progressive taxation or disagreements with trickle down economics, is an attack on the pursuit of the American Dream - and by extension anti-American or Socialist! Moreover, they have successfully deluded the blue collar or middle-class worker to thinking that he's going to strike it rich one day - and boy won't it be a shame that when that day comes - the Dems are gonna tax him and penalize him for it. They have successfully removed that worker from thinking about his actual reality and what policies may better serve him today, and instead focused him on a perception about where he'd like his future to be - regardless of the sad fact that he'll probably never get there in actuality. In effect, they're preying on aspiration, and banking on the fact that no one wants to burst that bubble and bring them down to reality (shoot the messenger!).

Truth be told, it's actually a remarkable accomplishment, and there is ample blame on all Democrats for not being able to point out the fallacy of this paradigm. The Republicans have managed to protect the wealthy through a reverse class-warfare in which the lower and middle classes are fighting against their own interests to protect their future potential interests despite the fact that this particular future of riches will almost undoubtedly never materialize.

That's why you have the crazy, incomprehensible situation where Joe the Plumber unwillingly concedes that Obama's tax plans would actually help him today (and in all likelihood for the rest of his life), but instead focuses on the fact that Obama's tax plan might penalize him if and when he makes more than $250,000 per year and can buy that business.