Paul Ryan’s frown should make Democrats smile

Great article from E.J. Dionne:

"Ryan spoke of his “disappointment” that “the politics of division are making a big comeback.” He accused Obama of using “divisive rhetoric” and of “going from town to town, impugning the motives of Republicans, setting up straw men and scapegoats, and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments.”

“Instead of working with us on . . . common-sense reforms,” Ryan declared, “the president is barnstorming swing states, pushing a divisive message that pits one group of Americans against another on the basis of class.”

Now it takes some temerity for a Republican to charge Obama with divisiveness, given the GOP’s willingness to promote or countenance assaults on the president as “a socialist,” as someone not even born in the United States, as a supporter of “death panels,” and on and on. Republicans calling Obama divisive is the equivalent of those of us who are Red Sox fans criticizing another team for folding under pressure.

But what’s most instructive is that Ryan would not have given this speech if the Republican Party were not so worried that it is losing control of the political narrative. In particular, growing inequalities of wealth and income — which should have been a central issue in American politics for at least a decade — are now finally at the heart of our discourse. We are, at last, discussing the social and economic costs of concentrating ever more resources in the hands of the top sliver of our society.

Ryan offered the classic defense of inequality, arguing that what really matters is upward mobility, and that the United States has more of it than those horrible welfare states in Europe. “Class is not a fixed designation in this country,” he declared. “We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups.”

The only problem is that upward mobility has declined as inequality has grown, and social mobility is now higher in Europe than it is in the United States. That’s shameful. And don’t believe me on this: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum brought this up at a recent debate, backed by a study from the Economic Mobility Project."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/paul-ryans-frown-should-make-democrats-smile/2011/10/30/gIQAFUWEXM_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions