Victorian romance: The GOP’s “Oliver Twist” budget and the comeback of class warfare
"To make sense of the distorted dream world of American politics and its perplexing Lewis Carroll rhetoric, we sometimes have to look beyond familiar categories and recent history. This week, for instance, we get to look clear back to Victorian England, a longtime source of fascination for American conservatives and, at least in its stereotypical form, a cryptic role model for today’s Republican Party. The GOP’s House and Senate majorities have unveiled their budget proposals, a fantastical and mendacious set of documents worthy of Mr. Bumble, the comic villain and font of incoherent conventional wisdom in Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” Most people will ignore these proposals, for the sensible reason that they will not be enacted. But behind the patriotic-imperial posturing and foreign-policy bluster that have grabbed headlines lately, these imaginary budgets provide a glimpse of the rapacious utopia envisioned by the Koch brothers and their Tea Party-infused ideological mouthpieces, including Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and Scott Walker foremost among them."
