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It's the whole "If I benefit, great, but if someone else does, then it's bad."

You know that I'm a fairly OG conservative person when it comes to fiscal policies, which I think actually departs heavily from where Republicans currently advocate. I do believe in a merit-based capitalistic setup with guard rails, where the Government plays referee, throwing flags on things like the use of child labor, off-shore accounts, etc.

It has gone so far off the rails, though, that we have seen a huge wealth gap generate, with the smallest of the small minority controlling politics. It's not capitalism when you don't allow big companies to fail for egregious malfeasance, and it's not capitalism to allow disproportionate political gains in favor of those with deep pockets.

Tying that back to our discussion, so much wealth is getting sucked up from the lower and middle classes into the small elite (and the data supports that quite well), that it creates a dilemma of keeping the constituents from becoming angry about it. That's when you have to create a villain to act as a lightning rod for discontent. It has gotten to the point where people will vote against their own self-interests because they are so desperate, angry and/or feel so threatened by what they perceive - often inaccurately - to be the core problem.