Tipping Point?

According to a Pew Research survey released this week, “More than half (55%) of all adults in the labor force say that since the Great Recession began 30 months ago, they have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers.”

And these are people in the labor force, mind you. They didn’t talk to the unemployed.

Basically, about one-third of adults in the labor force — in the labor force, mind you — have suffered a period of unemployment during the recession. I suspect most of the people who haven’t personally been hit with unemployment know people who have.

This is interesting —

Several groups that have been hardest hit by this recession (including blacks, young adults and Democrats) are significantly more upbeat than their more sheltered counterparts (including whites, older adults and Republicans) about a recovery both for themselves and for the national economy.

Republican leaders, on the other hand, are pooh-poohing the recession as a mere bump on the track of the gravy train. And for them, maybe it is.

Senate Republicans (with some help of Dem dead weight Ben Nelson) managed to kill an extension to unemployment benefits yet again. House Republican leader John Boehner said the financial aid package amounts to “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.”

Here and there you see Nixon-era talking points (see Sharron Angle) about how cutting unemployment benefits will force people to get off their butts and get jobs (what jobs?).

And yet conventional wisdom still says the GOP is poised to make huge gains in November. If the Dems can’t put together a package of ads and videos showing the troglodytes for what they are, maybe they deserve to lose. But no way does the GOP deserve to win.

Update: Here’s a Dem ad suggested by wmd in the comments —

A lot more of this, please. And have it on television day and night. Everywhere. Now is not the time for Dems to be frugal in their political messaging.