Gingrich Calls on Obama to Repudiate the 99 Percent

Newt Gingrich

President Obama's commitment to working families was described by Republicans as "class warfare" in September.

In GOP Land, this is an unforgivable sin, like accepting science, recognizing evolution, global warming or criticizing anti-intellectualism.

Obama responded in September, and proudly took up the cause of the vast majority of Americans. It's likely we can expect more of the same, though for some reason Republicans like Gingrich and Scott Walker think they have found the winning political formula in attacking the middle class. Said Obama:

There’s a lot of people saying, 'this is class warfare.' Well, if saying that billionaires should pay the same share in taxes as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare, then you know what? I’m a warrior for the middle class. I will fight for the middle class.... But the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle against the middle class.

Now, Newt Gingrich is joining the chorus of the one percenters. And he can expect the same response from the President.

By Pat Garofalo

2012 GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich yesterday, during an event in South Carolina, said that he repudiates the very idea behind the Occupy Wall Street movement — that the economy should work for everyone, not just the richest 1 percent — and called on President Obama to do the same:

I repudiate, and I call on the President to repudiate, the concept of the 99 and the 1. It is un-American, it is divisive, it is historically false…You are not going to get job creation when you engage in class warfare because you have to attack the very people you hope will create jobs.

Watch it:

Gingrich may be spooked by the power of the narrative of the 99 percent, and is thus resorting to the tired charge of “class warfare” to deride anyone who points out the extent of income inequality in the U.S. But a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that “60 percent of respondents strongly agreed that America’s economic imbalance comes from policies that favor the rich over the rest of the country,” while 55 percent “said income inequality is a significant problem in the country.”