The "53%" are those who pay federal income taxes as opposed to the 46% who don't. This assumes that the other 46% are simply freeloaders. My friend Doug Hayes over on Facebook points out that this is really an embarrassing admission by the right, that 46% of the population doesn't earn enough to pay federal income tax, and as we all know, that income threshold is a very low one (about $17,000 for a married couple filing jointly in 2011). That means that 46% of the population earns a pittance that does not even pay the bills.
The Dems are too inept and compromised to point this out, but I'm sure legions of others already have and will do so promptly.
The Establishment punditocracy wrings its hands over the trouble the Democratic Party leadership will have with an insurgency from its base. Good. I hope so.
The insurgencies from the right and left that both parties now face point to a major corrosive effect of concentrated money on democracy: elected representatives are no longer accountable or responsive to the people who elected them. In our system of legalized corruption, those who can donate huge sums of money to buy broadcast time and professional sales campaigns will always have the ear of elected representatives. Policy will always be shaped with the next extremely expensive election campaign in mind.
And for those of you who haven't seen it yet, Alan Grayson shuts down PJ O'Rourke and makes a clarion call: