Electioneering

I'm surprised no one has really picked up on the "i go forwards, you go backwards, and somewhere we will meet" line. I agree with most of you that the politician is going forwards, and the general public is goin backwards in many aspects. But the "somewhere we will meet" I think has to do with neo-conservative "trickle down" economics, also called "voodoo economics" (also mentioned the song). For those who don't know, "trickle down" economics are generally defined by large tax cuts for the rich and the overall "purging" of big government spending. The idea behind this, in the simplest terms, is that tax cuts for the upper brackets helps to stimulate the economy, which eventually "trickles down" to the lower classes through state-wide prosperity. These Supply-side economics were championed by the Reagan government during the 1980s, and duplicated by similar thinking governments around the world including Margaret Thatcher's Tories in the UK. Many opponents argue that the "trickle down" is never felt in the lower brackets and although the economy may recover and thrive, the majority of citizens see no real prosperity, and are instead faced with rising cost of living and lack of government-sponsored social programs due to the massive trimming of the bureaucracy. I believe the the "somewhere we will meet" line refers to the idea trumpeted by conservative politicians who promise voters that they will eventually meet each other in terms of prosperity, even though the whole idea of one person going forwards and the other going backwards and eventually meeting is far-fetched. This is the metaphor for Radiohead's opinion of "trickle-down" economics.