Imagine the following scenario:
Bob the construction worker and Lloyd the banker are neighbors. Bob's savings consist of 2 gold coins. Lloyd's savings consist of 10 gold coins.
One day, the god of thought experiments (GOTE)shows up with 100 coins. He takes Lloyd's coins and Bob's and puts them in a bag with his 100. He then tells Lloyd that he can divide the 112 coins between himself and Bob any way he wants. Bob can then either accept the distribution of coins or GOTE will take all 112 coins and leave Bob and Lloyd with nothing.
What happens in the above scenario? Well, I stipulated that Lloyd was a banker, so he thinks like a banker. He realizes that Bob is out of work and struggling, so he figures that Bob will take whatever he can get. Lloyd decides to keep his original 10 coins, claim all 100 of the GOTE's coins, and take one of Bob's 2 coins as well.
Lloyd knows that this leaves Bob, who is poor and needs every penny he can get, with the choice of utter destitution or taking a significant loss but still having something in his savings. Lloyd assumes that Bob will do the rational thing and make the choice that is least harmful to him.
Unfortunately for Lloyd, Bob doesn't think like a banker. He rejects the deal and tells Lloyd to go fuck himself. GOTE disappears with all the coins and Bob and Lloyd are left with nothing. Bob would rather give up everything he has left than allow Lloyd to screw him over and get away with it. Lloyd underestimated the power of spite.
So what's the point of all this? Well, right now the Obama administration seems to be making the same miscalculation that Lloyd made. It is assuming that voters, faced with the choice of economic devastation if the crackpot teabaggers come to power, will have no choice but to reelect Democrats in 2010 and 2012.
However, if voting Democratic means continued losses on Main Street while banksters collect windfall profits and live the high life, then many of them may choose to vote Republican, not in the expectation that doing so will improve their lives, but in the hope that at the Republicans will at least wreck things so thoroughly that even the bastards on Wall Street suffer too.
If the financial elite keeps raking in record profits while jobs keep disappearing and millions continue to lose their homes, then popular rage towards the party in power could reach point where voters could elect a jackass like Sarah Palin just to wipe the smirks of the faces of smug assholes like Tim Geitner and Lloyd Blankfein.