Gaffe [\ˈgaf\]: When a politician accidentally tells the truth.

Host: “Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?”

Bachmann: “Well, that could be. Again, I hope so.”

If there is one lesson from the past 2-1/2 years in American politics, it is that the Republican Party realizes that it has a vested interest in the failure of the American economy, because people who are out of work or watching their 401k’s tank are more likely to vote against the incumbent President.

And Michele Bachmann just laid bare their dirty little secret: Republicans are rooting against America.

As long as America has a Democrat at the helm, Republicans want it to fail.

As long as Barack Obama is in the White House, the Republican Party wants to see you and the people you love jobless, homeless, and desperate—because being jobless and homeless will make you want to vote against the incumbent President.

In other words, their partisan interest and their patriotic interest are at odds—and, when given the choice between the good of the nation and its people, and the good of their party, they clearly think the latter is more important.

Because—and here’s the real dirty secret—you’re not their constituency.*

When given a choice between the good of the rich and the good of the real people, the contemporary GOP has always—each and every time—chosen the rich.

If you remember only one thing when you go to the voting booth in November 2012, remember that. The Republicans on the ballot do not care about you. They do not care about ordinary Americans, except to use them for votes and support while they pursue policies that will destroy the working and middle class and help the wealthy and their corporations. If you are an ordinary American voting for Republicans, know that they will choose to sell you up the river when it comes down to the choice between your interests and the wealthy’s interests.

Because Republicans don’t care about America, at least not if by “America” you mean the hundreds of millions of ordinary middle-class and working-class folks who make up 99% of this country’s population.

They only care about the wealthy, because they are wealthy—and, as proper acolytes of Ayn Rand, they accept her anti-Christ Gospel, which tells them that the only person they should ever care about is themselves.

Michele Bachmann just made that crystal-clear. She cheers when more Americans are out of work, she cheers when more American families wonder where their next meal or their rent or mortgage payment is going to come from, she cheers when more American parents worry that their child might get sick because they can’t afford healthcare.

As long as it helps her election chances, as long as it makes it more likely that a Republican will sit in the Oval Office in January 2013, she will hoot and holler and drink a toast in celebration of the suffering of ordinary Americans.

But there’s the gaffe: she’s not supposed to do it in public.

* I suppose it’s theoretically possible that a hedge-fund officer, bank executive, or billionaire corporate board member is reading this blog post, in which case, you actually are the Republicans’ constituency.