Curmudgeon's Corner

The "Political Class"...

Posted by Al Campbell on Aug. 5, 2010

Economy, Healthcare, Political, Quality of Life, Taxes, U.S., Wisconsin

The “Political Class” and the rest of us seem to be at odds more than ever before.  In his editorial in today’s Examiner, Mark Tapscott explored the widening division between those who rule and those who obey.

This editorial relied upon a Rasmussen study in which polls were conducted of the group that dominates government, the mainstream media, and the universities (which Rasmussen labels the “Political Class”, and the rest of us (which he classifies as “Mainstream America”).

In his polling, Rasmussen found that fully 67% of the Political Class believes that America is on the right track, while 84% of the rest of us believe the opposite. 

Few of those in the Political Class deign to listen, really listen, to those of us in Mainstream America.  They simply know that they are right and that we, in Mainstream America, are ignorant and know not what is good for us and for our country.  These are the people who feel they are entitled to the goodies they want.  These are the politicians who secretly amass fortunes on shady deals, who buy their yachts and keep them in places where the taxes are more favorable.  These are the people who occupy Madison and Washington and opine as to what we ought to pay in taxes.

It is this divide that leads us to things such as the tea party movement and to the voter unrest that appears to be ready to be unleashed.  It is this divide that speaks more loudly than anything the politicians can say.  It is the average income of the public sector employee versus the average income of the rest of us.  It is unemployment for Mainstream Americans and hundreds of thousands of new positions opening for the Political Class.  It is the Charlie Rangels compared to the hard-working Joe who never took a dime that wasn’t due him.  It is the cry of racism that emanates from those who have no other defense for their actions.

We seem, as a people, to need to go through Political Class cleansings every once in a while, and it seems this may be the time for another cleansing.  We’ll learn in November if the cleansing is to occur this election or if we’ll tolerate more of the same for a while longer.

We seem, as a people, to be more forgiving of the Political Class than it has ever been of us.  It always wants more from us, both in freedoms confiscated as well as in taxes extracted, and doesn’t much care what we think about that.  It wants to change our societal mores and doesn’t much care what we think about that.  It believes it can better manage our individual health care than we can manage for ourselves, and it doesn’t much care what we think about that.  The 71% of Missourians who voted yesterday against mandated health care were just cast aside when the President’s Press Secretary said the vote had “no legal standing”; when pressed further to explain what this vote meant, he said “nothing”.  The Political Class believes we’ll all sit still for “administrative” solutions to illegal immigration that will permit those people who are here illegally to stay here with no further actions to be taken and without Congress’ input.  It believes the Environmental Protection Agency can simply implement anything and everything it wants without Congress telling it to do so.

I suspect that Mainstream America may well be ready to evict many in the Political Class in November, 2010.