Democrats speak up for the less prosperous; they have well-intentioned policies to help them; they are disturbed by inequality, and want to do something about it. Their concern is real and admirable. The trouble is, they lack respect for the objects of their solicitude. Their sympathy comes mixed with disdain, and even contempt.
Democrats regard their policies as self-evidently in the interests of the US working and middle classes. Yet those wide segments of US society keep helping to elect Republican presidents. How is one to account for this? Are those people idiots? Frankly, yes – or so many liberals are driven to conclude. Either that or bigots, clinging to guns, God and white supremacy; or else pathetic dupes, ever at the disposal of Republican strategists. If they only had the brains to vote in their interests, Democrats think, the party would never be out of power. But again and again, the Republicans tell their lies, and those stupid damned voters buy it.
It is an attitude that a good part of the US media share.
Read More of Democrat and Respect for the Voters off-site...Angela says:
It's the REPUBLICANS who put gay marriage on a ballot because they believe the masses "care more about gay union then their own union" to quote Jon Stewart.
Republicans are the ones who hire small town folk like Palin, not out of admiration and confidence for her expertise, but as a prop.
It's republicans who wave the flag but hide flag-draped coffins holding bodies of the working and middle class.
What could be more disrespectful and condescending than to seduce "the bottom 99% of Americans" with their pro-life, pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, pro-Christain, anti-gay rhetoric and then to steal their homes and pensions by chipping away at Corporate America's regulations and standards?
I'd rather belong to the party that walks the walk and not the party who just talks the talk.
I'm lower middle class and I want a president like me BUT SMARTER. I LIKE that Obama graduated from Columbia and Harvard Magna Cum Laude. That he was president of the Harvard Law review.
I have nothing against small towns, but those who govern them don't have to manage big populations and big budgets and these are things to consider for choosing a vice president who could very well become president.
I have nothing against people who don't travel if they can't, but I DO have a problem with people who can afford to travel but have no interest in the world outside of the U.S. That's not a class thing. That's just a principle. If Palin just got her passport, then she has not used her money so wisely; she missed the opportunity to become worldy -- another trait I look for in someone who could be a heartbeat away from becoming the ruler of a world power.
Bill Baar says:
Crook describes the dilemma of being in the liberal vanguard. They think they're bringing the masses to a more advanced social consiousness. They're Leninsts.