A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.
It would seem that the upcoming strategy of the President is to appeal to masses and join the populism bandwagon. This would be something that I would welcome, if he actually understood the bandwagon that many Americans are on. The administration, as well as high level member of his party have done very little to understand the tea party movement.
It started out in April of last year when the DHS released a report days before the Tax Day Tea Party saying that the type of people who were attending these rallies were a danger to American people. This report also mentioned newly returned war vets. Real slaps in the face to people that are returning from defending our country. Shortly after the tea parties started to pick up speed, the President then makes fun of people who are holding tea bags. The summer comes and people are attending town hall meetings; many for the first time in their lives, and the democrats are holding closed door meetings giving members lessons on how to handle the town halls.
The 9/12 March comes rolling around, and Baghdad Bob Gibbs says that he is unaware that the march is taking place. The amount of people that showed up is not really clear, but a safe estimate is about 750,000. All during this time the democrats, including the president, have yet to realize that not everyone attending these rallies were republicans.
Even after the losses in the governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, the administration and the congress keep pushing ahead with the healthcare reform because they were unwilling to admit that the people were against the bills. The president still is hanging onto the fact that indeed people in the country are looking for reform; they just are not looking for a government takeover. Anyone that has been involved in the movement to "kill the bill" knows full well that members of the senate and congress simply turned off the fax machines and put the phones on dnd.
The administration and the senate move ahead with the bill against the will of the people. All the polls showed that the public was against the way it was being handled, yet that didn't stop them. They continued to make deals behind closed doors. It doesn't take a common sense to figure out that even the senators didn't think it was that great or they wouldn't be looking to get advantages that other states were not getting. We ended up with the cornhusker kickback, the second Louisiana Purchase, and the unions getting an exemption from taxes that everyone else was going to have to pay.
We move on to the very expensive Christmas vacation, one that many people in this country will never be able to afford. Nancy Pelosi is having fundraisers that cost $25,000 per person. Again, something that most people in this country could never afford. Even those "rich" republicans.
The president then goes to Boston and makes fun of a man's truck. This is a truck that wasn't bought for the purposes of a campaign. He had 210,000 miles on the truck. He tells the audience that "anyone can get a truck". I am sorry Mr. President, even in good times many people in this country can't afford a new truck. The really sad part is that I don't think that president even knew his story. Scott Brown has a very compelling life story, a single mother who had to go onto welfare for a short time to support her children, who taught him to work hard and pushed the merits of a good education.
The election of Scott Brown earlier this week doesn't seem to be the wakeup call that it should be. Senator Elect Brown won the union vote, the independent vote, and even got some democrats. This movement is not about party, it is about principle. The principle of responsible government. The principle of not taking away the prosperity of the next generation. The principle of listening to the will of the people.
We will see what themes he is going to hit upon during the State of the Union address. I doubt that he can pull off populism. He just doesn’t seem to get it.