Trey Smith
No ink has been spared and no caricature avoided as columnists and pundits have discussed the wealth stockpiled by GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.In the early years of this nation, it was not uncommon for a frontiersman like Davy Crockett to be sent to Congress for a term or two. This image of an everyman representing constituents continued for some time in the American consciousness and was the theme of the classic movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. While this image always was more myth than reality, it resonated with the American people for many generations.
It got us thinking. Being out of touch with the reality of living below the poverty line is often used as a campaign strategy, but is it really a problem owned by either political party?
So far this election season, Republican candidates have proven themselves, at best, unaware that the number of Americans living on two dollars per day has more than doubled since 1996, and at worst, uncaring that this is so. But it’s not immediately apparent that Democrats are any more engaged. We strongly suspect that the so-called Left spends almost as little time thinking in solution-based ways about eradicating poverty as do wealthy Republicans like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum who have, at various times and in various ways in the last few months, intimated that the poor would do well to help themselves out of poverty by just getting a job.
~ from The Abstraction of Poverty Is Making Our Policies Poor by Courtney E. Martin and Noliwe Rooks ~
Not anymore.
In the current political climate, most people understand that, if you want to go to Washington as a US Representative, Senator or President, you can't be an average Joe or Jane. More often than not, you must possess a certain amount of your own financial wealth PLUS you must have access to others of wealth. Few people who flip burgers, take care of the aged and handicapped, or work as a sales clerk have access to either.
And so, we find ourselves in an interesting situation. The people who represent the American populace in the halls of Congress and the Oval Office clearly are out-of-touch with the lives and needs of the vast majority of the people they supposedly serve. For almost all of these elected representatives, poverty is an abstract concept, one that has no resonance with their own privileged lives.
It is because they don't know how poverty personally feels that it is not an urgent priority on their agendas. Oh sure, they may make mention of it every now and then, but it is more a rhetorical soundbite than anything of substance.
As political campaigns grow ever more expensive to wage, this problem will only grow worse. In order to win a race, successful candidates must be even more removed from the day-to-day struggles of most of their constituents than they were as little as a generation ago.
We may soon arrive at the day in which poverty disappears as a political discussion point altogether. Poverty itself won't disappear -- in fact, it's growing -- it just won't be talked about at all.
I simply cannot fathom as to why a middle class person would vote for Romney. Do they really think he cares about the middle class let alone the poor? No he doesn't. He is a 1%er who only works for other 1%er's.
ReplyDeletePoor people don't have money. In America's election system, Money > a Vote. Therefore, the poor don't matter to the candidates.