In continuing tough economic times, Michael Barone says it’s interesting to see that voters are not flocking to the political party that promises more government action to fix the economic problems. His latest column offers a possible explanation.
“The progressive ideal of administrative cadres leading the masses toward the light has its roots in a time when many Americans had an eighth-grade education or less,” [Walter Russell] Mead writes. That is still the mindset of the Obama Democrats. Ordinary people are treated as victims who need government programs such as Obamacare to help them out.
But Americans prefer to see themselves as doers rather than victims. They do not see themselves, as the masses in the Progressive era a century ago may have done, as helpless victims of large corporations and financial interests.
They want public policies that enable them to earn success, and they resent policies that channel money to the politically well-positioned or to those who have not made decisions and taken actions necessary for earned success. They want to be empowered, not patronized.
