That question seems to encapsulate Jon Meacham?s reaction to current political trends, based on a quick perusal of his editor?s note in the latest Newsweek.
Those whom Jackson called ?the humble members of society?the farmers, mechanics, and laborers? ought to be generating substantial political pressure to exact reparations from, and impose severe new regulations on, the plutocratic few. Unemployment remains high; poverty too pervasive and intractable; the moneyed classes too skilled at the Washington game to make contests over economic justice even remotely fair fights.
And yet the pitchforks are being brandished not to encourage government to curb the excesses of the elite but to warn the citizenry that the government has turned into a socialistic threat to free enterprise.
You mean people might be more interested in a government that allows them to succeed on their own than a government that penalizes other people for their success? Shocking.
As Meacham searches for reasons that people might be lukewarm or downright hostile to larger, more intrusive government, perhaps he?ll also find clues as to why Newsweek is going down the tubes.
