Seriously, Victor?
Posted on 08/01/2013 10:53:17 AM PDT by neverdem
Plenty of pleaders for rich and poor, but no politician speaks for the common man.
Occupy Wall Streeters claimed that they were populists. Their ideological opposites, the Tea Partiers, said they were, too. Both became polarizing. And so far populism, whether on the right or left, does not seem to have made inroads with the traditional Republican and Democrat establishments.
Gas has gone up about $2 a gallon since Barack Obama took office. Given average yearly rates of national consumption, that increase alone translates into an extra $1 trillion that American drivers have collectively paid in higher fuel costs over the last 54 months.
Such a crushing burden on the cash-strapped commuter class is rarely cited in the liberal fixation on cap-and-trade, wind and solar subsidies, and the supposed dangers of fracking.
When the president scaled back the number of new gas and oil leases on federal lands over time, or warned that “under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” he was appealing to his boutique base — not to those who can scarcely meet their monthly heating and cooling bills.
Should there not be an opening for a conservative populist response?
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Be careful what you wish for, VDH
Populism WILL come roaring back with power and fury.
Only it might not take a course we’d necessarily approve of.
I’m thinking President Fauxahontas and her platform of weekly televised floggings of bankers, live from Yankee Stadium.
Populism is just catching the wave of whatever’s in vogue with the majority of an area or country at the moment. It is a “taking advantage” of current sentiment kind of platform. Not one that really is founded in anything.
At the extreme it could mirror angry mob rule.
One question the candidate should have for prospective presidential appointees: Are you now, or have you ever been, an employee of Goldman Sachs? If you are appointed, will you agree never to accept employment from them?
Similarly for the other "too big to fail, too big to jail" financial institutions. And the Chinese government and its subsidiaries. And the Saudis.
President Hoover expressed his disdain for the "cult of the common man" in On the Uncommon Man.
Reagan had a sort of conservative populist approach. Obviously, populism can just be a matter of using the mob (stirred up by free goodies) to enact one’s oppressive policies, but I think a conservative populism - that is, a campaign based on the issues that concern people who work for a living, such as taxes, crony capitalism and government corruption, Obama’s destruction of their health care, etc. could work.
Conservatives like Ted Cruz do.
Take gas prices as an example of how a true conservative helps the common man Joe Lunch-bucket.
No, he won't put on price controls or fund some dumb-a$$ train system.
He would remove regulations on drilling and refining so the free market could work.
Remove the corn gas mandates and all the Heinz 57 blends of gas.
We would be swimming in $2 gas in a couple years.
Seriously, Victor?
Just needs a little ‘nudge’. People don’t know what’s good for them unless you tell them what they should want.
Of course, Hoover was the most inept “expert” political hack this country has ever seen.
On Hoover, President Coolidge has this to day:
“That man has offered me unsolicited advice every day for six years, all of it bad.”
Coolidge also derisively nicknamed Hoover: “Wonder Boy.”
So yes, Hoover disliked the common man.
Conservative populism would consists of something like “I’m going to get the government off of your backs”.
That would appeal to a LOT of voters. Particularly younger ones with a Libertarian streak. But I’ve not heard any politician utter them since Reagan wrote his touching “goodbye letter”.
thanks
Ping
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