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发帖数: 29846 | 1 精英的傲慢：奥巴马说的和刚离任的多伦多市长一样，一再说选民不感激他们达成的成就
There’s good reason the masses are revolting
My best friends are wonderful people – talented, accomplished, generous,
smart and caring. So it’s hard to see them in such fear and pain. The way
they see it, the Visigoths have battered down the gates of Rome, and the
Vestal Virgins had better scramble for cover. In the aftermath of Toronto’s
election rout, their only consolation is that Rob Ford is probably too
stupid and incompetent to completely sack the place. If only they lie low
for the next four years, sanity will surely return to city politics.
Like my friends, the people who work in much of the major media – the CBC,
the Toronto Star, even my own beloved paper – were stunned by the Ford
tsunami. After all, the polls had predicted a squeaker. But there’s another
reason they didn’t see the big wave coming. Very few of these people live
or work outside downtown Toronto. Very few ever hang around with someone who
voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it. They remind me of the super-smart
editorial writers at The New York Times who are sincerely convinced that
Tea Partiers are dangerous crackpots – even though they’ve never met any.
The media think they understand why people voted as they did. As one Toronto
Star pundit helpfully explained, the voters – Ford voters, that is – “
were full of largely pointless rage.” Only pointless rage could explain why
voters ignored the editorial endorsements of two leading newspapers, as
well as a long line of former mayors who begged them, in the name of decency
, to vote for George Smitherman. Even Justin Trudeau’s twinkle dust didn’t
work.
The day after his election victory, Mr. Ford gave a hilariously disastrous
interview to As It Happens, while simultaneously coaching a football game.
It was obviously a mistake. It was also clear that, like most of his
constituents, Mr. Ford doesn’t really give a darn about the CBC, never
listens to As It Happens and believes that coaching his football team is far
more important than talking to Carol Off. As much as I adore As It Happens,
I find this moderately refreshing.
Tuesday, the U.S. Democrats will face their own tsunami. Like Toronto’s
downtown liberals, they blame the masses, not themselves. The voters are
full of pointless rage, they explain. Populist politicians (Tea Partiers,
Rob Ford) have whipped up voter discontent with their simplistic slogans.
These people are dangerous because their ideas, apart from being incoherent,
are also unrealistic and destructive. And if they ever tried to implement
them, they would wreck the place.
Both Barack Obama and outgoing Toronto mayor David Miller insist the voters
simply don’t appreciate what they’ve accomplished. They say their only
real mistake was to not focus enough on positive PR. Both the Democrats and
Toronto liberals are convinced they know what’s best for the masses, even
if the masses massively disagree. They believe that many of the people who
vote for their opponents are basically deluded, ignorant and poorly educated
(even though the Republicans are currently leading by 20 per cent among U.S
. college graduates). They also believe the people on the other side are
basically intolerant, anti-immigrant racists (even though a pre-election
poll said half of voters born outside Canada were set to cast votes for Mr.
Ford).
In other words, this is just another classic anti-incumbency wave, and all
they have to do is ride it out.
The other possibility is that it’s something else. Could it be that the
masses have good reasons for revolting?
Here are some. During the seven years Mr. Miller was in charge, Toronto’s
spending increased by 44 per cent while services got worse. People
grudgingly put up with the city’s unrelenting efforts to turn their porches
into recycling depots. But they got seriously annoyed when they learned
that striking city workers had better perks than they did.
In the United States, people’s lives have only gotten worse since Mr. Obama
took office. Unemployment is higher. More than half of all families are
worried about making next month’s mortgage or rent. Health-care reform is
so impenetrably complex that people don’t know where they stand. What they
do know is that their premiums have gone up and their Medicare coverage is
being cut. Sixty-three per cent of Americans say they don’t feel they’ll
be able to maintain their current standard of living. They know Mr. Obama
didn’t create the mess, but they think he’s made it worse.
No wonder the independent voters who put Mr. Obama into office have deserted
him. Fifty-five per cent of the electorate now say they are or lean
Republican.
Americans believe their country is in crisis, and they’re right. By next
year, the United States will reach Third World debt territory. Yet both
major parties seem oblivious. Neither of them has a plan, or even publicly
acknowledges the severity of the crisis. If the Tea Party does nothing else,
it may at least force the Republicans to face this highly unpleasant fact.
If Mr. Obama wants a second term, he’ll have to face it too.
Although Canada is far more blessed, even we won’t entirely escape the
massive restructuring that faces almost every country in the Western world.
The problem is simple. People have a lot more government than they can or
will pay for. Mr. Ford and Tea Partiers know that. Scaling down the scope of
government is the political challenge of the next generation. And if
mainstream politicians stay in denial, they’ll be toast. |
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