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 ...
