The left's reaction to the midterm elections has been remarkably illiberal. Although I have heard the occasional sportsmanly concession to the "will of the people" from my left-leaning friends, I hear much more often about the "frustration" or "anger" of the people. Of course, this psychological interpretation of the Republican resurgence and the rise of the Tea Party comes straight from the White House. The sore losers on the left are parroting President Barack Obama: "People are frustrated. They are deeply frustrated with the pace of our economic recovery." This is the lesson learned from his party's recent electoral losses, and only the latest example of his characterizing any dissent as a symptom of neurosis brought on by financial anxiety.
If anyone is frustrated, it's the president himself he helpfully explains that although he has "facts and science and argument" on his side, his policies are being criticized because "we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared." Perhaps he should direct this brilliant psychoanalysis inward and ask himself why a democratically-elected leader would make a habit of denigrating his constituents. At any rate, he should perhaps try to see the expression of alternative viewpoints as something other than the angry thrashings of a dumb beast in its economic cage.
But even if he finds himself unable to appreciate the nation's diversity of opinion, it is nonetheless inappropriate for the president to discuss the irrationalities of the people of the United States as if they can't hear him, especially when his casual dismissal of any opposition to his agenda begins to trickle down into the rank and file of his supporters. The infamous "bitter clingers" doctrine in which Obama said of certain Pennsylvanians "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" once seemed like just another campaign gaffe from an out-of-touch candidate, but this rhetoric has now been spun into a narrative of the unreliability of the voting public, which feeds and is fed by the anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic sentiments of the progressive elite.
By claiming an exclusive right to the intellectual high ground and casting his opponents as beyond the pale of rationality, Obama poisons the well and jeopardizes political discourse. When partisans begin speaking sarcastically of the American voters' exercise of "their infinite wisdom" in electing a "band of angry fanatics" ("Playing the Immigration Card," Jan. 4), we should recognize that the left's critique has shifted from its ideological competitors to the liberal democratic process itself. Yes, the country may "remain functionally ungovernable." Wouldn't it be so much easier without all those pesky citizens and their votes?
Irony of ironies, the anti-populist talking points being employed by the left were favorites of British political theorist Edmund Burke, who is widely considered the father of modern conservativism. Burke believed that the common people lacked the intelligence and expertise necessary for governing, that they were ruled by their angry passions and that they tended to tyrannize minorities. He therefore maintained that government was best left to the educated political class who would certainly make better decisions and see that everyone was treated fairly under their sovereign patronage. But in America, at any rate, popular sentiment has usually held that all men are created equal and are thereby equally entitled to express their political wills with their votes.
We have entered a period in which the people have reasserted what G.K. Chesterton called the "wild tribal appetite" for democracy. Following the last decade's titanic failures on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue those bastions of wealth and power guided by the skilled hands of the best and brightest we have, according to Chesterton's prophetic words, awakened to "a queer sulky sort of feeling that we, the people, the common people of this common earth, might have been consulted before these specialists sprang these remarkable surprises on us."
The people are no longer content to be ignored, much less patronized, condescended to and scorned by their elected representatives. As Chesterton put it, "Democracy is founded on reverence for the common man." President Obama and the liberal elite would do well to remember that fact, lest they weaken the people's faith in the democratic process, along with their own chances of succeeding in it.
