Peggy Noonan contrasts the differing emphases of the Democrat
and Republican parties:
Democrats in the end speak most
of, and seem to hold the most sympathy for, the beset-upon single mother
without medical coverage for her children, and the soldier back from the war
who needs more help with post-traumatic stress disorder. They express the
most sympathy for the needy, the yearning, the marginalized and unwell. For
those, in short, who need more help from the government, meaning from the
government's treasury, meaning the money got from taxpayers.
Who happen, also, to be a generally
beset-upon group.
Democrats show little expressed
sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes to help the
beset-upon mother and the soldier and the kids. They express little sympathy
for the middle-aged woman who owns a small dry cleaner and employs six people
and is, actually, day to day, stressed and depressed from the burden of state,
local and federal taxes, and regulations, and lawsuits, and meetings with the
accountant, and complaints as to insufficient or incorrect efforts to meet
guidelines regarding various employee/employer rules and regulations. At
Republican conventions they express sympathy for this woman, as they do for
those who are entrepreneurial, who start businesses and create jobs and build
things. Republicans have, that is, sympathy for taxpayers. But they don't dwell
all that much, or show much expressed sympathy for, the sick mother with the
uninsured kids, and the soldier with the shot nerves.
Neither party ever gets it quite
right, the balance between the taxed and the needy, the suffering of one sort
and the suffering of another. You might say that in this both parties are
equally cold and equally warm, only to two different classes of citizens.
Do you agree with Peggy Noonan? Has she got it right or not?