Has The 'Revolt Of The Masses' Begun?

Daniel Henninger is calling it the Revolt of the Masses, and rightfully so.

In a number of countries around the world the status quo is being upset by voters, turning out long established political parties from power and bringing new blood into their legislatures. Old leaders are being replaced with those that have had enough of creeping socialism and growing indebtedness.

It's no different here in the US, with the public becoming increasingly disenchanted with those in Congress as well as the present occupant of the White House.

In the U.S., political handicappers are predicting heavy Democratic losses in the House next November. This just four years after ending GOP control of Congress in the 2006 elections and two years after sweeping into office Barack Obama and his Democratic partners.

Congress's approval rating remains stuck around 30%. This number may be more important as an indicator of public sentiment toward the nation's leadership than presidential approval.

Some search for an ideological trend toward the left or right in these votes, but the only evident trend is to strike out at whichever blob is currently in power. Even as Americans turned over their country to liberal Democrats, opinion polls showed that the British people were turning toward the Conservatives for relief from listless Labour.

I have a feeling the American people will reverse that decision and move away from the big spenders presently sitting in Congress. It doesn't take a genius to figure out spending far more money than we really have is no way to run a country, particularly when the deficits created will be so much bigger than we've ever experienced.

One commenter to Henninger's piece thought he missed the actual cause of the growing discontent. Steven Flint wrote:

The author is on the right path, but he stopped short of the destination. He is blaming a symptom, not the root cause. He is correct that the problem isn't directly about left and right, but he misses the big picture -- its about up and down.

Lets start here in America. Let's throw all of the writings and lessons of the Founding Fathers into a big pot and bring it to a boil. Add in all of the reasons we fought our wars against ourselves and others, toss in the battles we fought at home for rights and freedom, and heck, even shovel in the adolescent rebellion of the boomers, and let the whole thing reduce to its most elemental. What you'll find when the rhetoric and the posturing is boiled away is the essence of America... a simple idea.

It is this: That everyday common people can run their lives and build a prosperous and fair nation without the ruling hand of their "betters"... whether those "betters" are aristocratic or meritocratic. That is the root of all freedom and all rights. Without that core idea all you have left are temporary dispensations to act and think and talk a certain way... until further notice. But that is not freedom, and those are not rights.

We don't want rulers, only temporary leaders. We don't need kings, be they hereditary or philosopher.

Other nations have their own balancing points, of course. They all have their own social compacts delineating what belongs to the people and what belongs to the elite. But in almost every nation, the political/academic/media/business elite have unilaterally abrogated these understandings. Not all at once, of course, but bit by bit, over the past 4 or 5 decades. We, the people are given empty promises, heavier chains, and shrunken horizons, while the elites gather power and privilege for themselves.

They've gotten good at selling slavery. Most folks volunteer for it, and feel noble while doing it. We have no problems anymore, only crisis. Catastrophe is always right around the corner. Flood the airwaves with experts (those with the "correct" opinions, of course). Cue the stock footage of the approved stock victims. Install the big, blinking guilt-button in the minds and hearts of the people, and press it repeatedly, until the people believe the world is a zero-sum game and they must nobly sacrifice for the good of society. But most of all, get 'em to hand over power and control... no, not to the approved victims, silly... upward! Pass it upward!

Maybe the folks are waking up around the world. Maybe they've noticed that, despite all of the noise and the drama, the elites haven't really fixed anything. Maybe they've noticed that the top-down, expertly planned society is a faux society, more dead than alive. Maybe they've noticed it only produces stagnation and decay. Maybe they realized that all of that debt is meant to cover up all of that stagnation and decay... to create an illusion of growth as their nation is hollowed out, by their own elites, all in the name of some sort of global equality... an equality the elites have no ability to create, but their egos prevent them from admitting so.

Maybe they remembered that the elites get all of their legitimacy from the people, and to withhold it is the greatest power of all.

Maybe.

I couldn't have said it better myself, so I'm not even going to try.