For People
by Tom Sullivan
In the flood of campaign email and glimpsed web pages yesterday, someone commented on a campaign using the slogan (IIRC), “For Education. For People.” Education has become a near ubiquitous Democratic theme this year.
But what was eye-catching was the stark simplicity of “For People.” And the fact that somebody thought being for people is a snappy message for contrasting a Democrat with the opposition. “For People” sounds so bland, yet asks a stinging question. If your opponents are are not for people, what are they for?
I like it. In an age when one major party believes money is speech and corporations are people, you have to wonder. In an economic system striving to turn people into commodities and every human interaction into a transaction, what is the economy for? In a surveillance state that treats citizens as future suspects, what is freedom for? In an election where red states view voters as unindicted felons, what is democracy for?
Republicans themselves must be asking what they are really for, given the rebranding campaign released a month ago:
The party of Cruz and Ryan and Gohmert wants you to know Republicans really are normal people. No, really.