"Everyday People": How Insulting and Telling

I was reading a few weeks ago a somewhat funny piece discussing what candidates call all of us—the people who live in this country.  The one that struck me the most was how Mrs. Clinton refers in her canned speeches to “everyday people” How demeaning.

Then earlier this week, in a front-page article in the New York Times, we were referred to by the once great journalistic icon as “everyday people.” Now I know the NYT is a wholly owned subsidiary of the liberal Democrat Party, but the use and adoption of this phrase stuck me as a strange coincidence and equally contemptuous.

I do not consider myself or anyone else as ordinary. We are all special; all have a story, all have distinct characteristics, and are all individuals. The term ‘everyday people” is the liberal code word for the unwashed, the non-elite, the peasants, the humdrum, sheep, the masses, the proletariat, the unworthy. It lumps all of us into a group that can be manipulated, are too dense to think and are expected to blindly follow, not lead.

 Mrs. Clinton is about as far away for being an everyday person as you can be. She shares nothing at all with us as everyday people, people who work, have families, who care for each other, respect others, are honest.  It is an absolute ruse for her to tell us she will take care of us and understands us, wants to be one of us, poor ordinary folk. (Folk, by the way. is Mr. Obama’s favorite word for all of us)

There is probably a better way to refer to all of us. It used to include words like Americans and citizens but unfortunately those words do not apply to so many of the “people” within our borders. It is in vogue now to be offended at about anything- and I am offended about the hypocrisy of lumping us all into being “everyday people”.