Jonah Goldberg, Friend of the Common Man:

Biden’s doing a great job, just as I expected.

But come on: To listen to the Democrats you’d think the Great Depression was a day at the beach. There are economic challenges out there, hardships etc, sure. But you’d think we’re all living off of puddle water and grub larvae from the way they talk about life in America today.

I think at some point the disconnect between the country these people are describing and the country we actually live in is going to undermine the Democrats’ credibility. 

Reality, Not A Friend of Jonah:

First came the health problems. Then, unable to work, Ada Noda watched the bills pile up. And then, suffocating in debt, the 80-year-old did something she never thought she’d be forced to do. She declared bankruptcy.

[...]

"Older Americans are hit by a one-two punch of jobs and medical problems and the two are often intertwined," said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who was one of the authors of the study. "They discover that they must work to keep some form of economic balance and when they can’t, they’re lost."

That’s precisely what happened to Noda. She worked all her life, on a hospital’s housekeeping staff, and later selling boat tickets to tourists. She cut corners when she needed to but always paid the bills she neatly logged in a ledger.

"I was born during the Depression," she said. "I paid the bills whether I ate or didn’t, whether I went to the doctor or not."

It all worked fine for Noda, a widow for 23 years, until she was forced to undergo double-bypass surgery and deal with respiratory problems. She started using two credit cards more frequently for food and bills. Before long, she was $8,000 in debt and behind on car payments.

"I’d go to bed and all I had on my mind was bankruptcy," she said. "I had nothing left."

Noda’s car was repossessed, but her trailer home wasn’t in jeopardy because her daughter owns it. While she’s covered by Medicare and receives $968 in Social Security each month, she relied on her job for other expenses. She had no choice but to get help from Jacksonville Legal Aid and declare bankruptcy.

Here’s Joe Biden.

I just finished reading The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. And in the epilogue they speak directly to the reader describing the  insularity of the American foreign service staff who refuse to learn the language and refuse to step outside of the embassies and get to know the people in whose country they are guests.

While the few Hillendales and the many Russians roam the barrios and the boondocks, most Americans are restricted both by official tethers and by language barriers, to communicate with each other. The kind of ingrown social life portrayed in the story of Marie MacIntosh is real, though she is not. The Asians themselves have given it a name. We first heard it one day in Bangkok when we invited a Thai to spend the evening with us. He replied that unfortunately he had to attend a "S.I.G.G" When we asked what he meant, he expressed surprise that we did not know the term.

"We use it," he said, "whenever we are referring to an American cocktail party, dinner, or gathering of any kind. It means ‘Social Incest in the Golden Ghetto.’"

People like Jonah who, along with his wife, have always depended on the kindness of wingnut welfare and therefore have no concept of what real working people are going through in the real world.

I have been working the real world since I was fifteen. In those thirty eight years I have not been the beneficiary of nepotism, family connections, fellowships, or grants. Hell, I don’t even have a college education. So I think I can speak on behalf of millions of working Americans, who have never received an honorarium to pontificate in any gilded palace of deep thought, when I ask people like Jonah Goldberg (and Cokie Roberts for that matter)  to please not attempt to  speak for the average working American.

Or as we working stiffs are more apt to put it: just shut the fuck up.