The liberal media was in mourning this week, but not for Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber. Instead, outlets like CNN showed their true colors when their coverage of Joe’s death brought up “grievance politics” and “white identity politics”.
It seems that in liberal circles, Joe’s famous 2008 confrontation with Barack Obama over taxes is viewed not as an expression of the struggles of the everyman, but rather as an example of the Republican Party’s cultivation of pain and suffering for political gain.
Speaking on CNN’s Inside Politics, senior political analyst Nia Malika-Henderson stated, “John McCain and Republicans more broadly, they were trying to really attract white working-class voters, right? This was kind of the emergence, I think, of what we see now, the sort of grievance politics, the white identity politics and this idea that white working-class, particularly men I think, are, sort of, the victims of Democratic policies.”
This sentiment only seemed to be echoed by other members of the media, as Politico’s national investigative correspondent Heidi Przybyla lamented that despite Joe Biden’s “hardhat proposals” and infrastructure package, “the Democratic Party really struggles with this segment of the population that really believes that they’re aggrieved and that the economic policies of the Democratic Party has hurt them for the worse.”
As members of the mainstream media look down on Joe the Plumber and others like him, the reality is that the Democratic Party is largely to blame for their feeling of neglect. With Biden’s corporate stock buyback plan and failure to give attention to hardhat proposals, Democratic policies have done little to improve the economic situations of working-class citizens.
Though Joe Biden is attempting to reconcile with the “forgotten man,” it’s clear that he has not done enough. Without Joe the Plumber’s death, many of the struggles that working class men in this country face could be overlooked, but his story will continue to live on in the hearts of those he left behind.
While the liberal media was quick to sneer at Joe for his confrontation with Obama, now is the time to recognize his courage and devotion to helping those in need. Joe wasn’t a political pawn or stunt. I think the media hates the fact that he was a hard-working American fed up with the establishment.