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This week it was revealed that more than half of all Congress members are millionaires. The wealthiest member is Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA). Being wealthy does not inherently make a politician incapable of serving the poor and the middle class. That said, a significant portion of the Republican Congress seems incapable of empathy. While over a million suffer from their loss of unemployment insurance, these Congress people bicker about offsets to pay for it, offsets that do not impact the wealthy.
An empathetic politician wealthy or otherwise can be an asset to society. Politicians who have lived the life of millions of poor and middle class Americans possess that empathy within their DNA. Texas has one of those politicians running for governor. Democratic Senator Wendy Davis went from living in a trailer park as a single mother to Harvard. Check out her story she recounted at the National Press Club. If Texans allow themselves to vote their interest and not their fears she will be the next governor of Texas.
Democratic Senator Wendy Davis went back to her trailer park with Maria Shriver for a piece she is doing on the 50 year war on poverty. Following is a partial transcript to the above snippet that was played on All In With Chris Hayes that speaks for itself.
Maria Shriver: You haven’t been back here since you’ve lived here.
Wendy Davis: That’s right.
Maria Shriver: When you look at this place, what are you feeling right now.
Wendy Davis: Um, a homecoming of sorts, definitely. I’ve tried real hard not to put this in the rear view mirror. I try to keep it present. Just in terms of the work that I do, making sure that my perspective is never too far removed from this. … The hardest thing in the world is to be giving something your all, and it is not good enough. That is what I was experiencing when I was here. I was giving it my all, working two jobs and doing the best I could. But this is the place that I came home to with the phone not working from time to time or the lights not working from time to time.
This Wendy Davis life statement is the empathy America yearns for.
Wendy Davis’ statement reflects that heart felt empathy that is needed from our politicians in these times. She has lived what many Americans are living today. She remembers that absent the stars aligning for her, her situation would have remained stagnant. She came from a time when the state of Texas provided a hand up, a hand up that assisted in making her the strong intelligent competent woman she is.
During this Great Recession, no, this Depression for many, it is time for Wendy Davis and others like her to take the mantle. While politicians like Rick Perry, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio play politics with the lives of their constituents, empathetic grownups must take charge. How many Wendy Davises is America losing out on?
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