The anti-Washington insurgency advances

HAVING covered Washington for several years, I have learnt to treat the conventional wisdom spun by the pundits with some respect but also with scepticism.

The reason for treating what I hear on the television news shows with many grains of salt is that the people who work in this city, including political strategists and media consultants, reside in a bubble and are out-of-touch with the lives of ordinary Americans.

Those who live inside the Beltway - a reference to the areas that lie within the perimeter of the Capital Beltway - examine the real world through a filter, and tend to impose their wishful thinking on that reality.

The impact of the Great Recession on the daily lives of the Inside-the-Beltway crowd has been different from that experienced by Middle Americans. If anything, employment opportunities have expanded in the region with more educated professionals, including Millennials, landing jobs in government and the private sector. The standard of living in this part of the United States has been growing in recent years, with Greater …