A formerly democratic country must beg its betters for deliverance

Joe Nocera writes oped columns for the New York Times. He comes from a background in business journalism. He doesn't think of himself as liberal, rather as a realist. Last week in a column headlined "The Tea Party's War on America," he got in trouble with right wingers for pointing out that, during their ginned up debt ceiling crisis, the Republicans were behaving as "terrorists" He then apologized two days later, suggesting he'd stooped to his opponents' level by using intemperate language, though I don't think he repudiated his criticism of their actions.

Today, having watched the stock market dip after the Republicans' stunt got U.S. bonds downgraded, he comes pretty close to throwing in the towel on United States democracy:

I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willing to pay more in taxes as part of the shared sacrifice necessary to gain control of the country’s deficit. I know there are wealthy people who’ve had that thought -- not just liberals like Warren Buffett, but old-fashioned, rock-ribbed Republicans who are worried about the country’s debt problems. I even have a pretty good idea who some of them are. Come on, folks. Your country needs to hear from you.

Apparently he has concluded that our democratic processes are so broken that, even though a majority of rank and file Republicans favor higher taxes on the rich, not to mention even larger majorities of independents and Dems, the opinions of these mere citizens count for nothing. I guess these days only our financial overlords get a vote. Nice mess they are making of the country, aren't they?