Lips and feet. My Mama taught me to ignore the one and watch the other. She was right; there's a reason to do that.
But in politics it is possible -- sometimes, and usually only at critical moments in the national life -- to say something which gets lots of feet, even a society, walking in the right direction.
You see, you can say things like "income inequality" or whatever devoid-of-passion phrase your public relations people suggest to show that 'gosh, I really care about how things are going downhill for most of you.'
And, of course, keep it devoid of any remedy. Maybe wave your arms, blow some smoke, throw some sand and bring up some things to ease, later, a little bit, the continued degradation of the people's condition. Which, as you know, things like TPP agreements, the Banking System, and the like are fully intended to exacerbate.
But the "income inequality," the "ease your condition as you crumble" stuff is just lip service.
Because, you see, 'income inequality" is a secondary or tertiary effect of:
Rampant Criminality in the Finance Sector.
We could expand this to include the Corporate Sector, and of course, their servants/partners, the Politician Sector. You see, just a year ago, Gallup polled that 79% of Americans see our systems as widely corrupt. I doubt that number would be smaller this year.
But if you want, just start with "Criminality...Finance Sector." Ask your highly-paid expert public manipulators whether or not that would gain you some cred with the voters.
And can you imagine what would happen after that? How does the Press continue to pretend it isn't happening? How do other politicians respond to that? "No, no, there is no Criminality in the Finance Sector" after all these billions they've paid for doing criminal things. How tremendously does this electrify the American voter and the political process?
You would actually do something beneficial for America. I know, in modern US politics that kind of thing is sort of taboo. But if you want to show courage, ... c'mon, compare saying that with willingness to see the murder, maiming, and displacement of millions of innocents aboard. Which one truly demonstrates the kind of courage we need?
Okay, maybe your place in history figures into what you say. Perfectly normal in a person who aspires to lead. Still, seriously, which would you rather: "The First Woman President" (with Thatcher being the first Brit PM; Merkel the first German Chancellor); or, "The Person who set America on the right path"?
Wait! "...murder, maiming, displacement of millions of innocents..." reminds me of something. This:
Our Aggressive Wars are Failures
What started out as some thousand jihadis run through camps in a corner of Afghanistan has, after more than a dozen years, turned into tens of thousands of jihadis holding territory in the middle east and North Africa with, apparently, limitless resouces available to them. Somehow.
Well, that's failure in terms of "Strategic Objectives" and all that. It's certainly not failure for Bankers and Corporations and their Partners/Servants in Politics, as they find their personal fortunes enhanced, but for America, and for Humanity at large, our Policy of Aggressive War is, ... but what can be said other than "Suicidal"?
Put aside that our enemies grow stronger while we lose respect, authority, and at this point our 'soft power' (the US is seen in general as the world's biggest threat what a change from 15 years ago!)
To do our aggression (and this includes aiding insurrections and civil wars; threatening nations by posing fleets and troops off their borders, etc) what happens is regular people get their lives ruined in whole regions (cf. Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, etc)...
...including our own troops who are coming back and killing themselves at 20+ a day; our own maimed physically and/or psychologically for life, numbering at about one-fifth (conservatively) of those who serve...
...all funded by taking out interest-bearing loans which creates a deficit almost precisely the same as our National Defense Hahahahahaha Budget...
...which deficit becomes the basis and rationale for attacking the Social Safety Net (including those things you offer to soften the Financial Criminality effects)...
...and that, at the same time, gives license to -- no, even makes possible -- the militarization of the police and the increasing brutality with which they treat citizens.
The Wars are fundamentally racist; how does that not leak back home?
So, seriously, you've got nothing to say about our (properly-termed) National Suicide Strategy? A strategy that, as anyone who reads publicly-expressed policy by think tanks and Presidential Advisers (both Parties) amounts to World Domination (bwahahahaha!)
Just how insane, literally divorced from reality, does one have to be to imagine the US is going to control the fates of Russia, China, Europe, Africa, South and Central America, the Middle East, South and Central Asia and do it with guns and intimidation and bribes? And for the benefit of whom, exactly? Why the Criminal Finance Sector. Certainly not Americans.
I'll tell you how insane you have to be: enough to be in some kind of treatment facility; far far far from making Security Policy.
The first person who points at that our policy of Aggression the World Over is not only losing, but at a cost we can't afford, will be the person who demonstrates they have our interests at heart.
Can you be that person?