As if you needed any more evidence that congressional Democrats are completely out of touch with the needs of the people they are supposed to represent, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is close to Obama and frequently thought to be signaling the President’s positions on issues, announced yesterday that massive deficit reduction is “the challenge of our generation,” urging fellow Democrats as well as Republicans to “seize [the] moment” by supporting a truly “historic” package that would, without question, include deep cuts to social safety net programs. Because what we really need in this country is even more desperate people who are unable to make ends meet.

If Dick Durbin thinks debt reduction is the preeminent challenge we’re facing, all I can figure is that he must be living in some alternate universe. Which I guess he is. Durbin and the rest of the millionaires’ club in the Senate are so far removed from the lives of the people they were elected to represent that they might as well be from another dimension. The deficit that so concerns Durbin and the DC establishment barely even registers as a concern for the people in my community. Indeed, the only reason it registers at all is the ruling class’ relentless propaganda campaign.

Let me tell you, Dick, what people in my California community are concerned about. Our county’s official unemployment rate is 14.7%, but the real unemployment rate in our neck of the woods is at least 10-12 percentage points higher. Sometimes a whole week goes by without a single “help wanted” ad appearing in the local paper (not counting “make thousands stuffing envelopes from home” schemes and the like). Jobs are so scarce and people are so desperate for work that a supermarket putting up a Help Wanted sign for three no-benefits, minimum wage positions received hundreds of applications in a matter of hours.

While at least one in four are unemployed, many more are underemployed or stuck in low wage jobs that don’t pay enough to cover the basics. The lack of discretionary income in the area has devastated small businesses. The barbershop that used to cut my partner’s hair, the Mexican restaurant we occasionally stopped by for takeout before our car broke down and we couldn’t afford to get it fixed, the two Internet cafés we visited a couple of times per month to escape the unbearable slowness of our dialup connection–they’ve all closed their doors. So have countless other businesses during the last few years. You can’t run a business without customers, and most people in our area have no money to spend.

Following the Tucson shooting we’ve heard plenty of talk about the need to tone down the violent, sometimes eliminationist rhetoric in our political discourse. As usual, the media has been pretending that this is a problem both sides are equally guilty of, though that’s not what I want to discuss right now (besides, Melissa has already done an exceptional job setting the record straight).

While most media discussions in the aftermath of the shooting have revolved around the potential of violent rhetoric to propel unstable individuals toward violent action (with an emphasis on gun violence), the actual danger such dehumanizing discourse poses to our democracy goes way beyond the occasional lone gunman. I presently reside in a conservative county in California and there are towns in my county–towns where the Tea Party is especially popular–where I would be concerned for my safety if I was to publicly engage in political activism for many, if not most, progressive issues. Indeed, a friend of mine was threatened with physical violence trying to drum up support for environmental legislation in a city far more liberal than anywhere in my county.

The people I would be concerned about if I was to, for instance, stand on a street corner and hand people information in support of government-run health care, aren’t mentally ill loners but standard issue bullies who have become emboldened by right wing rhetoric and the successes of the Tea Party movement. People who think they’re heroes for “taking America back” from “those people”–i.e., whatever group Beck, Palin, O’ Reilly, Limbaugh, and co. have decided to vilify: liberals, “socialists,” gay people, feminists, undocumented immigrants, etc. We are the enemy and we deserve to die. If killing us isn’t an option because there are serious legal repercussions for that kind of thing, the next best option is to shut us up.