At the moment, almost every politician has the uneasy feeling that he or she is losing touch with the voters. The politicians huff and puff. They work their hearts out.
Politicians have company in their concern.
A good case can be made out that, on the contrary, it is a sign of political health. Turn-out in elections is falling not only in this country but in the United States and throughout western Europe. Both are more cheering than depressing. Religion divided Germany, France and Italy in the 1940s and 1950s, and countries without deep religious divisions were almost invariably separated along class lines. Workers hated capitalists.