Text

David Brooks: Patio Man revisited - International Herald Tribune

"For all the talk of plumbers and investment bankers, populists and elitists, Patio Man is still at the epicenter of national politics. He is the quintessential suburban American, the service economy worker, the guy who wears khakis to work each day, with the security badge on the belt-clip around his waist."

He lives in northern Virginia, along the I-4 corridor near Orlando, Florida, in or near Columbus, Ohio, along the Front Range of Colorado, in the converging megalopolis between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and in many other places.

He has a house - worth less and less - in a relatively new development. He's holding off on the new car. He's trying not to look at his retirement account balance. But he's happy with the new streetscape shopping area where he and his family can stroll before a movie."
...
"He doesn't expect much of government. He believes that he is responsible for his own economic destiny. But he does expect government to provide him with a background level of order.

In times of turmoil, he has gravitated toward the party that could restore his sense of order. In the 1970s, crime and social breakdown seemed like the biggest threats to order, and he gravitated to the Republicans.

In the late 1990s, Republican revolutionaries seemed to bring instability, and he softened on Clinton. Then terrorism threatened his equilibrium and he helped re-elect Bush. Then, post-Iraq and post-Katrina, administrative incompetence led him a bit the other way.

Now disorder has come from an unexpected direction - not from foreign enemies or domestic zealotry but from a society-wide contagion of financial risk-taking. Government programs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seduced people into homes they could not afford. Private bankers took on too much risk with too little capital. Consumers - including Patio Man himself - racked up an enormous personal debt.

The effects threaten everything he has achieved. There are foreclosures in his neighborhood. Like all taxpayers, he's been asked to backstop Wall Street's losses. He braces for recession."