Stirring the TROUsers

I am a TROUser. What is a TROUser? TROUsers are mainly, but not exclusively, members of the American middle class which has been forgotten, arguably neglected, by the nation's modern political and financial systems.

"TROU" is the acronym for "the rest of us." "It's hardly news," wrote Robert Reich of UC Berkeley last year, "that the near meltdown of America's financial system enriched a few at the expense of the rest of us."

Shortly after, Bob Schieffer of CBS, on "Face the Nation," said that in America there were the two intransigent political parties, and then "the rest of us."

With those two statements, I recognized myself as a TROUser. TROUsers may be to the left or right of middle (I am to the left), and we will differ on some issues, but we would touch neither left-wing socialism, nor right-wing extremism, with a ten-foot pole. What do TROUsers want, politically and economically? David Brooks in The New York Times put it nicely: "Anything that might give the working class a leg up."

What, in the news today, would have a chance of giving the working class a leg up? Resolving to defeat Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul who, through the Republican Jewish Coalition, pledged $6.5 million to support a "My Buyer's Remorse" media campaign, focused on Israel, to turn Jews who voted for Obama in 2008 away from him in 2012.

Such one-issue extremism (only part of the $100 million Adelson is reported willing to spend to defeat Obama) is something TROUsers can fight against. Defeating Adelson, of course, would contribute to defeating Mitt Romney, but that's not the point. Romney the Omitter is a substance vacuum. TROUsers are realizing they need to look beyond him, at people who support him, for someone or something of substance worth defeating. In this regard, the billionaire, one-issue Sheldon Adelson leaps off the page.

In the end, defeating Adelson means defeating Mitt Romney, but it is someone like Adelson who will motivate TROUsers to get out and vote, and that is really what the TROUsers are about. We are an unfunded and, so far, unorganized voter advocacy coalition, looking for the best chance to give ourselves a leg up this November.