This mantra is essential to Democrats because they can't sock it to working people, where the real money is, without hitting "the rich" first.

In bashing "the rich," Obama  then went revealingly wrong.

"If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own," the president said.

"Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

The subliminal message here is that government makes that happen, and continued Democratic control of it is essential to "allowing" Americans to thrive.

What a load of manure.

It is not government - politicians - who make roads and bridges possible.

It is working people who make government possible.

The Obama administration and its supporters in the U.S. Senate have returned the favor by running the national debt up to almost $16 trillion.

True, the president gave lip service to working people before he launched into his Democratic Party-as-savior mantra.

"Let me tell you," he said. "There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there."

But lip service is all it is.

Obama wants desperately to keep the power to redistribute working people's money, and that of their children's children as well.

That includes the offspring of all those working people who saved the day when straight-line winds plunged West Virginia into darkness and misery.

Who makes the country work was abundantly evident in the days that followed.

The working people who support government are the real backbone of the nation.

It was utility crews who delivered the change West Virginians needed. It was the garbage crews who helped people deal with spoiled food.

It was nurses who worked on battery power. It was the tiny dynamo at the Donut Connection who served coffee to zombies all week who delivered hope.

President Obama and his supporters blow smoke at many of these hard-working people.

He spoke dismissively of rural Americans, for example, when speaking to Hollywood supporters in his first campaign.

Lack of jobs, he said, makes it "not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them . . . . as a way to explain their frustrations."

The president's supporters betray the same contempt for anyone who disagrees with them.

An "analysis" in the New York Times, said of West Virginians, for example:

"The state is rural, culturally conservative and religious. Of the 50 states, West Virginia has the highest share of gun owners, the third-oldest median age, and one of the least diverse and least-educated populations - all variables associated with Republican Party affiliation."

This begs the question: What are Obama and "progressive" Democrats, then?

Let me try:

Arrogant. Elitist.

Disdainful of religious people who not only help others as taxpayers but personally as well.

Contemptuous of the working people whose money Democrats think they alone are intelligent enough to spend.

Disconnected from how many Americans live.

Is it just possible that some of those power crews live in rural areas, go to church, and enjoy hunting in deer season?

Progressive Democrats ill-concealed contempt for hard-working, less-educated people deserves contempt in its own right.

There's nothing liberal about thinking you should control other people's money.

Yet Democrats assert that they should distribute tax dollars and direct Americans' activities because they alone are qualified to do so.

This is un-American, alien to the idea of government "of the people, by the people, for the people."

I hope Americans make that clear this fall.