On Being "Out of Touch" - Or Not

A common meme of discussion on politics and politicians in Ireland (and elsewhere) is that politicians are "out of touch" with the feelings, concerns and even the requirements of the voters to whom they are responsible and accountable.

Maybe they are - some of them certainly are - but it seems to me that it is unlikely that, as a class, politicians are more out of touch than anyone else. To the contrary, in fact.

Since so much of our discussion of these matters takes place in the mass media, almost always in contexts chosen and moderated by journalists, and in which journalists are often the only interlocutors, it is inevitable that the voters to whom reference is made in those discussions are not the generality of voters but those voters with whom the journalistic class identify.

I do not intend to suggest that journalists as a class identify solely with a narrow group rather than with the generality. They do tend to so identify, however, and I do intend to insinuate that journalists, and the "lay" people with whom they like to discuss current affairs, may well be more out of touch than politicians are.

As always, I may well be wrong.

But I ask you to consider this:

• Elected politicians owe their jobs to being in touch
• Out of touch politicians lose their jobs
• In Ireland at least, journalists have a dreadful record when it comes to predicting election results
• Journalists who are out of touch with the general electorate do not lose their jobs

It is not guaranteed to be so, but I suggest that people whose future depends on getting public opinion right are more likely to succeed in that than people whose futures are not so dependent.