Four years ago, a plumber by the name of Joe Wurzelbacher injected a bit of a debate over inequality right into the heart of the 2008 presidential race.
Now four years later Joe the Plumber has largely faded from view. He’s running a lackluster campaign for Congress, as a conservative Republican. And the issue that gave Joe the Plumber celebrity status — wealth redistribution — has more or less totally disappeared.
Last week, the second presidential debate of 2012 came and went without a single mention of the word “inequality” or America’s incredibly top-heavy distribution of income and wealth.
Maybe one day Americans will live in a society that shares. Maybe one day our presidential candidates will even talk about sharing.
