For decades, mainstream Americans have seen their "ruling class" become dismissive, dysfunctional and self-serving. Their arrogance and elitism would shame even the Whigs and Tories of King George III's era.

Scott Rasmussen recently wrote, "The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colony and England during the 18th century."

Americans have awakened. They no longer cower in their homes feeling helpless, merely clinging to the Bibles and guns. They began reading editorials, they researched, they marched in the streets, they filled town halls and they educated themselves. They learned the difference between a national debt and the federal deficit. They learned what the term "unfunded liabilities" meant and how earmarks and backroom deals were corrupting every piece of legislation brought before Congress for a final vote.

Even though they wrote letters, sent e-mails and called their elected representatives, their voices were ignored. The "will of the people" was tossed aside like useless trash.

They witnessed the passage of massive 2,000-plus-page bills being passed without ever being read and never understood by those who voted them into law. They would learn that those bills were influenced and written by 12,000 registered Washington, D.C. lobbyists and the special interest groups they represent.

The bond between the people and both political parties had been severed.

President Bush took the country into an unfunded second major war in the Middle East and signed a massive unfunded drug prescription entitlement program. The Bush Republicans and the Democrats recklessly spent billions of taxpayer dollars pushing the national debt from $5.9 trillion in 2000, to a record $10.7 trillion by 2009.

The intolerable acts continued in 2008 with the $700 billion TARP bailout. The new Obama administration and its partisan majority in Congress has no problem rolling out one progressive bill after another. Their agenda has included the $787 billion stimulus bill, Obamacare and the financial reform bill. Waiting in the wings after the midterm elections are immigration reform, union card check, a Senate vote on cap-and-tax and more stimulus spending bills.

Our national debt is expected to reach $20 trillion in five years.

During the first two years in which President Obama has been in office, the U.S. has had the two largest federal deficits as a percentage of GDP since the end of Word War II.

In September, for the first time in history the World Economic Forum dropped the U.S. to fourth place in the world rankings based on economic stability and world competitiveness.

Unemployment remains near 10 percent and our president has no answer. Earlier this year, President Obama made this casual, off-teleprompter statement, "Things would have been a lot worse, right. You know, so people kind of say, yeah, but unemployment's still at 9.6 [percent]. Yes, but it's not 12 or 13 or 15 [percent]."

Americans want leadership, not speculation. They yearn for the courage and inspirational leadership of a president such as John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan.

Our nation remains divided as the states and citizens continue to push back. Twelve state attorneys general have taken this administration to court over the constitutionality of Obamacare. Meanwhile, Arizona is under attack in federal court by this administration for trying to enforce immigration laws which are already on the books.

We're being told the southern border is safer than it has ever been, yet the government is warning vacationers to avoid certain areas in our southwestern states. They've been infiltrated with drug cartels and human trafficking. Several government signs placed along a stretch of Interstate 8 read: "Danger -- Public Warning. Travel not recommended. Visitors may encounter armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." This should not and cannot be allowed to happen within the borders of our children's country.

Earlier this year at a meeting with Republicans, President Obama said, "We have honest disagreements about the vision for the country, and we'll go ahead and test those out over the next several months until November."

Mr. President, November draws near and 200 million eligible voters have awakened from their slumber. You won the 2008 election with 69 million of those votes, as independents and disillusioned Republicans trusted your message of "hope and change." They were promised a new era of bipartisanship and civility in Washington, D.C. They were betrayed.

When the American people are pushed too far, the memories of a long-ago generation are reborn. The Declaration of Independence said it best. When the will of the American people has been discarded by an overreaching government, "it is their right ... it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

The grassroots revolution of 2010 is just the beginning of a cleansing in Washington, D.C. It will take many election cycles, but this revolution will be won, not with blood, but with millions of ballots cast by an educated electorate.

Americans will smile one future day with their victory. They'll dust off their guns, watch their children succeed in the free-market system and read Bible stories to their grandchildren in a safer, better and stronger America.

William Piercey Sr. is a Cape Girardeau resident.