Call it a small ripple in what may become a tidal wave.

In a special election last week, New York's 26th Congressional District went blue as Democrat Kathy Hochul soundly beat her Republican challenger. It was "shocking," the Associated Press reported, not just because the seat was "one of New York's most conservative and has been held by a Republican — including national names like Jack Kemp — for years," but because the vote was seen as a referendum on Medicare, and the GOP's attempt to "reform" it.

The outcome, noted the AP, "may serve as a warning shot to further GOP efforts to cut popular entitlement programs."

Which puts the GOP, and our political class in general, in a pretty interesting position.

Our current, tea party-ized crop of GOP legislators rode into office on a wave of outrage at "Obamacare." But much of the outrage stemmed from the fear that Obama's plan would undercut Medicare. Even seniors who considered themselves solid Republicans like Medicare, particularly their own. But that sentiment cuts across party lines; a poll released last week showed three out of five Americans say Medicare and Social Security are "vital to their basic financial security as they age."

Yet the GOP is expressly committed to the goal of ending Medicare as we know it.

Voters might see that as a bait-and-switch because it is; the GOP rode to victory in 2010 promising to keep government's hands off Medicare. Now the party all but requires fealty to the vaunted Ryan Plan. When Newt Gingrich dared criticize Rep. Paul Ryan's proposal, he was slammed by the ideological enforcers on the right and forced to backtrack at 100 mph — declaring, hilariously, that any Democratic ad quoting what he actually said is dishonest. Sure thing, Newt.

So the GOP is saying to voters: We know what you want, but you can't have it. That didn't play well in upstate New York. It won't play any better anywhere else.

Our political class as a whole, Democrats included, remains intent upon giving the people what they don't want. We haul out the charts showing how Medicare will consume ever-more resources. In a review of Ryan's plan, the Congressional Budget Office noted, "If revenues and federal spending apart from [Social Security and medical programs] remain near their past levels relative to GDP, the increase in spending on Social Security and the health care programs will lead to rapidly growing budget deficits and mounting federal debt."

But who says we need to keep allocating money as we always have? How about, for starters, we end the wars in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, close our military bases in Germany and Japan and elsewhere, and put the savings toward these programs the people want?

Isn't it the job of the political class, in a democracy, to reflect and work to achieve what the people want?

But won't this undermine growth? Look around you. The "growth" of the past 30 years has not helped middle Americans. Policies of the past three decades have led directly to the decline of the middle class, making programs like Medicare and Social Security more important than ever before.

We're going to cut them without reforming the policies that make them more necessary than ever?

Across the globe, "austerity" is being imposed upon nations so the budgetary priorities determined by the political and economic elite can be implemented. In Ireland, England, Greece and Spain, social programs are cut so banks can be made whole, and people are in the streets. Well, they should be in the streets; if we continue down this path, people may be in the streets here.

Either those elected by "the people" must do what the overwhelming bipartisan consensus wants, or "the people" really don't know what's good for them, and must be treated as subjects rather than citizens.

Call that what you want. Just don't call it democracy.

Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. Email him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.