The American public is even angrier now than before.
I’m not talking about the people who dominate the news –
like the NFL players taking a knee, the Black Lives Matter activists, or the
illegal immigrants demanding amnesty. For all their bluster and high media
profile, they are a tiny, somewhat irrelevant part of the public.
No, I’m talking about ordinary working-class Americans: those
who have always worked for a living, tried to do the right thing, and taken care
of themselves and their families.
You know, the middle-class folk politicians always promise they
will help, but are conveniently ignored after every election. They have every
right to be angry. And they are.
They see the rich getting richer, the poor living a comfortable
lifestyle with essentially free healthcare and food stamps, and the most vocal
complainers being rewarded. At the same time, their own lives are getting
harder: healthcare premiums are soaring, their deductibles are so high as to
make insurance practically unusable, and the costs to feed their families are
rising faster than their paychecks. If they complain about the fairness of
this, they are labeled heartless bigots and racists.
To add insult to injury, just about everything they’ve
always believed in – family, faith, personal responsibility, love of country, honor,
and respect for others – is routinely ridiculed.
They blame both parties – the Democrats for continuing to
focus on meaningless symbolism over substance; the Republicans for
accomplishing absolutely nothing with their majorities in Congress and a
sort-of Republican in the White House.
All they see is non-stop bickering and name-calling from
elected politicians on both sides of the aisle. They also sense a government
bureaucracy increasingly out of control, playing favorites, leaking classified
material to wound adversaries, and acting in its own self-interest. They don’t
trust the media. They don’t trust our own intelligence agencies. They don’t
trust our lower courts.
Antifa activists are beating people with whom they
disagree. Public universities are shutting down free speech. Cities are passing
laws to make it illegal for their police to enforce Federal immigration
laws. It’s against the law now in many
jurisdictions just to ask if someone is a citizen. Statues and monuments are
being vandalized. Cities are removing other statues because someone might be
offended. Public schools, roads, and parks are being renamed to spare the
feelings of some groups aggrieved by the actions of somebody more than a
century or more ago.
Movie actors, entertainers, and other celebrities are openly
calling for the assassination of a sitting President, as are some elected
officials, to cheers. Professional
athletes – and some team owners – are refusing to stand for our national anthem
at games. And the media love all that.
In the public’s mind, it’s a complete breakdown of order.
It’s chaos.
And chaos inevitably leads to revolution.
It’s been years in the making and it’s here. Now.
That’s how Trump got elected, folks. That, and because
Hillary represented everything the public hated about the political
establishment and its mismanagement of the country.
I can’t understand why so many people still don’t get
it. Particularly the Republican
establishment. You would think they
would. An unqualified outsider with no
political experience beat not only the ultimate establishment Democrat, but
every single other Republican primary candidate supported by the Republican
establishment.
If that didn’t send a message, I don’t know what will.
Then there’s the election of Roy Moore over incumbent Luther
Strange in the Alabama runoff. Bible-thumping, 10-Commandment-quoting,
gun-toting Moore trounced Strange – the darling of the Republican establishment
that spent $9 million supporting him. The Republican establishment even
persuaded Trump to fly down and do a get-out-the-vote-for-Strange event.
It didn’t make any difference. Strange lost to Moore by 9-10 points.
That’s a message. When even Trump can’t stop the onslaught
against a nominal incumbent, you have to realize the Republican primaries leading
up to 2018 are going to be a bloodbath for establishment Republicans. Frankly, I don’t think the Democrat incumbents
are going to have it any easier, either – they have their own revolution
underway from the far left of their party.
We’re already seeing some “moderate” Republicans in the
Senate announce they’re retiring at the end of their terms. Expect more to do
the same. They see the writing on the wall: they know they would face tough
primaries from anti-establishment challengers and could very well lose.
The sentiment of voters is decidedly against incumbents from
either party.
Most of this is because the American public now sees chaos
in virtually every aspect of our society. Whether it’s attacks on fundamental rights
such as free speech, attacks on religious liberty, physical attacks on police
just trying to do their jobs, and attacks on American symbols such as the flag
and our national anthem, it’s too much for many ordinary Americans.
It’s not that they want to return to the 1950s – Hell, most
of them don’t even know what life was like in the 1950s. It’s simply that they
want some sense of order and direction.
They aren’t getting either from establishment
politicians.
They see elected politicians continue to skirt the issues
the public actually cares about, like putting an end to the chaos, in favor of
grandstanding over meaningless crap, day after day. The public increasingly
realizes that our government no longer works for the people as a whole, but instead
for special-interest groups, big-money donors, and itself above all. The public
also has determined that our mainstream media no longer objectively report
actual news, but only what – true or not – will thrill their most polarized
viewers; it’s become yellow journalism at its worst.
Against this backdrop, ordinary working-class Americans are
genuinely confused, and angry. And they are taking out their frustrations on
politicians and the media alike.
The pendulum started to swing some time ago; it's about to
swing even further in 2018.
And when it does, it will swing very hard.
I expect a lot of new faces in Congress after
that. That’s okay.
More change is needed, and those in Congress and the government now are clearly unwilling to execute any changes. So it's long past time for them to go.
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