Ask the scientists at the CalTech Seismological Laboratory
how tricky it is to try and predict an earthquake. It’s a very, very difficult
task. So many variables. So many unknowns. But I spoke with a longtime
acquaintance yesterday in the course of doing the part-time day job that keeps
me off the streets, who’s predicting a political earthquake.
Just as pressure builds and builds and finally lets go with
a shift of tectonic plates, he thinks resentment against the political class,
which has been building for quite a while, increased exponentially since the
last debacle we called an election, and that we’re beginning to see the signs
of a huge shift.
The news for the past several weeks has been full of
political rallies and town hall meetings, and they’re getting progressively
more nasty. People are beginning to demand that the politicians they send to
Washington election after election start listening to them.
The politicians who thought they were immune from
dis-election because of Gerrymandering and the power of incumbency, now have a
lot more to worry about than being primaried by the NRA.
One middle-aged woman at a town hall meeting with her
Congressman last night stood up and told the politician that her health
insurance was literally a matter of life and death. When she saw his attention
begin to wane, she said, angrily, “what kind of health insurance do YOU have”
and suddenly the entire auditorium broke out in cheers.
It used to be that people hated Congress, but thought their
own representative to Congress was a nice person and not part of the problem.
Now, that’s changing.
Most of the people I know don’t give a rat’s ass about which
bathroom someone uses, they didn’t think Obama was coming for their guns, they
think building the wall is a stupid waste.
But now that the slower buffalo in the herd have finally
figured out that their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act is….omigod….OBAMACARE….they’re
suddenly starting to pay attention.
And those TV ads you see every 10 minutes from AARP showing our
new President promising to save Social Security and Medicare? Folks are
suddenly starting to get wise to what Paul Ryan and his pals really want to do
with Social Security and Medicare. And that’s making them very uneasy.
They've figured out that the billionaire (?) President and his billionaire pals that he has running things might not be too concerned about how much their Social Security checks are for. Or if their 401K will carry them through retirement.
And the regular folks are starting to make noise about it.
Although the spinsters would like us to believe that this
noise is being made by “paid, professional protesters”, in their quiet moments
alone, the pols are starting to figure out that enough regular folks are riled
up that an earthquake may just be coming.
Hold on. Hold on tight.
ReplyDeleteThis too shall pass. Over the years I've watched these movements build, gain momentum, and then fizzle out. Remember the "occupy" movement? Tea Party? All of them are doomed when roughly 45% of eligible voters have other things to do on election day. It's just a matter of time before some shiny object distracts the public, like shaking keys to keep a fussy baby from crying. The protests in Madison died down and that's with an electorate that for the most part is engaged and votes. There is nothing new under the sun.
ReplyDelete" But now that the slower buffalo in the herd have finally figured out that their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act is….omigod….OBAMACARE….they’re suddenly starting to pay attention."
ReplyDeleteYeah nothing like a crisis to shake up the lethargic. The hypocritical Ryan, who basically went to college on Social Security survivors benefits and married into a well to do family and has never held a job outside of politics is operating in a parallel universe. I'm afraid a lot of folks will have buyer's remorse regarding Trump and company down the road after things are really effed up.