October 19, 2009--Anger Central

Not only is southeastern Florida where Bernie Madoff inflicted much of his damage but at another level it is where populist anger is most palpably felt.

After feeling this directly the other morning, I thought that if media pundits want to understand what is raging in many parts of the country they should get out of their newsrooms and studios and come down here where real folks are both hurting and raging. And though they are feeling it in their pocketbooks, a lot of the anger is not just about the fallen economy.

You meet a lot of people who are working six, seven days a week at two, three jobs and barely getting by. But I have yet to hear a complaint about how hard they have to work just to stay barely above water. These tough, resilient folks are used to enduring whatever is dealt them.

I have, though, been hearing about all sorts of frustration with the larger state of our nation. They are angry with our federal government and our president, to be sure, but also at all forms of government and politicians of all persuasions.

But deeper than this is the rage that comes from the perception that America is losing its place in the world. There is the persistent, unsettling sense that we are no longer Number One. In pretty much anything. And this is profoundly disturbing to people who, though know in their own lives that they are far from dominant or successful, have historically taken pride in being an American and in America’s successes.

Those now in their middle years learned in public school that America had never lost a war—from the Revolution through World War Two--but then there was the ambiguity of the outcome in Korea (still unsettled), the defeat in Vietnam (no matter the reasons), and the current fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan where even with superior forces and technology we cannot achieve victory. For decades no one has had the exhilarating experience of witnessing anything pridefully equivalent to our victorious soldiers raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

And the countries we defeated in WW II, risen from the ashes, are now making better products than we. When once our automobiles were the envy of the world, two of the Big Three are virtually bankrupt and the highways around here and throughout America are full of Hondas and Toyotas and VWs and Mercedes all zipping by our now second-rate Chevys and Chryslers.

Even our athletes, once indomitable in most major sports from baseball to basketball to tennis to track and field are increasingly overshadowed by players from Latin America and Europe. No wonder Tiger Woods, Lebron James, and Derek Jeter are so popular—they represent the contracting corps of American sports heroes.

And then there is our incredibly shrinking dollar. It is irrelevant to those I talk to here who are so generally frustrated and angry that a weaker dollar might actually help make American exports more attractive around the world. What matters most to them is how it feels to have China and others talking about using some other currencies, a bushel of them, to which to peg the price of a barrel of oil.

They know that our education system is no longer the best in the world. That in math and science we have slipped to virtual Third-World status. And that our healthcare system not only excludes tens of millions but the average person even with insurance gets treatment that doesn’t meet world-class standards. They have experienced this themselves.

No matter that they blame this on immigrants—legal as well as illegal, who refuse to assimilate or learn English—and other minorities who they view as basically lazy and only interested in collecting welfare and food stamps. It doesn’t matter that I attempt to challenge them about these views and suggest that we have always had immigrants in this country, including our own grandparents or great grandparents or that we have the healthcare system we have because of the rapaciousness of the insurance companies. Yes, they will grant me that, but their anger is still unrelenting.

It is as if they are feeling that though their own lives may at times be full of frustration at least they used to be citizens of a country that knew how to win wars, build bridges and dams and superhighways, make the best products in the world, had a government which more or less worked, and where the American dollar was what everyone everywhere wanted to get their hands on.

This sense of diminished circumstances is not entirely class and status based. The less well educated, the economically threatened are certainly more frustrated and angry—how could we expect them not to be—but even many who have a fine education and are still, relatively speaking, doing well are unhappy. Very unhappy.

They tend to be free marketeers who see unfettered business to be the answer to virtually all of our domestic woes and see government involvement in economic affairs to be another example of how those in Washington and state capitals are seeking to limit or abrogate all of our rights—among other things they want to keep the money they earn; purchase any kinds of weapons they wish; bomb or invade any country that appears to want to do us harm; keep gays from marrying and serving in the military; drive any kind of cars they desire, regardless of MPG ratings; and seal our borders to stop “the invasion from the south.” You know the list.

But the more I feel and absorb this sense of profound frustration I am convinced that these ideas, these beliefs, this ideology, though not well supported by evidence from either history or current circumstances, are rooted in a fundamental, and correct, awareness that this is no longer the America they grew up in or imagined. That open, free-spirited, can-do, don’t-tread-on-me US of A of our real and mythical past. Pessimism has replaced that bright-eyed American optimism that used to be so characteristic of us.

Thus there is a lot of flailing around to find the reasons for this, to figure out where to place blame—from Obama to immigrants. I am, though, hearing a lot of hyper-caffeinated talk about “taking back our country.” The teabaggers are a vivid example of this. They have been dismissed and roundly mocked by much of the media, but we should be careful no to overdo this. As back in the 1930s we may be living in a quasi-revolutionary time. But the outcomes this time could easily by much more regressive and oppressive. We’ve seen that too.