Why am I so angry?

After the 2016 election, I had a long conversation with one of my Trump-voting friends. “Why are you so angry?” he asked. I’ve heard it again since then.

Why am I so angry? Because for nearly 40 years – or my entire adult life – I’ve watched friends and family fall for economic and policy bunk to vote against their own best interests. I’ve struggled alongside them and had to listen to their puzzlement about why their lot keeps getting worse. Yet when I try to share facts and information that explain it, I am tarred as “liberal” and written off. Or I see their eyes glaze over, leading next to a shrug and the excuse that nothing they do will make a difference.

Meanwhile, we’re all working harder for less. So why do they think I’m angry?

I’m angry because these voters’ willful ignorance – whether because they refuse to acknowledge facts they deem “liberal” or because they find politics boring – costs us all daily.

This week Robert Reich came out with a column that explained this 40-year-plus marketing blitz. Salon Magazine published it under the headline, “The Big Economic Switcheroo.” In it, Reich explains how the rich have swindled Americans by lowering tax rates.

He writes: “The rich used to pay higher taxes to the government. Now, the government pays the rich interest on a swelling debt, caused largely by lower taxes on the rich. Which means a growing portion of everyone else’s taxes are now paying the rich interest on those loans, instead of paying for government services everyone needs.”

While Conservative Republican messaging has convinced voters that poor, black, brown people and anyone else they can tag as “Other” are robbing us, they are passing policies that increasingly strangle services we all rely on.

Paul Krugman at the New York Times described the problem more pointedly as “Trump’s Big Libertarian Experiment,” and he asks in the article’s subhead, “Does contaminated food smell like freedom?”

In the article, Krugman points out the division between the libertarian-leaning GOP base, that bought Reagan’s rhetoric about government being the problem, and the GOP establishment, whose goal has been shoveling money to the rich. As he concludes, “If a party is going to claim, year after year, to believe that government is the problem, not the solution, then complain bitterly when the government stops handing out checks, attention should be paid.

“And if you have libertarian leanings yourself, you should ask whether you’re happy with what’s happening with government partially out of the picture.”

During Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, I saw all this coming, thanks to a politically astute father. I’ve paid an economic price for Reagan's election. I paid more for my college education and loans, joined the workforce when starting wages were lower, and may be forced into retirement earlier while continuing to work part-time to make ends meet. So, is it any wonder I’m angry?

A willfully ignorant citizenry swayed by cheap and easy taglines and myths, created this mess. First, they fell for broadcast media distortions via cable news and talk radio pouring lies into their ears. Now they are falling for messages swirling through the world’s biggest grapevine aka the Internet.  

So yes, I’m angry. I may even be angry at you. But what I really wonder is:  Are you angry with yourself yet? And if so, what are you going to do about it? Because we’re the only solution to this mess.

Miner Queries: Sharpening your pitchfork yet?

As we prepare to begin week three of our federal government shutdown over 45’s border wall tantrum, I’d love to know where individuals’ heads are. While we struggle, living paycheck to paycheck, our out-of-touch legislators seem to think we have unlimited savings to tide us over.

And when I say legislators, I’m talking at the state level, too. In Iowa, we’ve continued to elect Republicans to the statehouse who blindly support the agenda of corporate America. This includes stripping many Iowans’ health and mental health care via our Medicaid debacle, strangling funding for public schools, and cutting corporate taxes and thus shifting the tax burden to individuals and local property owners. I suspect many of these state legislators don’t even realize they’re working against the interests of their own communities and constituents. They simply follow the party line without questioning what they’re told.

Years ago, as a school board director, I was engaged in conversation at the statehouse with a former Iowa senator. We were chatting about education and her work as a senator, and she began to tell me about a fabulous retreat she’d been to out of state at a balmy resort. As she was “educated” about various policies, she had plainly been bedazzled by the setting. Her enthusiasm struck me at the time and stuck with me.

Several years later, I began to read about the work of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This group, funded and led by the Koch Brothers, works to write legislation called “model bills,” which they introduce to federal and state legislators at swanky conferences. Although ALEC works to influence legislators of both parties, over the years they’ve determined the Republican party fits their agenda best. The Center for Media and Democracy has researched and published about ALEC’s work at https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed. Suddenly, a light bulb went off over my head. This legislator, a Republican, had been attending ALEC conferences.

Do we want state laws written by corporate attorneys from who knows where? But that’s what’s been happening. Much of Iowa's recent legislation bears a striking resemblance to ALEC's body of model bills. And thanks to corporate media outlets and shrinking independent media sources, citizens don’t know.

How did this happen? Back in the late 70s and early 80s, Terry Branstad was involved in the initiative to build ALEC. Then, Iowans elected him governor. Iowa’s ability to fund schools and other services for the common good have been shrinking ever since. We’re on the road to Kansas.

Meanwhile at the federal level, in 2016, underinformed Americans were scammed into voting for the current occupant of the White House. And what has the 45^th president done for them? He’s alienated our trading partners and allies, wrecked our markets, and now he’s left thousands of federal workers with no income. Congressional Republicans have been no help.

So, I’m ready to get my pitchfork out and protest. If you want to see any progress, you better, too. Because until GOP politicians can feel our pain, I don’t think they intend to move.