An Angry Nation

An Angry Nation
Dane La Born

Dane La Born

Recently it was announced that Donald Trump would opt out of the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Traditionally, this event is a time for the president to show his appreciation for the press who work tirelessly to cover the goings-on in Washington D.C., as well as take some light jabs from the comedian who hosts. The last president to miss the Correspondent’s Dinner was Ronald Reagan, though “recovering from assassination attempt” is a really good excuse to miss out on tradition.

So why is Trump skipping out?

The answer is simple when you think about it. He’s afraid. It’s been demonstrated time and again, even before this shit show of an administration, that Trump has zero ability to take a joke, and since a key part of the dinner is the comedian hosting, and with Trump being a giant orange target, it’s fair to say there would be a lot of jokes about him.

Add to that the fact that he has effectively declared war on the traditional press and it’s not at all hard to figure out why he’s not showing up. The New York Times and CNN have been banned from White House briefings while Breitbart has front row seats to all the propaganda and straight out lies that they don’t even bother trying to disprove.

How the hell did we get to this point? Breitbart is about as credible a news source as the old Weekly World News with their stories about Bat Boy and sewer-dwelling gators. I’m not saying CNN isn’t guilty of the occasional slanted reporting, but they deliver facts above all else. The New York Times even more so, and for well over a century at that. Declaring war on the free press is about as un-American as one can get, and we currently have a Commander-in-Chief doing just that.

These are fundamental values, built into the very core of our nation. We are a nation that started as a rebellion, the underdogs versus the giant world power. How the hell did we shift to being a nation where only the rich have the right to rule? How are so many people falling for this con artistry?

I truly wish I had any of these answers. I’ve been told, repeatedly in fact, that it’s going to be a long four years for me unless I change my attitude about all this. But to do that would be to betray the ideals I believe in, to betray the ideals of this country and its constitution.

Maybe it will be a long four years. Maybe it will be full of fights like we’ve seen at Town Halls across the nation lately. I can’t tell the future, but I know myself, and as long as I have a country to fight for, I’ll do so the way I know how.

There’s a damn good reason they say the pen is mightier than the sword. Words can topple kings where armies repeatedly fail. You just have to find the right ones. Considering how thin-skinned our current leader is, and all the corroborated dirty secrets already exposed about his relationship with Russia and Putin, it’s only a matter of time before someone, somewhere, finds the right words.

As for the rest of the resistance, well I don’t see it going away. The aforementioned Town Halls being hosted across the country, including our recent one in Springdale with Tom Cotton, have done a lot to show these people what their constituents truly feel about them. By and by, they don’t seem too happy.

Hopefully, our representatives start to take heed of their constituents, but I won’t hold my breath on that.

These last couple of weeks have seen town halls erupting nationwide. On the one hand, it’s kind of hard to do any sort of Q&A when you’re being drowned out by angry voters. On the other, how exactly are these people supposed to get the message across? Writing and calling our representatives seems as effective as leaving a voicemail to anyone under the age of 30. All signs point to the people’s representatives wanting to do anything but represent the people. When senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was taken to task by a justifiably angry voter, he could only stand there looking dumbfounded until he found a moment he thought he could smile at. It was a reference to silencing Elizabeth Warren, and made him come off as smarmy as ever.

We’re an undoubtedly angry nation right now. On one side, you’ve got folks who are legitimately fearful of the future. People who spent decades feeling unsafe inside their own country, only to be granted what is turning out to be a temporary reprieve. Actual nazis have infiltrated the political sphere in the United States, a country that is decidedly against everything fascism stands for. On the other hand, you have Republicans, who seem to be playing the long game here, allowing Trump to push through legislation that benefits them and hoping against hope that he doesn’t screw up too massively before they can use him like the toupeed puppet he is. Then, in between both of those, you have the so-called “silent majority,” who have finally stopped being so silent. Whether it’s people angry at various executive orders who wanted nothing to do with Trump, or people who are having serious cases of voter’s remorse, I haven’t seen this country this united under the flag of anger since probably 9/11.

That anger is good. The folks in D.C. seem to have forgotten that they work for us, they don’t command or control us. They have a great deal to answer for, and not just Republicans, Democrats as well. For politicians, it seems like the time has come to pay the proverbial piper.

Categories: Commentary