DISASTERS ABROAD AND AT HOME - 2

 2. CLOSER TO HOME

Those who remain baffled as to how so many lower income people have gravitated towards Trump are simply oblivious to the facts on the ground. For them rising prices for basic necessities are not at all burdensome, and even welcome to the extent that it facilitates the realization of their loftier social goals. This really registered on me yesterday when I went to the supermarket with my wife, with the same sort of dread that undoubtedly is shared by these very same people. 

But it is impossible to ignore the higher prices of basic necessities that is so apparent to people who are now barely getting by paycheck to paycheck, and who must studiously consider every purchase and how it impacts their resources. They continue to work and pay taxes while an increasing share of the people in this country do neither. It is really rich to hear over the supermarket loudspeaker about how this or that product being promoted is “sustainable” in origin, as if that mattered at all to people who are concerned far more with how produce prices have doubled. Then “Hispanic Heritage” is duly noted in emphasizing products from Puerto Rico, which is about the only homeland of people appreciating this sort of patronizing nonsense, in a country where the preponderant population with Spanish surnames is Mexican in origin, as are the promoted products. 

That sort of detail is inconsequential for those who have the privilege of forming words that others must hear;  words that are even more inconsequential to the life they are living day to day. So of course these are people who, as Hillary Clinton stated outright, need to be “reprogrammed,” the sort of notion you increasingly hear in left-wing circles. They have already accomplished this to a disturbing extent with our young people. 

But what these enlightened idiots fail to realize is that dismissive contempt flows both ways, or that they have opened the door to being reprogrammed themselves, which they richly deserve. All of the institutions they have taken control of and perverted can now be purged by the rising tide of anger they have precipitated. Given how clear their intentions to control others has become, and how awful the consequences have been, their just rewards are overdue. 

The only saving grace for those at fault is the ineptitude of the Republicans in articulating what is a very clear case. Public disenchantment is palpable but they have thus far failed to explain the connection between Democrat policies and the consequences people are facing. Unless and until that responsibility is clearly established things will remain muddled and we will continue to flounder at a time when we can ill afford to. Things are still likely to get worse before they get better.