There is a quiet anger boiling in America.
It is the anger of millions of hard-working citizens who
pay their bills, send in their income taxes, maintain their homes
and repay their mortgage loans — and see their government reward
those who do not.
It is the anger of small town and Middle American folks who
have never been to Manhattan, who put their savings in a
community bank and borrow from a local credit union, who watch
Washington lawmakers and presidents of both parties hand billions
in taxpayer bailouts to the reckless Wall Street titans who
brought down the economy in 2008.
It is the fury of the voiceless, the powerless, the
ordinary nobodies of Flyover Country who are ridiculed, preached
to, satirized and insulted by the Celebrity Loudmouths of the two
Left Coasts, the Jon Stewarts and Keith Olbermanns, the Paul
Krugmans and their ilk.
It is the salted wound of the millions who see that ruling
Democrats in Congress are not listening to them but are willfully
ignoring public opinion and the verdict of recent elections in
passing a huge new health care entitlement when the existing
entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are
already going broke.
It is the frustrating helplessness of citizens who revere
the Founding Fathers and the genius of the Constitution that they
wrote, who actually believe the words of the Constitution mean
what they say, not more and not less. They who watch politicians
and the courts stretch and bend that Constitution — finding
“rights” not enumerated, powers never granted, meanings
unimagined — believe that their country is being redefined
without their consent.
Most of the angry are not out marching in the streets,
waving signs or shouting into bullhorns. And they are not
smashing windows or phoning death threats to politicians. They
are simply waking up angry in the morning, and going to bed angry
at night. And their resentment is multiplied by the media’s
efforts to portray them all as dangerous, crazy people, and by
the effort of certain Democrats to tar them with brush of violent
intent.
They are embittered, too, by the rhetoric of a triumphant
president who turns on its head Winston Churchill’s heroic
attitude promising defiance in defeat but magnanimity in victory.
For a president of a deeply divided country, defiance in victory
is not an endearing posture. It has all the persuasive charm of a
Chad Ochocinco victory dance in the end zone of the opponent’s
stadium.
These quietly angry people gather in their churches while
their religions are called divisive and their beliefs are labeled
as bigotry, and they pray for a better day. They talk among
themselves in their Main Street cafes, at the Rotary club or at
their kids’ softball games, seeking others who understand their
frustration and will not respond with arrogant dismissal.
They are tired of being told they are too stupid to
understand the country’s complex problems, too rooted in the past
to find solutions, too selfish to share what they have worked for
with everyone else who wants it.
They are not reaching for guns or for pitchforks. They are
holding their anger within, waiting for their time, watching
those in power over-reach and over-indulge.
Their wound is deep, and it will not be salved by more
presidential speeches, Congressional hand-outs, or promises of
wonderful things to come. They no longer believe any of that.
Their quiet rage abides, waiting till it can be expressed in that
silent place behind the curtain where the ballot lists the names
that they have now committed to an angry memory.
