Robert Reich's ten-point tweet of 17 March 2017 about his visiting Washington D.C. rings the right notes, particularly the tenth point:
10. Many people asked, bewilderedly, “How did this [Trump]
happen?” When I suggest it had a lot to do with the 35-year-long
decline of incomes of the bottom 60 percent; the growing sense, ever
since the Wall Street bailout, that the game is rigged; and the utter
failure of both Republicans and Democrats to reverse these trends
— they give me blank stares.
I have been out of
the USA for the past two months, in Canada, and was asked on several
occasions the same essential question: “How did this happen?” And
I spoke essentially the same words that Reich writes here and got the
same blank stares.
Now, I get blank
stares from people all the time, for almost everything I say. Some
immediate instances come to mind:
- that the past is
very much in the present and the future
- that the U.S.
medical industry is a scandal
- that the rich
people I know are predators upon the poor
- that the educated
people I know do not have the remotest clue
- and how about TV?
How can you not feel degraded by watching it?
If I ever say
anything which I believe to be important or profound, I can be
certain that I will get blank stares. There are people like Reich,
yes, but I don't meet them in my travels or daily life.
Reich's tenth point
is so obvious, so undeniable, so momentous, that it reminds me of the
times of the wars in Viet-Nam and Iraq.
