So today I am in the midst of the American heartland working on a survey of public opinion. It's a survey of mostly political and social issues, so it is a little volatile, and the area in which I am working is very conservative. i spend my days going from address to address, standing on people's front porches or sitting in their living rooms and ask questions that most people don't bring up in polite company. People don't raise their voices or gesture angrily when I ask my questions but it is quite clear to me that they are pissed off. And they have a right to be angry.
My wife asked me why they had the 'right' to be angry. I explained that my view was that being angry was an emotional response, and people do have a right to be emotional, even if it's for the wrong reasons. Being angry is an opinion, and only the holder of that opinion can clearly see their justification.
Conservatives have a right to be angry because they aren't happy with the changes that have happened in our country. The way society and economy has evolved has left many people struggling to maintain their lifestyle in the face of a faceless economic engine that takes advantage of them at every turn, by pushing down the value of their labor while raising their ire at social changes brought on by society becoming 'woke.'
To make matters worse, they found a champion in Donald Trump, a person who addressed their concerns in the plain and broad language they wanted to hear. Trump won in 2016, but quickly became bogged down by a lot of what they viewed as petty and hateful obstruction to the great agenda Trump was supposed to bring. The 2020 election drove Trump out, and now these people are feeling rejected by the will of the people that they do not see or hear in their daily lives.
Liberals are pissed off, too. They hide their anger a bit better and are happy that there is someone more akin to their thinking in the White House, but it still shows. they wonder how people can be so stupid to not believe in what they do because if they just listened it would all make sense. They fear what might happen, and fear makes people angry.
One thing I've noticed is that it doesn't make any difference what kind of flag they're flying in front of their house, or what their bumper stickers say. When they face my battery of questions they all end up sounding exactly the same. Towards the end of the questionnaire there is a question asking people if they care about other people's problems. The answers I collect are across the board--and don't appear to follow any kind of pattern that I can ascertain from my view.
Maybe that's the problem here in America. None of us are willing to care about somebody else's problems.
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