The Winter of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent/9 December 2021/Lawrence S. DiCara

????????????It is dark outside in the evening, as it has been for almost a month and will be until we hit springtime.?That provides an opportunity to do more reading and do more thinking.?Will this be the winter of our discontent?

I am not a pollster, nor am I trained as a political scientist, but I have been watching politics for a long time.?The results in November’s elections were telling.?Chris Smith, writing in Vanity Fair, referred to “the revenge of the pissed off suburban mom.”?Peggy Noonan suggested it was “pushback against smugness.”?David Brooks referred to “resistance against cultural elites.”?They are all using different words, but saying the same thing: discontent.

I will quote a long deceased political columnist, Walter Lippmann, who wrote that “the law of politics is the law of the pendulum.”?Yes, the pendulum is swinging, but will it do so as it did in 1994 and 2010?

Our two major political parties have been overly responsive to those on the fringes who by very fact of being on the fringes do not represent the majority.?America would be far better served by two political parties resistant to entreaties from those on the extremes.?AOC and “the squad” do not speak for all of us any more than does Marjorie Taylor Greene

A democratic strategist quoted in one of these recent articles suggested we look at focus groups, rather than polling, as focus groups allow candidates and their strategists to really listen to what is on people’s minds.?My guess is that most people wanted to pass the infrastructure bill but don’t agree on much of anything else.?People are concerned about gas prices, as they were in 1973 and 1979 and other times when they have spiked.?They are concerned about safety in schools and elsewhere.

The whole concept of our democracy – E Pluribus Unum – is being challenged. We have always worked out our issues, sometimes late at night in a conference room, and we should not let threatening press conferences or demonstrations conducted by those on the fringes of our respective political parties dominate adult discussion and make life difficult for the rest of us.?