Democrats in congress and the White House seem to be taken a bit off guard by the recent volume and intensity of the protests around the country, particularly at the congressional town hall meetings on so-called health care reform. As a conservative watching the dismantling of the free market system, one might be surprised at their apparent niavity. Don't be.
Remember, this type of reaction didn't happen the last time they were in power. When Bill Clinton finally admitted that not having sexual relations included having sexual relations, conservatives were upset, annoyed, disgusted, angered, and quite a few other descriptors, but they didn't rise up in peaceful rebellion like today. Why not? Well, simply, Clinton's actions didn't rise to the level of an uprising. (Whether or not they rose to the level of an impeachable offense we'll leave open for now.)
The time before that, when Jimmy Carter was in office, we did see the American farmers join forces in desperation and march on Washington as the American Agriculture movement, but farmers make up less than 4% of the population, and are easily ignored by the media, so most left-wingers at the time either didn't hear about those events at all, or if they did, found them amusing at best. (Lost in the shuffle was all these farmers in DC with their tractors when one of the worst blizzards in years hit...and like the good folks they are, spent a good bit of their time pulling people out of ditches and snow banks without compensation instead of protesting.)
The time before that, when LBJ was in power, things were certainly ugly, but you have to remember that was over 40 years ago, and many of the current liberal beaurocrats were only children then, or not even born yet. And even those that were teens or young adults remember that time as a protest against conservative causes, even though the war was being run by an ultra-liberal president and a democrat congress.
So it really is no surprise that the grab for power in recent days has elicited a strong response from the conservative people who make up the folks that keep this country running and drive its economy. And its also not a surprise that the leftists in power can't understand this rejection on a new level, given the safe working environment they've had in this country for the past 30 years or so by a friendly media and entrenched liberal federal beaurocracy.
It remains to be seen if the people affected most by this power grab will sustain their protests long and hard enough to have a significant effect on their congress-people. But the next five weeks are going to be interesting.
