CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
Print format

From: Bruce S.
Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2010, 3:53 PM
Subject: Can you hear me now?
ID: 269570

This election tonight is another big deal. The ground is shifting. From everything people are saying, Martha Coakley is going down -- and a lot of people, including Barney Frank, have said that if she goes down, health care reform goes with her...

Here in this little USA.CAN network, we have felt the change. Things are different now, very different, than they were a year ago, when we were all thrilled at the election of Obama. And it's not that we don't still love the guy. But for many of us -- loud and clear -- something's not right.

We're going see this differently. There's lot of reasons for this change, everybody sees these things slightly different.

But I like the way these guys just put it on MSNBC. I like Mike Barnacle -- he's a Boston guy, very down to earth, very human, and what he just said was, the reason for this likely defeat -- is "voter anger against the entire order". That can be interpreted as an "anti-incumbent sentiment" -- and that's how the other guest interpreted the thought.

But personally, I think it's a bigger issue than that, it's more than anti-incumbent feeling. Yes, that's true -- all the voter can do is vote for the other guy. There's two products on the super-market shelf, we gotta choose one of them, or be called apathetic and a bad citizen...

But Mike Barnacle didn't say the voters were angry at the incumbents. He said they were angry at the existing order. And on that point, the way I understand it, I couldn't agree more. It's that big overarching huge-shadow federal system, that can't respond, that can't listen, that can't act quickly, that has to make everything hugely complicated or much too simple, that keeps screwing up....

The other guest in the conversation cited the old Verizon cellphone ad. "Can you hear me now?"

It's a good question. Does this existing political establishment have any real connection with "the people" -- or is it simply the case that once elected, these political leaders disappear into an elitist top- down bubble, where their only real connection with the voters has to do with polling demographics, to make sure they get re-elected?

This morning on Morning Joe, I heard Mitt Romney use some interesting language. They were talking about arrogance -- and how the Obama administration has become arrogant. Now -- I would not want to call beloved Barack "arrogant" -- but I can see what people are talking about.

These guys are out there campaigning -- and while they are on the campaign trail, they are populists, they are one with the people, they are one of us. They listen, they interact, we feel like we have a voice, we feel like our energy and opinion and situation matter. We get excited, we get into the audacity of hope, we start believing. And then they get elected -- and that personal connection is history, it's out the window.

Barack is in the bubble now, he's in the Oval Office, he's on Air Force One at 50,000 feet. Maybe he means well. Maybe he still cares, maybe he's still the same guy. But -- he can't hear us any more. He's too far away. Maybe he's "the most powerful man in the world" -- but he's lost his vital connection with us. Him and his cabinet and his little team of advisers -- and the democratic power establishment -- that's who's running the country now, not the People, not us, not like what we were thinking was going to happen....

Mitt Romney was talking about "Monarchists". It was funny, it was a new idea, a new way to see it. Even Joe Scarborough noted this new concept, this new "meme" in the conversation. Who wudda thunk -- Barack arrogant, an elitist, a monarchist? King Barack? Hey, he's one of us... isn't he??? What happened?

Doesn't matter what you think of Romney, that's not the point. The big thing right now is -- maybe Barack and the dems have been seriously blowing it.

There's going to be a lot of talk about this. We'll be talking about it for a while.

But right now, the way I see it -- there's a new wind blowing. I think there's new ideas in the air. I think there are emerging new political forces -- that aren't about "republicans" and "democrats". We need a political system that is about "the people" and about "democracy", not the two-party system -- and about the right way to run this country, and how we can come together as a nation, to be stronger, to be better...

In the meantime -- the earth keeps shifting. Maybe this horrendous thing in Haiti is a kind of metaphor or symbol for a greater change that is in the air, a symbol of the ground shifting under our feet, as something new seeks to burst its way through the crust and resistance, and into the world....

Can you hear me now? It's a good question. The cell phone people ARE connecting us. Twitter IS connecting us. Facebook is connecting us. There's a big lesson in there for the millions of us who are "angry at the existing order".

Let's see what happens tonight. The polls close in a little more than one hour...