Fed up, Americans show anger
McClatchy Newspapers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Seven months after President Barack Obama took office promising change and offering hope, another emotion is clanging in American ears: Anger.
Anger over massive job losses in a wounded, perhaps healing, economy.
Anger over fat bonuses paid to bankers and Wall Street executives bailed out on the public dime.
Anger over foreclosures, mortgage fraud and the plight of gullible or greedy homeowners duped by predatory lenders.
And now — genuine or manufactured — anger over possible health-care reform.
Last Tuesday, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., squared off in yet another town-hall cable-TV-ready exchange. A woman — holding a placard of Obama drawn with an Adolf Hitler mustache — compared health reform to the Nazi government.
“On what planet are you spending most of your time?” Frank responded. “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”
On Monday, Sen. Claire McCaskill — who engaged voters in a shout-filled forum near St. Louis earlier this month — will have a town-hall meeting in Kansas City, facing an audience of uncertain temperament.
In the summer of our health-care discontent, anger is clearly back. What is not clear is whether anger alone will change the outcome of the debate.
But virtually every large-scale social and political movement in America — from slavery to women’s suffrage, from civil rights to busing and abortion, from World War I to the War in Iraq — was either created or confronted by anger.
“Some fundamentals of human nature remain constant over time,” said Robert Collins, professor of American political history at the University of Missouri. “Anger has pretty much been a constant in American political life.”
Supporters of health-care reform claim much of this August’s town-hall outrage has been orchestrated — a charge conservatives and Republicans hotly deny.
But people are watching the show. In one day, the Frank exchange netted more than 200,000 hits on YouTube, ran nationwide on cable news, and was highlighted on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
That attention, some experts suspect, may turn the anger on the fringes into a bigger mass movement.
“You can’t change policy without a tidal wave that translates [unfocused] public opinion into something that registers with politicians,” said 1960s activist Todd Gitlin, now a professor at Columbia University.
The impact of the town halls, however, is difficult to gauge. One recent NBC news poll showed that 62 percent of respondents said the town-hall protests have made no difference in their views on health care.
But other polls show support for health-care reform has slipped and Obama’s favorable ratings are down. In one Gallup poll, 34 percent of those surveyed said they were more sympathetic to protester’s views after watching the meetings; 21 percent were less sympathetic.
Stephen Caliendo, an associate professor of political science at Illinois’ North Central College, said anger exhibited by forum-goers is genuine. But he also believes the anger is about more than just health care.