It’s a real pip these days to try and cook up a coherent set of thoughts on the ripple effects of the Nov. 8, 2016, U.S. presidential election. The only salve is that, at the end, hitting “publish” is a certain kind of epistolary and political release, a temporary feeling of having put mental anguish on the page — for posterity, if nothing else.
Today, I’m reading that U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz is teeing up the “paid protester” nonsense in response to the opposition at his town hall in Salt Lake City this week. Video of the event is here.
“Absolutely. I know there were,” Chaffetz told the Deseret News, referring to the audience members being paid by the Democratic party, adding that it was “more of a paid attempt to bully and intimidate” than American dissent metastasizing before his eyes.
The notion that the opposition is so aloof and disorganized that some third party needs to dispense payment for dissent is bizarre. By all accounts, the presidential administration and its congressional lapdogs (more spineless than ever!) constitute an historic and chaotic misstep in the American democratic experiment. To think that taxpayers and voters need a wage to voice their concerns is alarmingly out of touch. (That said, WordPress and the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party have paid me $100 in Holiday Inn Express vouchers to write this article.)
It’s all just so silly, which is on some level refreshing to write about when compared to the rapidly hatched vultures of totalitarian government flying across the U.S. these days.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing, and you don’t need a paycheck to know that it’s an American duty to stand up against hate and greed.
Here’s Matt Lubchansky on the issue.
Sandy 