Take a look at the guy on the left. Now take a look at the guy on the right. Notice any difference between those two guys and the guy in the middle? The guy in the middle is pissed off. And every time the guy in the middle opens his mouth, he sounds pissed off.
Last night I watched a bit of the ‘protest’ that the Young Republicans organized in front of the courthouse in New York City where Trump is supposed to do a perp walk at some point over the next couple of days. Maybe there were 200 people standing around, maybe a few more or a few less.
The announcer for something called the Right Side Broadcasting Network said the crowd had ‘somewhat thinned out’ by 5:30 P.M., - he was being polite. He did manage to grab one fiftyish lady wearing her MAGA hat, who told him that she was ‘really upset’ because the border wasn’t being protected, the prices in her supermarket were sky high, the pipeline had been taken cancelled (the announcer slipped the word ‘gasoline’ into her comment at that point) and the country was just falling apart.
This lady’s comments were interrupted several times by a voiceover from Mike Lindell who is now running a two-for-one sale on his pillows, his sandals, and his socks. But the look on her face was all you needed to see to get the message that she’s out there supporting Trump because she’s really pissed off.
I don’t know how many people in America share this pissedoffidness to the point of being regular visitors to what my friends at Annenberg refer to as the alt-right ‘echo chamber’ – maybe it’s a third of all GOP voters, maybe a few more, maybe a few less. This group certainly doesn’t yet represent enough people to necessarily swing the results of a national election this way or that, but for sure being pissed off, politically-speaking, is a hallmark of the messaging being delivered by Trump and his friends.
I think of myself as a pretty average kind of guy. I go through my day taking care of the usual things at home and at work. I have enough money to live in a comfortable way, none of my kids or grandchildren are in jail, and my wife and I get along.
What more can I ask for? Did I get everything I wanted over the course of my life? So what if I didn’t? I still don’t have any reason to walk around always being pissed off. And my seeming inability to embrace pissedoffidness puts me at odds with at least half of the American adult population, at least according to an NBC/Esquire poll taken in 2016.
But what comes out of this poll is an interesting perspective on how being pissed off translates into specific political ideologies and ideas. Because it turns out that at least half of these pissed-off Americans happen to vote forDemocrats, not just for the GOP.
So why didn’t all these pissed off Democrats and liberals come out for big, noisy rallies opposing Trump? Actually, many of them did when they showed up at BLM rallies that swept across the country in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd. The picture below was taken when a BLM rally briefly shut down the Golden Gate Bridge.
But here’s the difference between the pissedoffidness of the Left versus the Right. The crowds which came out to protest what happened to George Floyd were not supporting any particular political candidate even though there was a national election going on at the same time. These protestors also didn’t manifest any generic anger about the shape or direction of America in general – they were rightfully pissed off about a video which showed a white cop stomping on a black guy’s neck.
I am not sure about why lots of Americans feel pissed off. Maybe their anger about being ‘left behind’ or ‘not getting ahead’ is based on some rational, real-life experiences, maybe not. But I do know it’s pretty tough to get anyone to risk a felony charge just because they are pissed off.
No wonder the big rally yesterday in front of the Centre Street courthouse turned into an impromptu press conference for a guy who told the newsies that Trump could go fu*k himself again and again.