Burning Rivers
Here I am again trying to make sense of the political turmoil, which may not be turmoil at all for a lot of people. I suspect because some people think it’s totally out of their control anyhow, so why worry about it, or they’re happy with what’s going on, because they agree with Grover Norquist, who famously said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Which means they probably think Reagan had it right when he said the government was the problem.
That approach always seemed weird to me. Partly, I guess because I knew what it took to win World War II, I’d read Sinclair Lewis and Jacob Riis, and knew all about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. I knew that the government was at its current size because it was solving problems and making America a better place to live with safe food and drugs, clean air, and decent working conditions. It was also forecasting the weather, keeping planes in the air, and trying to figure out who on the world stage wanted to kill us, or at least do us in. Our history was replete with problems being identified and actions being taken to solve them.
At this point, however, I’m in the minority. Baby boomers only make up 20% of the population and we’re about 100 plus years from the world of Lewis and Riis. So, a lot of people have no idea what the pre-regulation world looked like or even really know it existed. They simply view regulations as a hindrance to making money. And making money is the deal with these folks. So, at the moment, it feels like the country is being run by a private equity firm that wants to strip it for parts and I’m not sure how that will make us great, again, because from what I’ve read, the again was a pretty dismal time for a lot of people.