America in Two Headlines
Doesn't this pair of headlines capture 2024 perfectly?
“The ‘Fuck you, obey me!’ and ‘Why do they hate me?’” — Brother Ali
Homelessness in America has risen by 18 percent overall, according to the latest annual data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Hardest hit were families with children, which experienced a staggering 39 percent increase in homelessness(!). Incredibly, in a press release accompanying the new data, the Biden administration says that it “has been tackling the nation’s homelessness crisis with the urgency it requires,” downplaying the data as not current enough.
As 2024 draws to a close, a major theme of this past couple years seems to be American anger. From the schadenfreude over the billionaire passengers on board the doomed Titan submersible, to Trump’s reelection, and most recently the backlash against health insurers following the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Americans seem to be yelling at the top of their lungs that they hate the management. Yet the confusion in elite quarters over what these people could possibly be so angry about persists, even as the warnings get louder and louder. On the rare occasion that a prominent elected official actually hears these warnings and tries to explain it to their peers in Washington, they are punished for it.
Consider what Senator Elizabeth Warren said of public rage against health insurance companies following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson:
“The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system. Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far.”
Warren’s statement was the best explanation of the public outcry I’ve seen from any national politician, nearly all the rest of whom responded with the profoundly novel insight that murder is wrong. (Maybe next they could teach us how to play patty cake and speak with inside voices!) But official Washington promptly cast her remarks as defending murder and Warren walked her comment back.
Having silenced people like Warren who might be able to explain these public outcries, elite types are left confused and genuinely scared. They turn to the national security state, which offers solutions that amount to little more than security blankets. My favorite was the crisis hotline exclusively for CEOs, which New York state officials reportedly proposed in the wake of Thompson’s murder in Manhattan.
The national security response of more guards and gadgets only alienates them from the public further, blinding them from seeing 2024 for what it was: the yeoman year of rage.
Correction: the titan submersible implosion occurred in 2023, not 2024.
It is a shame that Warren walked back that comment which is the only sane sensible response to the situation. It is a crisis and people can only be pushed but so far.
And in the absence of any other way to get their feelings across, Americans voted in someone who promises them he’ll turn Washington upside down. Which he never does anything but line his pockets, but to them its better than more of the same.