Tweet
America 2016: We’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore
McClatchyDC
By Lesley Clark, Anita Kumar and Maria Recio
McClatchy Washington Bureau
1/29/2016
Excerpt:
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa - Craig Ziemke has voted for Democrats all his life, including twice for President Barack Obama. Not this year.
“The whole country is going to hell,” the 66-year-old retired factory worker said, standing against the bleachers at a high school gymnasium while waiting for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to arrive. Ziemke’s fury is deep: Roads and bridges in the U.S. are falling apart, jobs are scarce and the U.S. border is wide open, he says.
“We’re letting all these people into the country. No one even knows who the hell they are,” he said. “We don’t need any more Arabs. The United States, anymore, is just a dumping ground for everyone.”
Ziemke plans to caucus for a Republican on Monday – and likely for Trump, “the only one with brains,” he said.
If Obama’s 2008 campaign in Iowa and beyond defined the election as one of “hope and change,” this year may well be described as the politics of rage.
In interviews with dozens of voters in both parties, the driving motivation across the state is anger and uprising. They’re fed up with lawmakers in Washington, who seem to work two or three days a week and get little done aside from raising money to stay in office. They’re mad about stagnant wages, companies sending jobs overseas and terrorists sneaking in across the border.
The rage is driving the campaigns of the “outsiders.” For Republicans, that’s the bombastic Trump and his chief rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, with verbal assaults against his own Republican colleagues.
Trump rallies can be boisterous affairs, with the audience turning on hecklers as Trump urges security to “get ’em the hell out of here.” News cameras captured several white men in November apparently kicking and punching a Black Lives Matter protester at a Trump event. In Vermont in January, he called on his security guards to “confiscate” a protester’s coat. “You know it’s about 10 degrees below zero outside,” he said from the stage. “You can keep his coat. Tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks.”
On the Democratic side, the discontent fuels the insurgent campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who vows a political revolution to fix what he says is a system skewed to favor the rich.
“I plead guilty. I am angry,” Sanders recently told an audience in Maquoketa, Iowa, pushing back against former President Bill Clinton’s critique that voters need “not anger, but answers.”
Sanders continued: “I am angry and millions of Americans are angry. We are angry that our people are working longer hours for lower wages. We are angry that our criminal justice system is broken. And we’re angry that we have a corrupt campaign-finance system that allows billionaires to buy elections.”
The appeal resonates with voters furious over the role of money in politics: “I can’t even stand it, when I hear how much money they’re all willing to spend to run for office, but not provide day care for children,” said Monica McCarthy, waiting in a crowded union hall in Des Moines to hear Sanders speak. “It’s all rich guys who want to take over this country giving to other rich guys to help the rich.”
The irate, discontent electorate is apparent in polls: More than 6 in 10 people think that either all or most Americans are angry with Washington, according to a recent Monmouth University survey.
...........................
View the complete article, including image and video, at:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/poli...e57273748.html
- Candidates seek to harness rage for votes
- Polls show deep discontent with the direction of the country
- Faith in institutions fades
McClatchyDC
By Lesley Clark, Anita Kumar and Maria Recio
McClatchy Washington Bureau
1/29/2016
Excerpt:
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa - Craig Ziemke has voted for Democrats all his life, including twice for President Barack Obama. Not this year.
“The whole country is going to hell,” the 66-year-old retired factory worker said, standing against the bleachers at a high school gymnasium while waiting for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to arrive. Ziemke’s fury is deep: Roads and bridges in the U.S. are falling apart, jobs are scarce and the U.S. border is wide open, he says.
“We’re letting all these people into the country. No one even knows who the hell they are,” he said. “We don’t need any more Arabs. The United States, anymore, is just a dumping ground for everyone.”
Ziemke plans to caucus for a Republican on Monday – and likely for Trump, “the only one with brains,” he said.
If Obama’s 2008 campaign in Iowa and beyond defined the election as one of “hope and change,” this year may well be described as the politics of rage.
In interviews with dozens of voters in both parties, the driving motivation across the state is anger and uprising. They’re fed up with lawmakers in Washington, who seem to work two or three days a week and get little done aside from raising money to stay in office. They’re mad about stagnant wages, companies sending jobs overseas and terrorists sneaking in across the border.
The rage is driving the campaigns of the “outsiders.” For Republicans, that’s the bombastic Trump and his chief rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, with verbal assaults against his own Republican colleagues.
Trump rallies can be boisterous affairs, with the audience turning on hecklers as Trump urges security to “get ’em the hell out of here.” News cameras captured several white men in November apparently kicking and punching a Black Lives Matter protester at a Trump event. In Vermont in January, he called on his security guards to “confiscate” a protester’s coat. “You know it’s about 10 degrees below zero outside,” he said from the stage. “You can keep his coat. Tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks.”
On the Democratic side, the discontent fuels the insurgent campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who vows a political revolution to fix what he says is a system skewed to favor the rich.
“I plead guilty. I am angry,” Sanders recently told an audience in Maquoketa, Iowa, pushing back against former President Bill Clinton’s critique that voters need “not anger, but answers.”
Sanders continued: “I am angry and millions of Americans are angry. We are angry that our people are working longer hours for lower wages. We are angry that our criminal justice system is broken. And we’re angry that we have a corrupt campaign-finance system that allows billionaires to buy elections.”
The appeal resonates with voters furious over the role of money in politics: “I can’t even stand it, when I hear how much money they’re all willing to spend to run for office, but not provide day care for children,” said Monica McCarthy, waiting in a crowded union hall in Des Moines to hear Sanders speak. “It’s all rich guys who want to take over this country giving to other rich guys to help the rich.”
The irate, discontent electorate is apparent in polls: More than 6 in 10 people think that either all or most Americans are angry with Washington, according to a recent Monmouth University survey.
...........................
View the complete article, including image and video, at:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/poli...e57273748.html