Maybe it’s the dog days, but three friends recently got in touch within a 24-hour period to catch up. Or, more like it, to catch their breath.
One reported the onset of panic attacks. Another is seeking treatment for depression. The third began an e-mail asking for help with: “Reports of my employment have been greatly exaggerated.”
No one is starving yet, but “yet” seems less remote than it once did.
“What if I can’t find a job? Ever?” asked “Sandra.” She laughed, but it was nervous laughter.
Though mired in the unemployment doldrums, none of my friends fits into the categories of outraged citizens known as “teabaggers” or “townhallers.” Teabaggers are conservatives who staged tax protests. Townhallers are those now confronting congressional leaders as they return home to chat it up with constituents.
Meetings have become explosive events punctuated with shouting. On Long Island, N.Y., Rep. Tim Bishop had to be escorted by police to his car out of concern for his safety. Subsequently, Bishop temporarily suspended town-hall events in his district.
Generally considered a small fringe group, the demonstrators have been described derisively by Democratic leaders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that some were “carrying swastikas.” Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chuck Schumer of New York have dismissed the protesters as irrelevant.
I’m not so sure these protests are insignificant. Are my three friends really so far removed from such expressions of acute frustration? Lately, they have a new understanding of how uncertainty, complicated by unemployment and growing debt, morphs into anger. And then, perchance, to rage?
Sandra feels it.
“Angst about health care is real because people are just anxious in general. They don’t have jobs, and those who do are worried about losing them. They’re saying, ‘Holy crap, I’ve got $10,000 on my credit card and you’re talking about change? Guess what, dude? I can’t handle any more change right now.’ ”
The rest of August promises to be a battlefield of dueling ads for and against health care reform, all of which will likely add to the nation’s free-floating anxiety. The crux of this anxiety is a loss of trust, which may be reflected in Obama’s plummeting job approval.
Here’s how a Florida real estate appraiser summed up the zeitgeist:
“People don’t believe the politicians or the government stats when they know five couples who are losing their house and cars. . . . Basically, it’s a total disconnect from government, and government cannot influence their decisions unless they give them money, yet every giveaway reinforces their lack of faith.”
The town-hall protests may be orchestrated, but nobody had to manufacture the anger on display. With unemployment at 9.4 percent, the dog days are beginning to feel like the dogs of war.
Congress and Obama might want to take note.
