“A
Pox on Both Your Houses,” or So Said 63 Million Voters
Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/20/18
In
the Shakespeare play, “Romeo and Juliet,” a far more serious work than readers
first realize, the character Mercutio has convinced his friend Romeo to forget
his cares and join him at a masquerade ball.
Romeo,
a Montague, is in love with Juliet who is from the Capulet family. But the two families are feuding; therefore,
the possibility of the two young people ever having a relationship seems
remote. The day after the ball, Romeo
finds himself in trouble with Tybalt, a Capulet. Mercutio intercedes, fights Tybalt, and is
stabbed by Tybalt’s sword. His life
fading, Mercutio yells, “A pox on both your houses,” thus expressing his ill
will for the two families whose mutual animosity had led to no good, and
divided the city of Verona.
Let’s
see, two houses (political parties), feuding (constant bickering), disdain for
each other (the last presidential election), and a pox (a vicious desire for
both houses to bug off). Yes, politics is downstream from culture, including a
culture’s literature. Just as the
Montagues and Capulets came to be held in disdain for their fruitless
contentions, so have America’s two major political parties come to be viewed as
distant, bearing little more than a dime’s worth of difference, and showing no
concern for limited government.
What
else explains the Rust Belt’s support of a Republican candidate in 2016 who
played down party and did just about everything his own way? Why the increasing support for President
Trump in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan? In the words of sportscaster Howard Cosell,
“Who’da thought’a?”
Easy
answer. 63 million voters “thought’a.” In doing so, they confounded the pollsters,
pushed the media into dark depression, and gave hope to those whom we call
ordinary Americans. Ordinary Americans,
of course, have never been ordinary.
Instead of sitting around tables in front of cameras in coat and tie or
resplendent dresses and spouting opinions (something actually anybody can do
with just a minimal amount of attention to daily “news”), ordinary Americans
have kept America ticking.
Think
about it. Grocery stores must be kept
stocked, our children must be schooled, our heating and cooling systems
installed, vehicles attended to, criminals apprehended, fires put out,
surgeries performed, teeth extracted, roofs repaired, computers also, houses
painted, garbage picked up, local communities governed, gasoline (and
everything else you can name) transported, automobiles built, clothes made,
insurance policies prepared, legal drugs dispensed, restaurant food served,
fields plowed, animals fed, articles written, cases argued, light lines
restored, households kept running, and the dead buried.
The
only thing ordinary about those who perform such work is their constancy. But
that constancy and seeming sameness is actually glorious. It’s a Norman Rockwell painting of America at
work, an inspiring snapshot of a free people who labor daily. The importance of that work and the skills it
requires are quite extraordinary.
“Work”
is a beautiful word. As a noun, it’s the
name we have given to gainful employment.
Symbolically, we have often referred to Joe Lunchbox, but that’s
woefully out of date. Men and women
alike are keeping the nation ticking.
The
2016 presidential election was a revolt of America’s workers. See for yourself on the election map. Compare and contrast the red to the
blue. The red, which carried the day, is
rural/small town America plus the surprising industrial Midwest whose
population centers helped secure victory, giving a shout out to a candidate who
was finally speaking their language, particularly on jobs. Jobs.
You know. Work. Think about that, too, and then ask yourself
the question: Why is it that we never see protests at trade schools or two-year
technical colleges?
The
answer is simple. Who has time to
protest when you’ve got your mind on getting yourself ready to feed yourself
and a family? Something is going on at
colleges that feeds protests. Wonder
what it is.
Actually,
it’s the loss of the work ethic and the wallowing in esoteric subject matter
that keeps college kids in the clouds. Mastery of material has given way to “social/political
engagement.”
2016
was not a reformation or transformation.
It was nothing that deep. It was
a simple revolt, as in “Bug off, you establishment types. We want a different guy or gal who will be
authentic, talk jobs, and get out of the clouds. We don’t care if he or she is a billionaire
or somewhat unorthodox. Help us get to
work. Protect our borders.”
The
death of Romeo – caused by the feud – led the Montagues and Capulets to come to
their senses. The question is whether or
not Democrats and Republicans will do the same and start listening to “ordinary
folks.”
Roger Hines
5/16/18
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