234 Years, and What Else Do We Know?

The fireworks exploded again last night at the Milwaukee lakefront. Thousands watched. Most parked legally.

It is time to look at ourselves, 234 years on, halfway through this year. Do you like what you see?

Are the Tea Partiers gaining ground and legitimacy? Or are they a passing political force, amorphous and too fluid to hang on?

Is the President the leader he said he would be? He's doing pretty much what he said he'd do, after all. He's actually accomplishing some of it. Isn't that what leaders do?

Or is it ourselves that need a little re-examination? If we elected a person who's fulfilling some of his pledges, why are we still complaining so much? Did we elect someone for a different reason and, faced with the political results, now look back and wish we hadn't? (Been known to happen before; in this case, we get Sarah Palin, too, remember)

Why are the demagogues gaining a foothold? What is it about them that continues to attract? As FDR gained popularity in the 1930s, as the effects of the New Deal kept slowly improving the economy, their rantings died off. Not so much today; cable TV has too much backing. They'll always be there.

And as they do, there is an inevitable wearing effect: the emotional, simplistic, attack-mode approaches of their rhetoric keeps us on edge. It's a different country now: the political intrudes into nearly everything that isn't being sold in front of our faces. A lot of us are needing that Bloom County trip into the dandelions--just to sit there for a moment and think about not very much.

It's a stressed-out nation right now, trying everything it can to find solutions. Change we've got; hope is another issue. 234 years, and I'm not sure we know much else.