The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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I hear a lot of theories why Trump won a year ago, everything from Hillbilly Elegy to White Trash Backlash. Folks feel like Washington – a euphemism for the Damn Gov’t. – isn’t interested in helping them. That the rich run the show and the poor should have their Medicaid cut. So they voted for a rich guy who lies when he claims the media is faux news. They voted hoping he would shake up the Damn Government.

I don’t think they thought he’d bring back coal jobs — they just hoped he’d do something for THEM. For a change. Who wouldn’t cut deals with Wall street that cut them out of their slice of the American Pie. They’re sick and tired of the wealthy wanting their tiny slice too. And maybe they’ve never heard of the Koch Brothers and if they have, faux news!

I see a future of dislocation, retrenchment, isolationism, automation, Future Shock. Change is happening too fast for us to keep up or comprehend. We love our little devices, but we don’t understand that a digitized world is more and more incomprehensible. We don’t understand, but we sense it. We’re being left behind and it’s not just the hillbillies, although they may be the canaries in the coal mine. We can’t imagine What’s Next. Artificial intelligence, drones, social media, Big Brother, clones, Facebook, nano-technology, 3-D printing, who knows? There’s a disruption in the Force and we’re uncertain if we’re really prepared. The truth is, we know we’re not.

There’s an Anxiety in the land. A sense that the future isn’t going to be better, that the past was the zenith and the present is rolling down hill. The parents fear for their kids and their kids see hard times coming. The jobs aren’t coming back. Coal isn’t coming back. The good times are over. Debts are piling up and coming due. They were willing to try a huckster’s promises, but next time …. who knows who they’ll turn to. We should all be more than a little afraid.

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