With the battle – well, more like a massacre – of worker rights coming soon to Missouri I updated my files on Median Household Income. I planned on showing, using census data, that new Right To Work states such as Indiana were falling behind the national number on family income. (From 2014 to 2015 Indiana’s median went from 92% to 90.5% of the national number as RTW efforts took more hold among Hoosiers.) A quick look at the latest state by state medians shows that, as a group, families in RTW states have less to spend than families in states without RTW. See census.gov and the Income and Poverty report for 2015 Table 1. Missouri will undoubtedly follow the trend data, only our fall will be steeper because we’re already sliding towards the back of the line.
Then I caught myself: most elected officials and the majority of Americans no longer accept facts. The media, of course, follows their audience. Most reporters and the ever-more-numerous commentators don’t want to waste time with facts (what we used to call truth). And, of course, defenders of President-elect Trump’s many statements and positions claim all truth is relative.
So, without facts, what tools do we have in fight for justice?
Start with emotion. Yesterday a woman told about 60 of us gathered in front of U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill’s office about her daughter getting hit by a drunk driver, resulting in horrible injuries. The young Washington University student is battling back and will soon return to college thanks to government supported health care. A feel good story, while not yet a happy ending it’s heading that way.
Scratch the surface and I bet we’d find several unhappy endings. The one that sticks with me concerns a young mom in her 20’s who went to two area hospitals one night – one twice – before dying at home from heart failure. Despite her boyfriend’s and her child’s pleadings they couldn’t get an emergency room to do a simple test I get every time I go to my cardiologist.
We need to, well, exploit those helped and those ignored. Their stories force reality into discussions of over-utilization and cost-effectiveness.
Another tool in my belt: sarcasm. Remind the Trumpettes and the Governor Seal Brigade what great jobs their votes accomplished. Thanks to The Donald we will have no unemployed billionaires in America. After all, if you’re rich and once served in the army how hard can it be to manage 1.5 million fighting folk spread across the globe? Closer to home, of course there is no contradiction in the candidate for transparency making his staff sign gag orders.
Speaking of Governor Seal, I keep hearing whispers that Missouri is just the try-out for the big show up east. Some with a lot of money want to see President Seal. Let’s remind Show-Me State voters that they’re just the first step on his ladder.
Still, watching the news from along the Missouri and Hudson rivers I keep coming back to one strategy in today’s fight for justice…Silence.
While driving about the area I turned the radio on, not realizing it was after 11:00 a.m. Cape’s favorite buffalo still acts like Republicans are the second most oppressed people on earth. (If not for those kids in Aleppo…) The “liberal media” and the Obama establishment will not yield. Despite winning, well, ‘they’ are not going to let ‘us’ enjoy our victory. Many, not realizing the right’s BDSM tendencies, believe that their fight for America is still being lost.
Ignore buffoons. America was never lost.
Sit back, watch the snows give way to Dogwood blossoms, re-read your favorite books and let the supermajority live with itself. Judging by many of the crazy pieces of legislation already filed in Jeff City and being talked about in Washington, it won’t be long before some Republicans feel guilty or at least stupid. It is much easier to throw rocks than build a wall.
Again, facts no longer matter – though I suspect in a few months they might again count. Government remains too large and too important to fail. Ideology doesn’t collect trash in the state parks.
Stay tuned.
Glenn Koenen