Trolley wreck coming?
October 29, 2005
Every now and then an article comes along based on nothing more than the writer’s hunch, but one that somehow rings pretty true. This one by Peggy Noonan leaves me with wondering.
I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can’t be fixed, or won’t be fixed any time soon.
Now, I’ve lived long enough to know that such feelings of impending doom are rarely accurate, but Noonan’s intuition does resonate with some of my own observations. Are we living in a time when the mighty U.S. of A. is slowly coming apart at its seams? Or is this just a reaction to today’s headlines?
It’s beyond, “The president is overwhelmed.” The presidency is overwhelmed. The whole government is. And people sense when an institution is overwhelmed. Citizens know. If we had a major terrorist event tomorrow half the country–more than half–would not trust the federal government to do what it has to do, would not trust it to tell the truth, would not trust it, period.
You’ll just have to make up your own mind on this one.
Have a good day.
Dave, at the end of the day, still optimistic.
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