Florence Snyder
It’s Morning After in America, and the recriminations are well underway.
Even with a crappy crystal ball like Larry Sabato‘s, you can predict the Democrats will assemble an Autopsy Committee like the one the Republicans did in 2012. Old habits die hard.
Bleary-eyed pundits, pollsters, pols, and political reporters are crying into their beers and Bloody Marys on Twitter and on national television. They’re plenty worried about their credibility, and their fat paychecks, not necessarily in that order.
The cluelessness is entirely bipartisan, and has been for decades.
Floridians old enough to share the Clintons‘ fondness for Fleetwood Mac recall a time when state workers got regular raises. It was 5 percent, or 10 percent or 2 percent, of your current salary, whatever that salary was.
The Little People were not fooled by the fake fairness of the People in Power. A 2 percent raise for a telephone operator was enough to buy the kids some new clothes to wear on a family night at the movies. For the man three rungs up on the org chart, it was enough to buy the kids some new clothes to wear on a family vacation in Europe.
The state payroll pay disparities that put down roots in Fleetwood Mac’s heyday pale in comparison to the pay disparities of today. It’s even worse in the private sector, where most of the jobs!jobs!jobs! are equal parts mind-numbing and soul-destroying.
Something had to give. When there is no center, the center cannot hold.
