I'm old enough to remember when the protest movement wanted to stick it to "the man" because "the man" had everything and the rest of us didn't. The man ran the big companies, and promoted the wars, and kept people of color suppressed, and wouldn't let women advance, and fought to criminalize homosexuality, and, well they just wanted everything to go back to some imagined good old days that may have been old but weren't necessarily good. And youthful Americans who didn't want to respect this mythical man raised their voices in protest.
Now it's all changed. The Occupy movement has lost its vigor (unless they pull a surprise occupation in Tampa this week) and the only remaining protest group is the Tea Party, and they're protesting against what any right-thinking human being should be protesting for. They don't trust big government, so they've thrown their support behind big business. (If they thought big government was a problem wait until they see how the corporate philosophy in government.) They oppose health care even though they're the ones who need it, the ones who will continue to swell the coffers of the insurance companies who don't give a damn about their policy holders. They're convinced that government intrusion must be stopped, but then they're convinced that government intrusion like Medicare and Social Security must be saved. In short, they don't have a clue, but they're being led around by a Republican party that itself has sold out its principles for the opportunity to win an election. They divorce themselves from Todd Akin when, in fact, Akin should sue his party for nonsupport: they espouse the same principals he enunciated last week.
Protests are coming, though. They'll begin a year or two into the Romney presidency (and yes, I think he can win) and the right-wing loonies—and there won't be many left anyway—will once again retire to their fringes so that maybe the country can begin the recovery these well meaning but misinformed people have hindered.
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