Mad as hell? *Yawn* Who isn’t?

I was thinking about going to the big town hall meeting here in Tampa last night. What was it about? Health care? Astroturf? Something like that. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t expect to get in; I knew it would be more than packed and honestly, I just wanted to sit outside in my lawn chair and witness the 10-car pile-up of jackassery I knew would ensue. I didn’t go, discretion being the better part of valor or being part of the solution by not being part of the problem or because it looked like it might rain or something, but apparently it lived up to the hype.
These things have become spectacles not unlike South American soccer matches where the riots in the stands overshadow the soccer match itself and become the event. Seriously, at this point in time the phrase “town hall meeting” is becoming a synonym for "orgy of rage-fueled mayhem that makes an episode of the Jerry Springer Show look like a discussion of the day’s weather over a spot of lemonade (pinkies extended) along the banks of a lazy, meandering river".
Honestly, who’s surprised by this development? I’m not. We’ve been feeding and breeding anger, resentment and fear for years now. Here's a passage from "The Great Derangement" by Matt Taibbi that sums up the general mood of the country leading up the last election:

"After two consecutive bitterly negative presidential elections and many years of what was turning into a highly deflating military adventure in Iraq, the American public had reached new levels of disgust with the very concept of elections. People no longer voted for candidates they liked or were excited by; they voted against candidates they hated. At protests and marches, the ruling emotions were disgust and rage; the lack of idealism, and especially the lack of any sense of brotherhood or
comon purpose with the other side (i.e., liberals and conservatives unable to imagine a productive future with each other, or even
to see themselves as citizens of the same country), was striking."

I think it's obvious that this mood and mindset prevail today. Everybody is mad. Everybody is scared. About everything, all the time. We get the society…and government…we deserve, and with all things considered, what else could we reasonably expect?

Sure, it’s kind of sad that the reasonable, thoughtful people who must surely be out there somewhere and are capable of sitting down and discussing issues with the intent of trying to find mutually beneficial solutions seem to be absent in all of this, but can you blame them for laying low? They’re scared too…and seriously outnumbered. Welcome to your world, everybody, the world we've made for ourselves, where the lunatic fringe is the new mainstream.