Camden: Angry voters are nothing new in American elections

Then 1992 was a great year for people mad at the system, and Ross Perot mined that vein for all it was worth. Not enough to win, but enough for President George H.W. Bush to lose. By 1994, voters were mad at Bill Clinton for everything from not passing health care reform to actually passing an assault weapons ban, and tossed a passel of Democrats out of Congress.

A banner year for mad

Another banner year for mad was 2000. Enough people were mad at both parties for enough reasons that they voted for Ralph Nader, who, let’s face it, made a career of being angry about something the government was doing or not doing. That made the race so close that it had to be settled in the Supreme Court, which made a bunch of people mad. Four years later, some people were still mad about that, and others were angry about the Iraq War.

By 2008, voters were so mad at Bush and the likelihood that Wall Street was going to shatter like Humpty Dumpty that they went for Barack Obama, hope and change. But by 2010, they were mad at health care reform, deficits, and various government programs that were fending off the recession without pulling them personally to a better economic reality. Some embraced the Tea Party, which isn’t so much a party as a gestalt, and turned the House Congress back over to the Republicans.

That might’ve led to happy days for the GOP in 2012, but the Republicans in Congress managed to peeve plenty of people, and their nominee Mitt Romney made things worse by dissing 47 percent of the public in a single speech.

Now, for the last four years we’ve had the Tea Party angry with folks who got elected to change the system but can’t; Christian conservatives mad that not only is abortion no less legal but now gays can marry and make them cater the wedding; gun-rights advocates mad about threats to the Second Amendment, and gun-control advocates mad that no one can do anything about mass shootings; people who have been mad about federal deficits and debt since voting for Barry Goldwater; people mad Obama didn’t do enough deficit spending to stimulate the economy more; business owners mad that after being required to provide health insurance they might also be required to pay a higher minimum wage and provide family leave; and workers angry they haven’t had a raise since a year had two zeros in the middle.

The general public — about half of whom could’ve voted in the last election cycle but didn’t — is generally steamed about how little gets done to their liking in Washington, D.C., their state capitals and city halls. It’s a bit of irony that would be funny, if it weren’t so maddening.