Network movie poster: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore." Wikicommons. Some rights reserved.It’s easy to reference Paddy Chayefsky’s classic Network, and state that people are voting against their interests because ‘they are mad as hell and they are not going to take it any more.’ But in many ways, this is true. People are demanding change and they know they weren’t going to get it from their usual establishment candidates.
Over the years they’ve seen the system benefiting the select few instead of the struggling many. They might not have understood the economic whims that got us here: they just knew that its origins laid in both the greed and failed dreams of the ruling class.
But it ran much deeper than this. It ran less on the differences concerning policy and more on the dignity of the voter. If they continued to vote for the usual suspects, it would mean that they would continue being their political pawns. Elections began to be perceived as a cynical game less about the power of the people and more about powerful forces competing for the throne. No matter who won, the establishment would always win. The people felt used and deservedly so. If the 2008 economic crisis proved anything it was that even when the establishment fails, it is those at the bottom of the food chain who will be most punished.
