Walter Shapiro raises some good points.
The acidic anger corroding our political system is premised on the belief that elected officials in Washington are arrogantly out of touch. But what will happen when representatives and senators begin to believe that they are risking their lives by appearing in public to answer voter questions? The inevitable result will be new barriers (portable metal detectors, omnipresent security guards) standing between the political elites and the governed.
Equally troubling will be the psychological effects on House members themselves as Congress gives way to the inevitable security mania. Although there is no way of proving it, I have long nurtured the belief that living inside a protective bubble exaggerates the self-importance of public officials. If everyone must be screened and frisked before being allowed to see a freshman congressman, it is easy to imagine how this legislator might soon believe that he is entitled to perks worthy of the court of Louis XIV.
I’m not very concerned about the latter point even though I think he’s probably right. But it is a concern that the massacre in Arizona will lead to new security measures on the campaign trail. I think we’ll be okay unless there is a second shooting. If this goes from being an incident to being a war, then all bets are off. It’s going to take a lot of restraint for people not to overreact and wind up making things worse than they have to be.
In the short-term, the GOP has postponed its idiotic health care repeal vote. Maybe now they realize that it’s just a dumb stunt to make people dangerously angry with the government.
