2010-08-12

Jonah Goldberg does socionomics

Here's Jonah's post at the Corner.

Recession Rage
Well, it looks like I wasn’t audacious enough in my prediction. I wrote the other day:

Last night there was the story about the Jet Kabluey flight attendant. This morning I caught something on one of the morning news shows about a woman attacking a McDonald’s drive-thru cashier over a McNuggets disagreement (“Well, they do always [expletive deleted] at the drive-thru” — Cosmo).It’s August. So, I predict one or two more freak-outs will cause some bored reporter or producer to concoct a “recession rage” narrative. The down economy has Americans mad as hell and they’re taking it out on each other.The only thing that has kept such stories from dominating the airwaves already is the fact that Barack Obama and the Dems control Washington. If this was going on in, say, the summer of ’07, we’d already have a Newsweek cover story written by Jonathan Alter along the lines of “Is The Bush Economy Making us Crazy?”

Probably a very accurate prediction given the social mood. He follows that with a quote from someone calling 2010 the "Jet Blue Election." This covers social mood from both sides; how the public reacts to the story and how the media covers it.

Anger is a definite sign of negative social mood.

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