Real political action

It’s almost impossible to get through a day without encountering another irate citizen of our Valley fuming about being disenfranchised and denied participation in the political process.

Over coffee, wine or a GMO taco they fulminate, livid at being deprived of the chance to mix it up at any of the nationally televised political rallies and debates taking place in far away states with less important voters, many of whom obviously cut a lot of classes after the 3^rd grade.

As between the national parties, Republican gatherings have been much more animated. Jealous Valley residents have watched helplessly week after week as audiences and protesters in backwaters like Vermont, Wisconsin or North Carolina trade epithets, yelling, pushing, shoving & punching each other. News reporters have been grabbed or thrown to the ground or given the heave-ho by security staff. Even the Secret Service has gotten the chance to choke at least one person on national TV. All this excitement has happened in spite of efforts by the candidates to calm things from the podium by cautioning supporters to “Get ‘im outta here!” and “Punch ‘em in the face!”

Spellbinding candidates – 17 of them at one point – have been unable to dull the enthusiasm at these events or deter The Base in its rush to nominate a True Conservative to lead the nation forward to the 12^th century, when burning heretics and stoning uppity women will again become popular religious exercises.

Alas, our wine country electorate continues to be totally ignored. By the time presidential primary action reaches California in June, all of the most entertainingly clueless, bigoted, anti-immigrant, women-bashing, hateful, war-mongering, carpet-bombing, crotch-grabbing public policy position statements will be old news and certainly trademarked.^(TM)

Until then, we in the Valley must console ourselves with more (hang on to your pacemaker) candidate forums.   Local political junkies know that these perennial gatherings feature impossibly sane candidates running for local offices, discussing borrrrrring issues like roads, schools, jobs, housing, water, etc. Predictably, they will field sharp moderator questions, such as:

Why can’t we fix our roads by simply melting the surfaces and letting the tar flow into the cracks and potholes?

• Why do you say working families deserve shelter all year around, not just during the rainy season?
• Is the drought real or is all our water being shipped to China in wine bottles?
• How will Sonoma fit two tons of steaming vacation rentals, tasting rooms, wineries, event centers and hotels into a one-pound bag?
• Should tourists run over in the crosswalks receive CPR at public expense?

This year, however, at a candidates’ forum somewhere could we finally see the Valley’s long-simmering Class Warfare break into the open?

Extremely unconfirmed rumors are circulating that if locals and politicians continue to whine about evictions, affordable housing, low wages and the like, a small band of self-radicalized vintners, hotel owners, realtors, developers and uber-wealthy speculators will lock wallets in the Name of the Profit. They are alarmed that attempts to preserve neighborhoods, protect the environment and provide housing, decent wages, food, clothing & other such “entitlements” to riff-raff working people is ruining the Valley they’ve come to own and love.

A raucous “Rich Lives Matter” rally is reportedly in the works, with silent auction, face-lift consultations and designer protest T-shirts, $500 at the door. Watch this space.