Washblog

So perhaps we will get our "farmers' revolution" in Washington this year.  We do have an example of an electoral revolt in Washington -- centered right in the 5th CD, when reform-minded voters kicked out favorite son Tom Foley, speaker of the House in 1994.   Unfortunately, that was part of a larger trend associated with Gingrich's Contract with America that led to further economic hardships for farmers and everyone in the middle class.   But, if we really want to think big and imagine what urban progressives and people in rural Washington might be able to accomplish if they were on the same page, we could hope that perhaps we really are on the brink of something like this country's  last big progressive movement of the early 1900s, in which farmers played a large part.  Here's Don Hopps:

You know, the late nineteenth century, the Gilded Age that preceded the blossoming of progressive reform, looked very much like today: a Democratic Party of caution and conservatism, Republican presidents in the back pocket of -- what else - big oil, a country distracted by foreign terrorists into dabbling in imperialistic adventures. That's why we need a rebirth of the progressive movement.