I was sitting across the conference room table at my old newspaper sometime in 2012 when my former editor drove the bus over me.
“Faraone hopes that Romney beats Obama.”
Our off-the-record editorial board interviewee that day, then-Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, longtime friend and party crony of the POTUS, threw me a disappointed if not slightly aggravated look.
“You’re joking, right?” the governor asked. Or something of that sort. He wasn’t pleased.
Caught on my heels, I clumsily explained to Patrick that I believed Obama was just kicking liberal cans along the road to mediocrity and expressed my firm opinion, still somewhat held today, that a Republican win four years ago would have upset limousine liberals and centrists enough to rally for change. Perhaps pick up any momentum left from the Occupy movement, which ultimately failed to lure its large intended target demographic of the 99 percent.
Of course I never could have imagined a POTUS like Donald Trump, a man vile enough to spur millions of comfortable suburbanites—along with dedicated activists and innumerable other types of people—to march, picket, and protest in hundreds of cities this past weekend, signs-a-wavin’ and political expression on full blast.
I’m not sure if any of this means I was right; for all I know, Romney could have won and Dems would have put their energy into connecting with the left and maybe even finding a decent candidate to run for president. But either way, what we saw last weekend, from Washington, DC, to cities overseas whose names I can’t pronounce, is the precise vision I had back in 2012—mass outrage and protest, preferably peaceful, representing every last critical cause and oppressed person. In time, if the masses keep plugging away, I suspect they may even be joined by millions more who come to agree that our new pres is a menace to civilization.
As for Deval Patrick, the former gov now works for Bain Capital, the notoriously slimy enterprise that his predecessor Romney helped build into a behemoth. I guess he wasn’t so disgusted with me after all.
A Queens, NY native who came to New England in 2004 to earn his MA in journalism at Boston University, Chris Faraone is the editor and co-publisher of DigBoston and a co-founder of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. He has published several books including 99 Nights with the 99 Percent, and has written liner notes for hip-hop gods including Cypress Hill, Pete Rock, Nas, and various members of the Wu-Tang Clan.
