Pundits talk about 'populist rage' as a way to trivialize the

Host: The bar was half empty, its light low and amber — a place where the city’s noise faded into a slow, deliberate hush. Rain drummed softly against the window, catching the orange glow of a neon sign that flickered between “OPEN” and “OPE,” as if even it was too tired to finish its promises.

Jack sat at the counter, nursing a beer that had long gone flat. Jeeny sat beside him, stirring her whiskey with the quiet rhythm of thought. The muted TV above the bar was showing a roundtable — four pundits in perfect suits, talking fast, smiling thin, their words moving quicker than meaning. The closed captions scrolled across the screen: “Populist rage… middle class frustration… political divide…”

Jeeny glanced up, half laughing, half sighing.

Jeeny: “There it is again. Populist rage. Like it’s a weather pattern.”

Jack: “No — weather’s real. This is theater.”

Jeeny (quoting softly): “Pundits talk about ‘populist rage’ as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class.”

Jack: “Elizabeth Warren.”

Jeeny: “You know your quotes.”

Jack: “You know your people.”

Host: The bartender wiped a glass, pretending not to listen. The bar smelled faintly of citrus, spilled beer, and the slow decay of trust — a smell America had been wearing for years.

Jeeny: “She’s right, though. They always talk about anger like it’s something uneducated. Like rage is a poor man’s philosophy.”

Jack: “Because it’s easier to mock emotion than to confront injustice. ‘Populist rage’ sounds like hysteria. It makes pain sound irrational.”

Jeeny: “And rational pain is what scares them.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: The TV continued — words like “resentment,” “tribalism,” “backlash” floating through the captions. None of the pundits looked angry. They looked amused. Like surgeons discussing a patient they’d already pronounced dead.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how everyone talks about the middle class, but no one actually talks to them?”

Jack: “Because the middle class doesn’t have a lobbyist.”

Jeeny: “Or a microphone.”

Jack: “Or patience.”

Jeeny: “Can you blame them?”

Jack: “No. But I can blame the people who call their anger irrational while sitting in leather chairs on national TV.”

Host: She looked at him — really looked — the way you do when someone says what you’ve been thinking, but in a tone sharper than you’d dare.

Jeeny: “You sound angry yourself.”

Jack: “I am. Not at them. At the vocabulary. The way language is used to sand down edges. You can’t solve pain if you keep renaming it.”

Jeeny: “So, what would you call it?”

Jack: “Desperation. Exhaustion. The slow suffocation of people who did everything right and still fell behind.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound personal.”

Jack: “It is. I grew up on that street — the one with the foreclosure signs and the dreams that started rusting before they broke.”

Jeeny: “You ever think rage might be the only honest emotion left?”

Jack: “No. But it’s the only one that gets heard — even if it’s only to be dismissed.”

Host: The rain outside thickened, blurring the world into smudges of color — blue, gold, grey. Inside, the bar lights flickered faintly against the polished bottles.

Jeeny: “You know what’s cruel? The way the same pundits who laugh about ‘populist rage’ build careers off explaining it.”

Jack: “Pain as profit. They call it analysis.”

Jeeny: “And people keep watching.”

Jack: “Because deep down, they want someone to translate what they’re feeling. Even if it comes out distorted.”

Jeeny: “You mean like echoing it without empathy.”

Jack: “Exactly. Sympathy’s too costly. Understanding’s too dangerous. But packaging it? That’s free market gold.”

Host: The bartender turned the volume down even lower, as if to protect them from what they already knew. Jeeny swirled the last of her whiskey, watching it catch the light.

Jeeny: “Do you think we’re close to breaking? The system, I mean. Or have we already broken and just stopped noticing?”

Jack: “Depends on how you define ‘broken.’”

Jeeny: “How would you?”

Jack: “When people start hating each other instead of the conditions that made them hate.”

Jeeny: “So — now.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: She nodded, quietly tracing a drop of condensation down the side of her glass, her voice softening.

Jeeny: “You know what’s tragic? The people who get blamed for the problem are the ones trying hardest to survive it.”

Jack: “It’s always been that way. Empires eat from the bottom.”

Jeeny: “But this isn’t an empire. It’s supposed to be a democracy.”

Jack: “Democracies decay the same way — through comfort at the top and silence in the middle.”

Jeeny: “And rage at the bottom.”

Jack: “The kind that gets televised, dissected, and forgotten by morning.”

Host: The TV panel switched to a commercial — bright, optimistic, absurd. A smiling family in a new kitchen. A slogan about “moving forward together.”

Jeeny: “There’s the lie. Every ad like that feels like a slap.”

Jack: “Because they sell hope to the people they’re robbing it from.”

Jeeny: “You think that’s fixable?”

Jack: “Not by language that treats pain like pathology.”

Jeeny: “Then what fixes it?”

Jack: “Listening. Really listening. Without correcting the grammar of someone’s anger.”

Jeeny: “That’s a start.”

Host: The rain lightened, turning to drizzle. The streetlights shimmered through it — fragile halos on pavement.

Jeeny: “You ever think maybe the middle class isn’t angry about losing money — but about losing meaning? About working so hard and realizing the story they were told isn’t true anymore?”

Jack: “Yes. That’s what no pundit gets. It’s not rage — it’s grief in disguise. The grief of believing in something that stopped believing back.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound poetic.”

Jack: “It’s not. It’s American.”

Host: The silence that followed wasn’t bitter. It was reflective, heavy with the weight of understanding — the kind of silence where truth doesn’t echo, it settles.

Jeeny glanced back at the TV one last time, shaking her head.

Jeeny: “Warren called it before anyone else did. Populist rage isn’t madness. It’s mourning.”

Jack: “And until we stop trivializing it, the funeral’s going to keep getting bigger.”

Host: The camera panned out, the bar now small and warm against the vast, indifferent city beyond. The rain slowed, the world exhaled, and the TV screen flickered quietly on — words chasing words, none of them brave enough to mean anything.

On the muted television, the quote appeared as part of the closing monologue, white text on blue background — too polished, too perfect, too late:

“Pundits talk about ‘populist rage’ as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class.”
— Elizabeth Warren

Because anger is never the enemy — indifference is.
And when empathy becomes entertainment,
the nation starts mistaking noise for truth,
and comfort for progress.

Host: Outside, the rain finally stopped.
The neon sign flickered one last time,
and the two sat quietly,
listening to the hum of a city
still too proud to admit it was hurting.