Shades of South Africa...
The Protection Racket Media has spent the last few weeks running with a new narrative of panic pornography: "white rural rage." Along with "Christian nationalism," these media explanations of the current dysfunction in American politics start and end with Donald Trump and his alleged "threat to democracy."
The general gist of these narratives is that Trump spent 2015-16 blowing dog whistles to bigots and transformed them through misinformation into angry conservo-populists. Trump and his cult have essentially hoodwinked voters, especially in the rural South and Midwest, by feeding them on xenophobia and anger over true progress in America. Trump and his "white rural rage-ists" will undermine the institutions of the republic -- not to mention the institutions of the cultural elite.
To put it mildly, this overlooks a very long stretch of political, cultural, and economic history. The collapse of confidence in these American systems began long before Trump -- decades before, in fact, and had nothing to do with race. The signs of this betrayal began in the rural and industrial Midwest not long after the launch of the Great Society and the Vietnam War warped American fiscal policy, destroyed agricultural markets, forced farmers and small bankers into retreat, and left massive destruction in our once-dominant manufacturing base...
The general gist of these narratives is that Trump spent 2015-16 blowing dog whistles to bigots and transformed them through misinformation into angry conservo-populists. Trump and his cult have essentially hoodwinked voters, especially in the rural South and Midwest, by feeding them on xenophobia and anger over true progress in America. Trump and his "white rural rage-ists" will undermine the institutions of the republic -- not to mention the institutions of the cultural elite.
To put it mildly, this overlooks a very long stretch of political, cultural, and economic history. The collapse of confidence in these American systems began long before Trump -- decades before, in fact, and had nothing to do with race. The signs of this betrayal began in the rural and industrial Midwest not long after the launch of the Great Society and the Vietnam War warped American fiscal policy, destroyed agricultural markets, forced farmers and small bankers into retreat, and left massive destruction in our once-dominant manufacturing base...
