You're missing the entire gist of the discussion - that somehow, issues with the Democratic party in Appalachia are the problem of the Democratic party elsewhere, and that obviously, the Democrats would have won if only they considered sucking redneck white boy cock. This is a trope that has been trotted out since Dukakis. The fact of the matter is, Appalachia voted for Democrats when Democrats were all about keeping Darkie down. But since LBJ and the Civil Rights Act, Appalachia has been about whoever will keep them ahead of the Negros. And nothing else fucking matters. Demonstrably. Over the past 50 fucking years. Edit: don't block someone first and expect to not get blocked in return. PS. Take your meds.
I get that that's the message in all of these pieces but a lot of the pieces that I've read were written by those coastal elites - so it's more your peers pointing to problems in other places instead of us saying you abandoned us. In my boots on the ground opinion (and I'm mixing several responses in one so forgive me if this is tangential to this thread), you're right, you're not responsible for us. It's not your duty to send us money, it's not your duty to spend your time, and it's not your duty to bus down here and make change. Because I do believe that even the liberal among us are still states rights people, and it's our duty to make our states right. Now, we still have a lot of racists and bigots and close minded people around here - I hang out with them every holiday - and we know that their stances run deep. But they share our blood and we share their history and our salvation is tied up in one another. It's why we like our bibles down here - we're a nation whose tradition of division and hate is so deep in our being that the only solution is to be born again wholly in love, and we'll latch on to whatever we can to help show us how to do that. So, that's my ramble.
This is due in no small part that the educated and people of means tend to migrate from the country to the city. It's a trend that dates to the introduction of cities. As listed above, the trend/trap of homeownership has increased the static friction of the nomadic American workforce; one must have more means in order to relocate than before, which has caused a greater number of people to be trapped. Consider: all the migrants photographed fleeing the Dust Bowl were people who had nothing to lose. We now have an entire generation of homeowners who may or may not live near work. And many of these people do not view their homelands as irredeemable shitholes. I grew up in rural New Mexico and I have plenty of acquaintances still there who think it's awesome, that everybody there is awesome, and life is good... despite the fact that whenever I head home I get to hear about another murder-suicide. Thus, we get these narratives about how "the heartland" isn't an irredeemable shithole because not everyone had a terrible childhood and the loss of the family farm and the vanishing way of life of the coal miner because people want to have their cake and eat it, too - they want their Whole Foods and Pottery Barn lifestyle to be amenable to Walmart and Winco. And sure. On one side it is. If it weren't for the fact that I'm now staring down the barrel of Betsy De Vos as Education Secretary, for example, I'd have no animosity for them. But I know down to my DNA that they don't think their salvation is tied up in me.I get that that's the message in all of these pieces but a lot of the pieces that I've read were written by those coastal elites - so it's more your peers pointing to problems in other places instead of us saying you abandoned us.
I forgot about the housing, that was interesting to learn. I'm pretty relentlessly optimistic - also relatively young - and my area is appalachia and not the heartland, but I don't think they're irredeemable. I suffer no illusions that change will come quickly or be embraced without trouble, but my state was once deep red and now runs as a swing state, so can't help believe change is possible - if not exceptionally slow. And yeah, I've met plenty of people who don't get shared salvation - church going folk who chant that they are full of sin but still think they're on moral high ground - and I don't expect much from them. But there are all kinds of people down here who get it and so many of them are out there talking to each other, having this conversation about what it will take to create unification and understanding. I don't know, I'm just hopeful. There was a lot of anger in this thread, so if someone made it this far I just wanted to share that with them.
Believe it or not, I'm hopeful, too. This style of thinking, though, is hopeful in the wrong direction. If we all hope that the Democratic Party will somehow triangulate towards a direction that will attract the Confederate flag-waving, church-voting, outsider-hating ruralist vote despite their utter failure to do so since '68, then we will be disappointed over and over and over again. If we instead hope that those who are most impacted by the regressive policies of the Republican Party on their home states rally to defend themselves, the result is likely to be a lot more lasting. My wife was broken up on election night. She wished she could have done more. She regretted not, for example, traveling to the Midwest to speak the good fight for Clinton. I looked at her and said "You don't really think they'd listen to YOU, do you?" Hillary Clinton carpetbagger has a disturbing number of hits.
Oh sure, but that's the shared salvation thing - the "Confederate flag-waving, church-voting, outsider-hating ruralist" aren't really synonymous with the "love your neighbor" crowd so I don't think they're coming over any time soon, but there are a whole lot of people living in the grey who want to sit down and find a better way.
Thanks! My wife does this thing where she kills herself to make other people happy. She tells herself that it's worth it, that she's making someone else's day better and so I always ask her, "if you're making someone else happy at the expense of your own happiness, what's the net benefit to the world?" That's the salvation thing - if the effort of saving other people wounds you to immobilization, then is the cost of their salvation too great? To me it is and so we focus on people who understand we all must rise together - and if you have to take a step back to rise up, then that's what must be done. Sorry, that's lecture-y. I'm probably writing that more for the wife than for you. With that apology in mind I'm going to continue to lecture because I've been listening a lot, here and in my own communities, and find it easier to organize thoughts when I write them to someone. We've been talking about this stuff in a lot of my communities. These communities - which generally revolve around service, religion, or southernness - have a tendency to idealize the values of faith and hope. In these communities I'm trying to give people their time and their space to grieve and come to terms with this new reality, but the optimist in me just want to grab them and slap them and wake them up to the fact that they just got everything they've been praying for. Those that ask for faith have been given such massive doubt that the only option they have at this point is to believe in something that seems impossible. Those that ask for hope have been give such relentless despair that only hope can help to prop them up. Doubt is the fire of the forge of faith, despair the fire in the forge hope, and we need clear minded craftsmen who can pull something beautiful from all the fires burning bright. Alright, that last part was a bit over the top, but thanks for reading.