Redneck Revolutionaries

One good thing about the whole Trump phenomenon– it has led to some soul searching by the folks in charge, and by those who support them, either directly or indirectly. That introspection was sorely needed…

Case in point: The guy who co-wrote the controversial book, The Bell Curve (about race, economics, and I.Q. scores) in the early 90s has actually changed his mind on a few topics, and that led him to create this quiz:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz-2/

I highly recommend you take it. Its pretty telling. For the record, I scored a 76 (very much NOT living in a bubble) while most Americans score from 30 to 50.

The lower your score, the more isolated you are from others who are NOT just like you in the upper-middle to higher classes and income groups and who live in big cities or coastal states and are considered “mainstream elite.”

I’ve moved a lot, mostly been working or “wage class,” and lived in small towns in Appalachia. Believe me, that was an eye-opener and a culture shock from the Portland, Oregon experience! But it educated me well, and I don’t regret the perspective such a life offered. It was difficult, trapped, and life was a grind with huge portions of disrespect. I know, as so many elite Americans do not, that there are places where if you are unlucky enough to be born, right here in America, where your prospects for education, jobs, or any kind of good life are pretty much gone. Where people commit social security fraud because not doing so means becoming homeless and starving in a region where there are few social outreach programs like in big cities. People really try and work hard, but the deck is stacked against them, and bad luck is made to be their fault.

You can’t get away with making fun of any ethnic group, disabled group, orientation group anymore in decent company. But there is ONE group of people you can feel free to disparage: poor and working class white people who have an accent (hillbilly or Southern.) No one balks at poking fun at them.

And they know it. There is a deep resentment that grows when you watch every other disenfranchised group you could name get “pardoned” from the target line while you and your own people get thrown under the bus. And this is where the Trump followers get their ugly energy. Trump just happened to be the first person who tapped into it, like many other demagogues before him in similar places and social settings.

I’ve only had one friend take that quiz so far. She and I grew up together and yet she scored a 23 on that quiz. She quipped that she not only lived in a bubble, “I apparently live in a CAVE.” She’s well-informed and considers herself a fair-minded person. Yet she misses many of the things that seem obvious to me. She’s not rich and never has been rich, or even more than middle class– but she’s got that West Coast Liberal elite thing going. She’s a food snob, and a clothes snob (for certain types of healthy granola shoes for instance) and honestly can’t understand why people in a tough place can’t just do better. Why women in bad relationships stay, for example. Many of our debates have devolved into frustrated splutterings as I attempted to explain the other side of certain situations to no avail.

It comes down to an unfair system that advantages some at the expense of others. If you want to think you’re a good person, you blame the victims of this system, because otherwise you’ll have to admit that you’re a part of the problem. Which works for most until one day they see up close the rage of those left behind and realize that the disenfranchised could turn on them like a host of rabid dogs.

A lot more of the happily deluded are popping their heads out of their bubbles these days to try to figure out what’s going on. And I count that a good thing, because a lot of people are absolutely desperate and still sinking. More join their ranks every day. Its not just “those people” anymore. Its a lot of people- people you never thought of as “one of Them.” The shock of it is waking people up and making them realize that you can’t just ignore a gigantic swath of the population that is being sacrificed to this system.

Someone said, “People who have lost everything have nothing left to lose.” And people with nothing left to lose can be very dangerous.

Which is why unfair systems have to be made more fair. There’s a consequence to allowing imbalances to go unchecked for too long–

– and we’re seeing it now.