What Is an American?

In the previous post, I suggested that there are two cultures in America with very different views --- one “urban” and the other “rural”. This was painting with a very broad brush indeed and I admit it. Clearly, not everyone who voted for Trump lives in a rural area nor did everyone in the rural areas vote for him. But when you look at the voting map of the US by counties, it is clear where the majority of votes lie in both camps. For my own state of California, the state map shows blue for Clinton, but the county map shows that Clinton supporters fill a narrow swath along the coast with just a few inland bastions. Look at the country as a whole by counties and it is clear that rural America was Trump country and urban America voted for Clinton. Why is that?

There were many times during the last rugged year of electioneering when either Obama or Clinton faced the antagonism toward immigrants, women, or just plain racism and said, “That is not who we are.” And we urban liberals agreed with them; that is not who we are. But now that we have lost and Trump has won, we have to ask precisely what Americans really are. What should America mean to us and to the rest of the world?

The sad truth, I think, is that there are strong differences between urban and rural concepts of being American. Indeed, one of the peculiar consequences of that is the rural preference for state government against the urban preference for a national government. (Hence the Tea Party and other aspects of hating “big government”) Oddly enough, though, to the degree that we weaken the national government, we discard any uniform concept of being American in favor of just belonging to a local cult. The South, which has largely never given up on the Civil War and calls it the “war of northern aggression”, would really prefer to just be “Southerners” and let the Yankees be whatever so long as they don’t try to disrupt Southern life. Northwestern timber families would like to continue their lifestyle of cutting timber and forget the poor spotted owl or any other nationally promoted problem like saving the redwoods. In Appalachia, coal mining families would be happy to see Americans continue to burn coal indefinitely even if that means thousands of people on Pacific Islands not only losing their homes but even their nations. So one thing is clear, rural cultures and desires differ widely from one rural area to another but all agree that they should be able to do their things without intervention from outside. It is the urban dweller who worries about the environment being destroyed, world temperatures increasing out of bounds, and rising ocean waters. In a way, there is no consistent idea of what an American is in rural culture. Rural and urban Americans both largely vote for their self interests, but urban Americans share a more uniform view of self interests than rural people. Where rural people come together is in their Christian practice, their need for social and religious conformity, and their exclusion of people from the outside (the “other”).

The odd thing about this election is that I do not believe Trump represents the rural culture so, while rural people massively voted for him, I think they will be very disappointed in his performance. Trump, actually, represents the worst aspects of the urban culture. He is a bully, a cheater, a con man, and an abuser of women and other vulnerable people. And he is even proud of it. What, then, did rural people think they were getting by voting for Trump. In my opinion, they thought they were getting what they have thought Republicans would give them over every election in the past thirty years --- a take down of Washington and destruction of our national government.

Actually, I can understand why rural people want this to happen. I grew up in Cook County, Illinois (home of Chicago). State politics was always dominated by the rural communities in Illinois and liberal urban dwellers were oppressed. No wonder then that Democrats turned to national government to address and solve urban issues. Those we called “down-state Republicans” had no sympathy for urban issues. As a result, urban dwellers have been relatively happy with the direction of national government, while rural dwellers are rather steamed about it. Also, consider the era of civil rights in the South. It was our national government that intervened and walked little black children to the front doors of Southern schools. Urban dwellers looked to the rights voiced in our Constitutional Amendments and forced rural dwellers to conform to a national identity. But that was a political victory and not a cultural victory. Rural culture remained simply where it was and rural people became oppressed.

Some Reflections on the Trump Victory

I was shocked watching the election returns coming in on Tuesday evening. But the fact is that we were warned by any number of commentators that Clinton did not have a slam-dunk victory ahead of her. And, wow, it came true.

I am embarrassed for my country that “we” have elected a man as president who is not only poorly qualified but also who has all kinds of strikes against him in his personal, social, and business behaviors. And we have chosen this man against a woman who is very well qualified in terms of her experience with governing and whose “crimes” are miniscule compared to his.

For me, it is a complete irony. As a boy in the 1940s I took pride in being an American. Today, I really would not like to be identified as an American. Americans have abused their military power around the world, their economic power around the world, and they have proved themselves (by almost a majority) of being incompetent to select a qualified leader. What I wonder, seriously, is when the rest of the world is going to do something about what is going on in America — and what they will do. Of course, the world pretty much stood around and watched Hitler destroy Europe before they decided they should do something about it. So I won’t hold my breath. But, seriously, I am really concerned about our relationship with the world and, in particular, when the rest of the world is going to have to say, “Look, you’ve gone too far. We are going to put an end to this.” I do not think the end game is going to be pretty.

Meanwhile, many Clinton supporters have taken to the streets to protest a Trump presidency. Unfortunately, I think much of this is misguided. What we have here is really a radical fracture in American culture. Trump may have taken advantage of that but Democrats are equally guilty of not recognizing the real division. For generations, Democrats and Republicans have managed to control that fracture and to keep Washington moving in the directions appropriate to America’s urban dwellers. American culture, as such, has moved slowly toward an “urban culture” that has little to do with traditional rural culture. Rural culture is pretty solidly Christian, moralistic in some sense, and tends strongly toward a kind of exclusionist mood, protecting itself from outside intervention. Both parties, I would say, (yes, even the Republicans) have tended to let “majority rule” carry the day and the rural folk have swallowed this for a long time. The social world that majority rule has produced is not at all the world these folks want and they are pissed. I don’t want their world and they don’t want my world, and that is the real fact of the matter that we all face today.

The real problem is not Trump but, rather, it is figuring out what to do about this collision of cultures. There is really no easy solution. But in particular, there is no political solution. The rural culture has used politics this time in order to express their hatred and fear and disgust, but politics as such is not going to solve this problem. In all honesty I can’t imagine what, if anything, is going to solve this problem except attrition. What the urban culture hopes is that “millennials” will move away from rural culture and produce a dominant urban culture that eventually retakes political power. I honestly do not care whether that new political regime calls itself Republican or Democratic so long as it expresses the values that I admire --- care for other people, advancement of education and training of the young, a sense of right in being what you are, protection of those who are vulnerable, control over those who wield economic power, and modesty in our relations with the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, we are a political people and we do have a national government and Donald Trump will be our president for the next four years if the Electoral College votes for him (and I have little doubt they will). I think that we need to do everything possible to make Trump’s presidency a success, meaning that we need to work with him to urge a continuation of intelligent social and environmental programs. What we should not do is what Republicans have consistently done throughout Democratic administrations and that is simply refuse to cooperate and do anything constructive for the nation. What we need to do is to express our real value that the role of government is to govern and not just to fight over personalities and power. So the Republicans now hold the power; we need to help them use that power for good deeds. I know that is a real challenge, but it is a challenge we must embrace.