THE GREAT DISCONNECT
After the incredibly surprising presidential election and the ascendency of Donald Trump, there have been thousands of columns and millions of words written about what it all means.
· America was fed up with the swamp of Washington
· Hillary was a deeply flawed candidate
· Obama failed to rally supporters
· The media is dishonest, therefore a “tell it like it is” candidate was right for the times
And all these explanations have a role to play in comprehending one of the most seismic shifts in American politics, but it seems to me that consensus is forming around one central point: white, under-educated, working class voters truly believed that the elites in the government, corporations, Wall Street and the media abandoned them years ago and therefore a true populist outsider was their only hope to maintaining their relevancy in a diverse global economy.
When one removes the more offensive characteristics of Trump – the racism, misogyny and general crudeness – it is fairly easy to understand this sentiment. Trapped in a cycle of stagnation, where the jobs of their parents are gone forever, and (rightly or wrongly) believing that liberal America neglects them and siphons their tax dollars toward underserving urban minorities, working-class whites saw Trumpism as their salvation. To them, “Make America Great Again,” meant making the American system work for them like it used to.
But there is a crucial rub that I just can’t wrap my head around – the great disconnect I see in this way of thinking that, in short, upends my past worldview.
After all, like many, I grew up believing that the great hallmark of America’s rural working-class was that they were rugged individuals who would always pull themselves up by their bootstraps and “get er done.” No matter what, they could rely on their grit and determination to succeed, completely without government hand-outs and public assistance. Conversely, I was fed a steady diet from a young age that poor minorities in big cities are inherently lazy welfare kings and queens unwilling to lift a finger in order to improve their lot.
Yet, if one looks closely today, isn’t the plight of the white working class, stuck in dying rural communities, a hell of their own making? Do they not now share an equivalent level of blame as the urban poor for their own stagnation? How come, as coal receded (not by regulation, but by market forces) years ago and factories moved to Asia decades ago they didn’t actively engage in that whole boot-strap-pulling thing? How come they didn’t tap into their rugged individualism and learn new skills and new jobs? How come, for example, they didn’t tighten their belts and forgo the purchase of a new tractor in order to afford computer classes at the local junior college?
And why doesn’t Red America seem to cast the same skeptical eye toward the meth addicts, pregnant teens and government-assisted unemployed factory workers in the small communities of Iowa or Kansas, as they do the inhabitants of big cities of New York or LA?
How come rural whites haven’t – as they are so fond of advising the urban poor – broken the cycle of poverty?
For years, I have heard my welfare-bashing conservative friends point to individuals who escaped the ghetto to become successful as proof positive that anyone willing to work hard can leave the inner city behind. Yet, millions upon millions of angry and disaffected whites voted for Trump in the hopes that he could do something they haven’t been able to do: save them and their impoverished communities. How come, instead of filling stadiums to hear him rail against crooked Hillary, they didn’t access their great self-determination and work harder to make their communities great again?
Why does conventional wisdom suggest that poor urban minorities are failing in America, but poor rural whites are being failed by America?
Don’t get me wrong. I am deeply saddened by poverty in America’s heartland. And I do believe that government assistance and publicly financed education and skills training in rural America ought to be a huge priority for the next administration. However, perhaps it is time for a great leveling of blame and ridicule.
Yes, there are poor minorities stuck in the inner city who are unmotivated to change. Yes, there are black and Latino predators in Chicago or Detroit who exploit the crime-riddled streets and hopelessness for personal gain. But so too are there unemployed factory workers in Nebraska who are content to live off welfare checks and there are OxyContin dealers in Alabama who prey on going-nowhere teenagers with little or no potential for upward mobility.
It seems to me that in America, everyone has a chance to succeed and everyone has an opportunity to fail themselves and their community.
For my entire life, conservatives have pointed to inner city minorities and said it’s their fault they are poor and liberal elites need to understand the nation does them no favors by providing public assistance. And for the last eight years, conservatives have pointed to the Obama Administration as the manifestation of failed policies and philosophies about welfare and entitlements.
It’s strange, but in that same span of time, I’ve never heard conservatives rail against the absolute failure of rural America and rural Americans to innovate, grow and overcome. In fact, I’d argue that rural America has become an innovation desert, while the vast majority of true invention and American exceptionalism happens within the same zip codes of the inner cities they rail against.
So now, rural white America has its prophet in Donald Trump soon to occupy the White House. Will he be the magical leader who somehow unlocks the suspended potential of his devoted fans? Will he waive a diamond-encrusted wand and vanquish the hidden forces that have held down the factory worker, farmer and gas station attendant for all these years?
History has a funny way of gently tugging on our sleeve and pointing out how wrong many assumptions can be. When Barack Obama was elected, he swept into office riding an incredible surge of hope and change. Without going into the details and justifications, I will simply write that millions of Americans probably feel disappointed that he didn’t change their fortunes like they thought he might. Safe to say, our nation’s first black president did not remove the problems of poor minorities in America. And now, history will see if millions of poor rural people have the ear of a New York billionaire elite who has never spent a day of his life being anything other than spectacularly wealthy and urban.
Somehow, some way, we have created a great disconnect in America today. The narrative continues to be that inner city minorities allowed poverty to happen, but rural whites had poverty happen to them. It will be fascinating to see if that narrative remains the same four years hence.
