When I say there are no certain truths, I must admit to one exception and those are emotional truths which do not require or even allow for external validation. For example, at this moment in time I love my family, of that I am absolutely certain. Moreover, I think it is highly probable that my family loves me. However, I am not completely certain of their love and must therefore hold open the possibility, however remote, that they are all just excellent actors after my enormous wealth.
Similarly, I am certain that I despise Donald Trump and everything he represents: ignorance, incompetence, selfishness, deceit, greed, demagoguery, a complete absence of moral and ethical principles . . . the list goes on. And on that note, since it is a somewhat arbitrary decision anyway, I have decided to begin this blog with a piece I wrote a couple years ago, as it ties together my experience growing up in Western Kansas with Trumpism.
What’s Still the Matter with Kansas?
(notes from a recovering Kansan)
I was born and raised in a small farming community in Western Kansas. If you’ve driven to Colorado from the east, you will remember this region as a tabletop-flat expanse of wheat fields that seemed to take the better part of a week to cross. Indeed, a visitor driving through might reasonably conclude the state tree is a telephone pole and the state shrub is a fence post.
At 18, I left my small farming community of 2,500 (including pets) to attend Wichita State University. There I met a beautiful girl in an English 102 class and authored a still-contentious essay titled, “Has the Press Been Fair to Nixon?” A flaming liberal, she married me anyway.
A number of years ago, Thomas Frank wrote a book titled “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” In his book, Mr. Frank attempted to explain why Kansans are so consistently inclined to support candidates and policies that seem to be clearly contrary to their own interests. While reading the book, it occurred to me that I could have saved Mr. Frank a lot of time and effort.
What’s the matter with Kansas? In a word, Kansans; they’re morons. Okay, that’s not fair. It’s not accurate, either. The fact is, some of the most impressive displays of raw intelligence I have ever witnessed were by the farmers and ranchers with whom I grew up and worked. Put one of these Edison-in-overalls in the middle of a section of ground with an old tractor that won’t run and nothing but a pair of pliers and some bailing wire and they will demonstrate ingenuity that would put MacGyver to shame.
No, it’s not intelligence they lack, it’s something else that explains why Kansans are the way they are. To paraphrase Hemingway, Kansas is a place of broad fields and narrow minds. The people I grew up with are not stupid. Rather, they are undereducated, insular, parochial and extremely tribal. If you think differently, or even want to think differently without incurring ridicule, you must escape as I did, eventually to the University of Kansas in Lawrence, a blue island of diversity and tolerance in a vast sea of red.
And here’s the thing: most of the Midwest is just like Western Kansas. If Democrats are to have any hope of winning back the White House or the Senate in 2020 their message here must be sensitive to the beliefs and values of these rural Americans.
When we speak of our country now, we refer to it as the United States. But before the Civil War it was these United States. Outside of brief periods in our country’s history during which we were forced to unite against a common threat, the notion of a nation united is a myth that has never been true. The end of the Civil War changed nothing and may have actually deepened the divide. From a governance perspective, the US is probably better imagined as a union of independent countries with selected shared interests, i.e., an EU with a common language.
Where I am from, the politics of identity won’t work. It’s not that people there oppose the LGBTQ rights movement (although almost all do despite the fact that not 1 in 100 could tell you what the letters stand for), it’s that they’re tired of having LGBTQ issues shoved down their throats to the exclusion of those that are more relevant to their lives. It’s not that they don’t support immigration or Black Lives Matter (although many don’t), it’s that they feel the lives of white working-class people like them matter, too. It’s not that they don’t believe evolution or the anthropogenic global warming, it’s that they consider them just theories while the Bible is fact.
Speaking of the Bible, abortion is an argument you won’t win here, so why put it front-and-center in our attempt to find common ground? People here see a rural culture in decline that is every bit the tragedy of inner-city America and wonder why no Hollywood celebrities are talking about their problems.
These are industrious, self-reliant folks who object to able-bodied people being given handouts. Never mind that most of their farms and ranches would collapse were it not for generous government subsidies. They have contempt for anything that smacks of socialism, in large part because they conflate socialism with communism. Never mind that they are more than willing to cash their social security checks and would be apoplectic if Medicare were threatened. But hey, if hypocrisy were helium we would all talk higher, right?
So, are the self-inflicted political wounds of Kansans the result of ignorance, prejudice and gullibility, or a proud, stubborn resistance to being dictated to and belittled by the “cultural elite?” Does it really matter?
Donald Trump was not an aberration; he was a warning. He is the canary in the mine shaft that Democrats and moderate Republicans would do well to heed. Future candidates and platforms must be truly inclusive of rural America’s problems, needs, hopes, fears and values. If it helps, think of them as citizens of (usually) friendly neighboring countries with their own history, cultures and truths because that is effectively what they are. Show them the same tolerance and willingness to compromise that you would extend to an ally. Save the politics of identity, victimhood and division for your fundraisers on the coasts and your radical fringe (yes, you have them, too).
And one more thing, don’t call them fly-over states. It’s dismissive and demeaning. The next time you’re planning to fly over Kansas or one of its neighbors, drive through instead and listen closely to what people are saying. You’ll learn something important, even if it does take you the better part of a week.