JULY 31, MONDAY

ARE WE THE BAD GUYS HERE?

I just read this opinion piece by David Brooks in the New York Times. He is a conservative opinion writer for the New York Times and on the PBS Newshour on Fridays he represents the conservative perspective. I think of myself as a liberal, but I almost always agree with him and I do again in this opinion piece.

He points out that there is an educated meritocracy in the United States. Almost everyone in the meritocracy in every field is highly educated. Without intentionally being excluded, other people—blue collar workers, farmers, the poor, service workers—are relegated by the meritocracy to low paying jobs, live in depressed urban areas, have poor educational opportunities and have poor health care and pretty much associate only with themselves. The meritocracy live in the best parts of town (Biltmore Forest, North Asheville), get a good education, have good health care, have high paying jobs and pretty much associate only with themselves. I just have to look around me, where I live, my church, where I have taught all my life, to see that this is true. The reason that I refer to my barber so much is because he is the only MAGA person that I know. And since the pandemic and my son shaving my head once a month I’ve lost contact with my barber.

I’ve argued here that MAGA people are good, churchgoing, patriotic people who believe in traditional American values and who feel that these values are being threatened, their basic identity is being threatened, by liberal values. They want to go back to when in their view America as great, hence MAGA (make American great again).

David Brooks half agrees with this analysis. But he points out the other side, that MAGA people feel excluded by the educated meritocracy and looked down upon and they resent this and see Donald Trump as an anti meritocracy defender.

And this brings me back to my barber as the only representative of this MAGA resentment that I know. And while I feel, probably self righteously, that I understand his resentment, I have have little to offer him as a way out or his predicament, if he even wants a way out. He is quite satisfied with the way things traditionally were and wants to go back. My argument is that the world is changing so rapidly that it is impossible for most of us to keep up, let alone try to turn back. Going back to traditional values is impossible.

But that analysis is not a solution, it is just an argument that there is no solution without enormous change and the abandonment of traditional American values and my barber’s identity. That is no solution at all.

I look at my own live within the meritocracy, not as a leader but as a hanger on, almost a parasite. I have a decent house, good health care and because of my education have all kinds of things that interest me and make my life rich. And in old age with social security and adequate retirement income I can live a very privileged life with endless travel and all kinds of digital connections that enrich my life as well as good government provided health care. Of course my barber resented me and would resent me now and the more I talk about the the wonders of travel or the digital ways to connect with books and music and art the more he would make fun of my obsessions and the more he would resent me.

As David Brooks points out, while he doesn’t agree with MAGA values and finds Donald Trump abhorrent, he and his social class is part of the problem, they are the bad guys as well as the good guys.

The question is how excluded MAGA people can have the same decent incomes (the old textile factory jobs are gone), the same quality education without student debt that the rich have, the same high quality health care as the rich have, the same affirmation of their identity that the meritocracy has, the same self worth that the meritocracy has. Until they do Donald Trump and his resentment and anger at the meritocracy will appeal to them.

The real question is now how the rest of America should deal with the MAGA issue, it is how I, personally, who am already contributing to global warming by flying to Montevideo for a month, who lives a life style that contributes to global warming, and who is a privileged person in almost every way am going to live in a world that seems to be flying apart, while doing nothing but wring my hands.