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Dear Confused, Angry, Suspicious Middle-Aged Caucasian-American From the Heartland
I’m glad to hear you had a good time in Washington, DC this past weekend. Isn’t that subway neat? Tax dollars or no tax dollars, you have to admit it would have been tough to get however many of you there were to the Mall without it. And I’m glad the weather was nice for you. Hope you liked the music. I imagine it felt just great to be part of a nice big crowd of people all having a good time and all validating your own sense of purpose and beliefs.
About that last...
Not to harsh your mellow, or anything, but I think a little reality check is in order. Because, seriously, I know exactly how euphoric it can feel to be in a big crowd like that, with someone with a microphone saying things you absolutely agree with, surrounded by huge crowds cheering agreement along with you. Wow. Makes you feel like you have it DOWN! You MUST be right, right?
Well, um.
Let’s start with some numbers:
There were maybe 100,000 of you there, which is impressive. Okay, let’s go with the most wildly optimistic estimates: There were 250,000 of you. Very impressive. You cared enough to take a lot of time and effort and even money to get to DC and make your voices heard, all of you. That should count for something, right?
Sort of.
See, here’s the deal: 250,000 is less than one percent of all Americans. Most of you are from the “heartland,” right? Which should also count for something, except that, if you go by population, the “heartland” of America is (and has been for years) the godless liberal coastal areas.
Right now, people like you are hanging on, teeth and toenails, to a share of political power and credibility that is all out of proportion to your numbers and all out of proportion to your actual impact on America’s future. But although you just attended a rally designed to simultaneously remind you how victimized and oppressed people like you are, AND how very powerful and important your views are to America’s future, it was all, not to mince words, bullshit.
In a genuinely helpful spirit I offer you this reality check, which includes a number of highly disagreeable facts which I’m sure you’ll strain every neuron to utterly ignore:
1. In less than fifty years, white people will be a minority in America, and NOTHING YOU CAN DO will change that. You could put up giant fences at every border that totally excluded anyone even the slightest bit brown and it will still happen.
2. Cutting the taxes of rich people does not create good jobs for Americans. If it had, the last thirty years of US tax policy would have resulted in about two jobs for every American of working age plus three for every undocumented immigrant.
3. What’s good for Giant Megacorp Conglomerated (GMC) is NOT good for America. Regardless of your stance on global warming, it is not now and never has been in the best interest of GMC’s shareholders to provide your children with an education or you with a dignified retirement. Any good thing we’ve ever managed to achieve for working Americans has had to be pried with blood, sweat, and sacrifice from the claws of Big Business.
4. President Obama is not now, and never has been, Muslim. You can’t excoriate him for being a member of a controversial Christian preacher’s flock during the campaign, and then get up a witch hunt for his Q’ran and his Taliban control without sounding like a complete doofus. Knock it off, for Chrissake.
5. First, you have no idea what “socialism” is. (Hint: It is not synonymous with “tyranny,” “communism,” “fascism(!),” or any unique iniquities of Hitler, Pol Pot, or any other demon-of-the-week. It’s a way of describing how societies organize themselves to confer benefits that make the overall society stronger and more stable.) Second, you’ve been living in a “socialist” nation all along, you were born in it. Fire departments are “socialist.” So are libraries and parks. So is public education, insuring bank deposits, and Social Security. Get used to it. It’s not going away.
6. Speaking of Social Security. There is no “crisis,” and there is no reason for lawmakers trying to grandstand for a lot of ginned-up, change-phobic, inadequately-informed “heartlanders” by further impoverishing and imperiling your retirement.
7. Nothing bad will happen to you or anyone you love, just because gay people will be getting married soon. (And they WILL be getting married soon. This is another one where the tide of history has already turned and is way out of your reach.) Gay married couples will not burn your churches, ravish your children, or key your car. In fact, they probably don’t want to have any more to do with you than you do with them. Ignore them and they’ll ignore you.
8. The reason so many people you know can’t get decent jobs has nothing to do with brown people in America. It has to do with deconstructing the industrial economy and outsourcing it to brown people who live in places where 38 cents an hour is considered big money. Those decisions are not made by liberal politicians, by the way.
9. Immigrants do not represent a net loss of tax dollars in welfare, education, and other free goodies. They pay income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes and all kinds of fees, including social security taxes that support the retirement of people like you. Which is another reason there is no Social Security crisis, by the way. They pay in more than they get out in “free” emergency room care, public education, or whatever you’re worried about today.
10. Fox News, talk radio, and pundits like Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart and Greta Van Whatsername and Rachel Maddow and David Brooks are NOT sources of “news” and the information they provide is not necessarily factual. They are entertainers, commentators, and opinion-givers and their primary purpose is to make money for themselves, networks that they work for, and advertisers who advertise on their programs. In order to be the good citizens you want to be, you’ll have to actually read SEVERAL sources, sort out conflicting information, investigate and apply critical thinking skills, and decide for yourselves the difference between reality and the madness of crowds.
Hopefully this little reality check helped. I wish you the best, I really do. I know how uncomfortable this makes you, especially in the wake of your woozy sploogefest of righteous groupthink last weekend. But believe me, if you can wrap your minds around reality now, the future will be slightly less painful for you. Or at least less surprising.
helpfully,
Bright
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