Something is bugging Americans.
It may not be the economy.
I got this letter after yesterday's blog post on Trump pushing Mitt Romney out of the GOP. Romney, I wrote, was a "square."
"You are correct that square Republicans accept Trump as their president despite his character flaws. This is because many Republicans believe that square Republican leaders have given away too much ground in the war of ideas that guide our American experience by being so reasonable. Square Republicans want a leader that will do what it takes to Make America Great Again so that Republicans can continue to be square as they live out their version of the American dream."
My correspondent thinks Democrats have ruined our morals. And the solution is -- of all things -- Trump.
People are telling pollsters that they are unhappy with the direction of the country.
But this isn't new. Grousing about leaders is perennial. Here is an article from 2014, noting: "Seven out of ten Americans think America is heading in the wrong direction." And it was looking back yet another 42 years.
Now, in 2024, there is good economic news again. We have come out of the Covid crisis. Inflation is dropping. Interest rates are dropping. Unemployment is at rock bottom. The stock market is hitting new highs. Russia and Hamas have triggered new conflicts, but American soldiers are not in the line of fire. The ACA is more popular than ever, and Biden has made drug prices -- especially insulin's -- cheaper. Republicans have been trying to show that Joe Biden leads a "crime family." Until they find something, they go on Fox News "just asking questions."
Maybe it isn't "the economy, stupid." My correspondent yesterday pointed to cultural/moral change. Maybe that is more central than Democrats realize. It would help explain why Hispanic voters, who Democrats hoped would make them a permanent majority, are a disappointment. They are voting like non-Hispanic Whites. They are more culturally conservative than the average American. America is still digesting new ideas on racial equality. A new issue has emerged about gender roles and gender fluidity. College-educated, cosmopolitan people articulate Democratic policy. Gender fluidity and gender choice are new and uncomfortable ideas to many people.
Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania trans swimmer, and other instances like this one, create a problematic issue for Democrats who desire to be both "accepting" and "fair" -- two Democratic moral values. Republicans have made Thomas a poster child for Democratic excess. Thomas competing as a female doesn't look "fair" to a great many people, including many Democrats. In policy and messaging, Democrats support teenagers getting permanent "gender affirming" hormones or surgeries. This is new but compassionate, and Democrats are open to it. It is new, extreme, and crazy in GOP messaging. Democrats have a hard sell here.
Democrats in universities, think tanks, and policy-making nonprofits reflect that only 50 years ago interracial marriage was new and extreme, and maybe crazy, to some. Now it is unexceptional. The same process happened with women riding bicycles, women in college, with women in the workplace, and with gay marriage. First something is new and extreme. Then it becomes OK. And then commonplace. Gender fluidity is a new frontier.
Or maybe not. Some new frontiers take time to digest, develop new norms, and perhaps rethink. Oregon tried drug legalization but promptly began rethinking it. The Oregon legislature just repealed it. We don't know how gender fluidity will shake out.
Something is bugging Americans. I know that Trump gets a great deal of political traction saying that Biden is a terrible president because everything in America is a complete and total disaster. Trump says that America is experiencing a calamity so profound that any action is justified. A majority of Republicans agree so thoroughly they think it acceptable to abandon democratic institutions in order to fix it.
I don't think it is the economy. It's something else. Incredibly enough, Republicans think Trump is the route back to morality and rectitude.
Changes in matters of identity led by Democrats' policy-making elites may be coming faster than a majority of Americans are willing to accept.
11 comments:
There’s no question that morality is important, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be legislated. Theft and violence are the sort of immorality that obviously does need to be prosecuted, even when perpetrated by popular figures like Trump. Sexual preference, not so much.
The country isn't heading in any particular direction. It's 325 million people each living out their individual destinies, not a herd.
It's a meaningless simpleminded question designed to reflect badly on government.
When asked "are you better off" the correct answer is "Yes, I'm still breathing".
I think if anything as a society we are experiencing some post COVID PTSD which can account for the free floating anxiety...survivor guilt...etc. That, and incessant gaslighting by Republicans.
Another reframe, 30 years later: “It’s the morality, stupid!” RINOs and ‘cultural marxists’ are equally complicit.
"Incredibly enough, Republicans think Trump is the route back to morality and rectitude."
I don't think so. What attracts people to Trump is his racism, lawlessness and hateful rhetoric. He has normalized their worst inclinations.
4 years ago, I was lucky to get two rolls of toilet paper at a time, and had to look at Refrigerated Van's holding the bodies the hospital morgue had no room for. Am I better off ? You can bet your sweet bippy I am !
Southern Oregon was a more optimistic place 50 or 60 years ago. The timber industry assured reliable employment, despite boom and bust cycles in the timber/lumber market. The pear capital of the world was Medford; it isn't that now. A glorified mill town of 25,000--Medford--offered five foreign languages in the public high school. The Viet Nam War was awful, but people seemed to think that when the war was over things would be better. Compare the constant-dollar value of our current minimum wage and the 1968 value; it's worse now. For a variety of reasons, our current economy does not give working class people a sense that the future looks bright ahead; and a lot of college educated people think we are doomed due to global warming, or we will be doomed if we continue to cook with gas. Add culture wars to this. A substantial number of Christians display a siege mentality on one hand and a militant mixing of religion and politics on the other. A substantial number of synagogues have armed security (I think the Havurah in Ashland does). The Phoenix Talent schools are considering bullet-proofing their buildings. Lots of people sleep rough along Bear Creek now; that wasn't going on 50 or 60 years ago like it is now. And you tell me over and over and over again my friend, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction. America was great when bottles were no deposit, no return, if you care to know. On second thought, you have a point--things aren't all that bad these days.
"... given away too much ground in the war of ideas that guide our American experience."
I bet the letter writer can't explain what that means. Just like they don't understand words like woke.
I believe, in the GOPee's bizarre SOTU rebuttal, the question asled was "are you better off now than you were THREE years ago?".
Four years ago TFG was in office and we all know we're better off with him gone (for any reason).
But, seriously, the repugnant republicans don't care about America or its citizens.
Joe and Kamala are doing a great job and America can recover with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate.
Changes in matters of identity led by Democrats' policy-making elites may be coming faster than a majority of Americans are willing to accept.
And they may be coming in a direction that a majority of Americans will never accept, like allowing a biological male with a testosterone body to compete against biological females in athletic events. Or permitting puberty blockers and body altering surgery for young female teens who are apparently in the throes of a social contagion about being trans (aka rapid onset gender dysphoria).
Or, as heroes of the woke ideologogy like Ibram X Kendi suggest, purposely discriminating against white people because that is the only permissible way to be “antiracist“.
“Anonymous” raises some good points about why people might be feeling dissatisfied. I remember the 1960’s also being a period when many people felt the same, but for opposing reasons. Those who believed in our Constitution felt that all citizens should be treated equally, and those who didn’t were outraged over integration and equal rights. The same divisions persist to this day but there was probably more violence then than now, even though our population has grown by about 85%. We’re doing OK, and eventually the problems that now seem insurmountable, such as climate change, will be resolved by the children we’ve bequeathed it to as a matter of survival.
There’s one in every wood pile.I remember the good old days when my lesbian cousin was murdered. I also remember the LA County paper on races to not sell to..Mexicans, Negros, orientals, old Italians and Jews were excluded from Los Angeles Clubs and Hotels. Culver City and Glendale and Whittier were sundown towns. That was the 1940’s. MAGA TIME. BUT ONE MAN COULD MAKE ENOUGH FOR THE WIFE TO STAY HOME. The Democrats have been silenced by the corporations and lost the unions and working class. The Republicans have crawled into a corner of hate and vengeance using the fear of. replacement because they too are hollowed out hoping for dictator to save their fading dreams of the True American Life”. LGBT AND THE MIGRANT INVASION ARE SCAPEGOATS and those relatives you can not deny…they are still hiding in your woodpile.
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