Back from the Wilderness

I've been away from this for quite a while, over two years since I last posted anything. But I'd like to share some thoughts now.

There are many theories about what is wrong in our country right now. We appear to be divided as never before, but many writers and historians have noted that this division has existed for a long time. The incivility of our political discourse has been every bit this coarse in the past. What has not changed is the enormous gulf that exists between classes here in America. We have come to pride ourselves on a "classless society" unlike the world our forebears endured prior to their journey to our land of freedom and opportunity. But sadly, the reality exists that America, and Canada to a certain extent, were dumping grounds for the unwanted and unwashed of Great Britain. "Trash" people were sent here to empty the poorhouses and debtors prisons. The authors of our great defining documents acknowledged that many of the people here in the colonies were scoundrels and scalawags the old country was happy to be rid of.

Lyndon Johnson notably said that "telling the lowest white man that he was still better than the best black man" was a sure way to get his vote and loyalty. And that is what we see today. A choreographed drama to set us against one another. And it is all based on class. One way to hold the least fortunate among us down is to give them someone to disdain. So, all Mexicans become "rapists", immigrants from "shithole" countries should be turned away, and lower class whites believe that a businessman who had never done a day of public service in his life is looking out for their interests.

I am, admittedly, a "class migrant." I grew up very blue collar in modest circumstances. I recognize the "code switching" I must engage in when I travel to my home, when I deal with old friends or classmates who have not moved beyond their parochial perspectives. I am not better than them, nor am I dismissive of their beliefs, but I am frustrated by the fact that many do not see the game that they are part of, that the 1%, however you want to characterize them, are exploiting them to keep them in their place. There is no respect for their hardscrabble lives, or their struggles. Blaming others for their lot in life is encouraged as it keeps them from seeing that the other is very much the same as they.

I've read "White Working Class" and "White Trash" and have come to realize that the class divide is that which keeps us from realizing our potential as a nation.