The results of new Gallup polling data are distressing to say the least, and disclose this country is becoming dumber, poorer, more religious and more conservative. In other words, very similar to what transpired in the old Weimar Republic before Hitler took the reins of power. Using this Gallup information, The Atlantic's Richard Florida generated a number of insightful graphs showing that the march of Conservatism across America is correlated with a number of variables including religiosity, poverty, education, and the income level of a given state. All in all the data is compelling. But it is not surprising.
Ever since Thomas Frank’s ‘What’s the Matter with Kansas?’, American progressives have been perplexed and astounded by how many of the most economically disenfranchised vote against their own interests, and choose a “values” conservativism that effectively leaves them behind because it nullifies their votes vis-à-vis the corporatists that wield far more power in the Republican Party. Thus, when those voters help the GOP get into power, they’re not repaid except by more empty values promises, while corporations get more giant tax breaks, subsidies and special dispensations. The total effect is that these voters become poorer, their education less (since opportunities are denied unless they join the military to try and get them – a cynical device if ever there was) and they are marginalized over time.
The “upside”? They turn more and more to “God” because their government has forgotten them. They get on bended knee, they tithe ferociously – always expecting a day of deliverance- but it never ever comes. They are depending, after all, on a non-existent entity to stifle their pain and make everything in their world right, when it is HUMANS who must solve human problems – including making government work for all the people not just the rich.
But waiting on a Big Cosmic Daddy pleases their political masters, because it means once they are occupied with praying, reciting Bible verses and God mongering and proselytizing (to all those nasty, “whiny” heathens who expect more from a democratic government than a few beans) they won’t cause any political backlash to try and get what’s theirs…like those crazy Europeans burning cars in Greece, London and elsewhere.
Amazingly, one of the key insights on this was probably thanks to author Eric G. Wilson in his book, Against Happiness. Wilson bemoans on his first pages the way so many Americans have sacrificed their right to express discontent and dissatisfaction with their government and their lives, which means of course, essentially sacrificing the ability to change them or, in accord with fundamentalist theology- allow God to “do his thing” when he chooses to.
He writes (pp. 4-5):
“What is behind this desire to purge sadness from our lives, especially in America, the land of splendid dreams and wild success? Why are so many Americans so utterly willing to have an essential part of their hearts sliced away and discarded like so much waste? What are we to make of this American obsession with happiness that could well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed by global warming, environmental crises and nuclear proliferation?.....what fosters this desperate contentment?”
But, of course, psychological statistics give the lie to the whole American happy-fest. This is the underside that the promoters of the Smiley face don’t wish you to see: that according to those psych stats (and these may well be underestimated since most people won’t ever go in for therapy!) more than 8 in 10 of Americans have experienced depression in the past three years, and 3 in 10 suffer severe depression. Moreover, 1 in 17 are diagnosed as severely mentally ill. This means that the outward smiley face is merely a ruse, a gimmick – underneath Americans are suffering and damned miserable. And they have a right to be! What with 22 million still out of work, most of them (nearly 5 million) simply dropped from the Bureau of Labor stats and re-labeled as “discouraged” since they’ve been out of work for over 6 months. This accounts for the drop in unemployment far more than added jobs, which were barely 226,000 this past month or barely 100,000 above population growth replacement.
Meanwhile, the Americans who are working are going on overload, now putting in 50 hours and more per week. Many of those in the states (Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio) whose citizens have had their labor rights taken away, will now have to work two extra jobs just to make ends meet, meaning virtually no time to be with their families – thanks to the ‘family values’ party! Others now have to make do with higher health care costs taken out of their paychecks, and being forced to work overtime with no compensation. Of course these things will render a sane person discontented and no amount of “God talking” will change that, at least for the rationalists still among them.
As for Wilson’s mention of “extermination”, let us not forget – as author Robert Payne has noted (‘The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler’) that it was precisely those Jews who were paying attention to Germany’s downward slide (with the Nazis’ rise) and were most anguished over it, who were the ones leaving the country before all the exits were slammed shut. (That included Albert Einstein). Instead, the ones who refused to “whine” and deplore the conditions were the ones dispatched to the concentration camps and gas chambers. And all their intense prayers to a remote God couldn’t save them. Their meme that it was unseemly to “whine” and “God will provide for all” didn’t work. Human choice: to recognize a terrible situation likely to get worse, and get OUT, did.
Of course, the moron fundies will use this example to tell all of us of the non-conservative persuasion to therefore “Get out!” But they miss the point! Our job is precisely to remain in place as the gadflies and call attention to the way things are and WHY they aren’t right, while there’s still time to change them. Thus, this is exactly not the time to leave, because whether the issue is Labor rights and collective bargaining, devastating cuts to social insurance aspects of the budget, environmental polluiton (including global warming) or wasteful spending on war gibberish, we have a role to play!
Back to the Atlantic's analysis, we see it is frighteningly prescient in the following observation.
“Conservatism, at least at the state level, appears to be growing stronger. Ironically, this trend is most pronounced in America's least well-off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states. Conservatism, more and more, is the ideology of the economically left behind. The current economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism's hold on America's states...
Liberalism, which is stronger in richer, better-educated, more-diverse, and, especially, more prosperous places, is shrinking across the board and has fallen behind conservatism even in its biggest strongholds. This obviously poses big challenges for liberals, the Obama administration, and the Democratic Party moving forward”
And with this we see the basis for the new Civil War for national resources, between the Liberal states and conservative states. The former are the more heavily taxed and therefore can spend more on health and education like Vermont, which is now going to start its own single payer health system outside the federal, insurance –based one. The tragedy is that a number of formerly liberal states, like Wisconsin, are now in danger of joining the conservative column because of the disreputable practices of their assemblies and governors – such as Scott Walker- who have essentially disassembled the union movement there.
Is “God” the answer to all this, and we ought to all just stop “whining” and put our faith and trust in 'the Almighty'? Hell no! Ask the Jews about that “solution” before they ended up as part of Hitler’s Final Solution! God is not anywhere to be found, besides even the fundies must admit: “God helps those who help themselves”. So no, it’s up to us HUMANS, Americans, to solve our problems NOW, and not let them reach the stage that Germany’s did before the collapse of the Weimar Republic and Nazi domination with all its horrors. That implies never being content with the status quo, while looking out for incipient threats and dangers, even as we push for government to be all it can be.
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