SINCE YOU'RE THE DELEGATE FROM KANSAS, WILL YOU KINDLY TAKE THE FLOOR

The dispiriting argument over the existence of a “real America” drags on.  Trump fans, as well as media types who should know better by now, will do their best until November 3, 2020, to convince voters that there is, in fact, a “real America,” and that it belongs to white, heterosexual, Christians.  White heterosexual Jews are welcome to stick around, but only as long as they support the white, heterosexual Christian agenda.

Trump apologist Kevin D. Williamson, writing in the New York Times, is trying to revive the Republican talking point about coastal elites and their ilk.  “Why not,” he asks, “let Kansas be Kansas?”

The problem with letting Kansas be Kansas is that there is no “Kansas.”  Kansas is what Kurt Vonnegut called a granfalloon – a collective noun that implies connections that don’t exist. 

I know Kansas.  I was born in Kansas.  I spent the first 25 years of my life there.  My father grew up in Pratt.  My mother grew up in Lindsborg and McPherson.  They met in Wichita after the war, got married, and had me.  I spent 19 years in Wichita, and then move to Lawrence to go to college. I was an education major, and did my student teaching in Overland Park.  Over the years I’ve spent time with friends and family in Dodge City, Columbus, Topeka, and Newton. 

And guess what?  Despite both towns being in Kansas, Lawrence and Newton are very different places.  Douglas County (Lawrence) voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in 2016, while Harvey County (Newton) supported Donald Trump.  I’m pretty sure that Kevin Williamson would argue that Newton is the real Kansas.  But what about the 34% of Harvey County voters who pulled the lever for Clinton?  Are they unreal?  Do they not count?  Are Republicans free to ignore their issues?  Apparently so.

Our Founding Fathers got a lot right, but they weren’t omniscient.  They were progressive for their time, but fundamental concepts like racial equality and women’s rights just weren’t on their radar screens.  Radar screens weren’t even on their radar screens.  Not only that, but back in the 18th century, there were cultural differences between the colonies.  Virginia didn’t trust Massachusetts, and vice versa. 

That led to a weird fetish about the prerogatives of individual states, which replaced colonies as the new nation’s most important governmental unit.  To keep big states from ignoring the will of smaller states, our Founding Fathers agreed to give smaller states a disproportionate degree of influence in the Senate, and in the Electoral College.  It was probably a necessary compromise back in the day.  But 250 years later, small states, most of which are Republican, are using their constitutional leverage to ignore the will of the most populous states. 

Allow me to offer a couple of illustrations.  California has 65 times the population of Wyoming – 39 million vs. less than 600,000.  Does California have 65 times Wyoming’s electoral votes?  Don’t be silly.  The population ratio may be 65:1, but the electoral vote ratio is only 18:1.  In the Senate, the ratio drops to 1:1, as both states are allotted two senators. 

Luckily for Wyoming, most of its 600,000 residents are white, so no one disputes their need for representation in Congress.  The District of Columbia, with 700,000 residents, is mostly Black, so they obviously don’t deserve any senators.  Puerto Rico has over 3 million residents, but they’re all Puerto Rican, so they’re out of luck. 

In 2019, there are 21 states with fewer residents than Puerto Rico.  Eighteen of those small states are solidly Republican, and you can bet they’re not interested in any electoral reforms that would dilute their influence. 

It is a fact universally acknowledged that, for most of our history, “real Americans” were white males.  Women and minorities (which, back in the day included not only the usual suspects, but also immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe) had to wait a few decades, or centuries, to be full-fledged citizens.  Women couldn’t vote for president until 1920.  A large segment of the African American population weren’t allowed to vote until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  I was 18 at the time.  I was 68 and drawing social security 50 years later, when gay marriage finally became legal everywhere in the country.  Progress towards full-fledged citizenship for everyone was maddeningly slow.  On the other hand, there was progress.

Republicans hate progress.  Republicans want you to believe that only the most conservative parts of the country are the real America, and that everyone else is somehow unreal, or less real, than they are. 

To further their agenda, Republicans are trying to resuscitate the tired old “states’ rights” argument.  You youngsters may not remember the phrase “states’ rights,” but it was a battleground concept in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.  Historically, “states’ rights” was a code phrase for “OK, maybe we don’t actually get to own Negroes anymore, but at least let us keep them from voting.” 

“State’s rights” is a racist dog whistle.  It was the pretext for Confederate secession prior to the Civil War, and a hundred years later, it was the pretext that segregationists used to argue against civil rights for African Americans in the 50s and 60s.  Their argument went like this.  If you damn Yankees want to let your children go to school with Negroes, or even marry them, go right ahead.  But don’t force us real Americans to violate our sincerely held belief that Negroes (and Gays, and Muslims, and immigrants) are inferior to us heterosexual Christian Caucasians.  Mississippi is different from Massachusetts.  Why not let Mississippi be Mississippi? 

And that’s a fair summary of our contemporary problem.  There are profound regional differences in the USA, and profound local differences even within those regions. 

Another New York Times opinion piece, this one by Wil Wilkinson (link below), notes that “The molten core of right-wing nationalism is the furious denial of America’s unalterably multiracial, multicultural national character.”  The people who are in denial are known as “Republicans.” 

The question before us in 2020 is whether our local and regional differences can co-exist peacefully in a single nation.  I’d say the jury is still out.  But make no mistake.  Anyone who frames the argument in terms of a hypothetical “real America” is answering that question with a loud “NO.”  They are saying, whether they admit it or not, that they cannot peacefully co-exist with people who are different than them.    

We fought a civil war to settle that issue in the 19th century.  The good guys won, but the bad guys never gave up.  150 years later, they finally figured out that white hoods and robes made them look silly, and they traded in the KKK for the NRA.  Now they dress up like soldiers, and carry military weaponry.

I am more and more convinced that we are in the early days of what may be a second civil war.  Our current epidemic of mass murders is starting to look like a form of loosely coordinated guerilla warfare, waged against targets of convenience who aren’t “real Americans.”  Most of the current crop of shooters, whether they’re teenagers or adults, post manifestos which make it clear that they’re taking their cues from Donald Trump (and Fox News, from whom Trump takes his cues, and from deeper, darker right-wing conspiracy theorists).  Trump inspired them.  They hope to inspire others.  And their strategy is working. 

But at least our politicians are offering thoughts and prayers, so things will get better soon.  Right?

I expect that all this will come to a head on November 3, 2020.  We have a president who is clearly in cognitive decline (I’ll post more about that soon), who “jokes” about being president for life, and who laughs when his supporters call for shooting his enemies. 

If, as I hope and expect, a Democrat wins the next presidential election, we can absolutely expect Trump to claim fraud, and – at least initially – refuse to accept the fact that he lost.  That’s when the loonies will really come out of the woodwork.   And if, with the help of Vladimir Putin and Republican vote suppression, Trump ekes out a victory in the Electoral College?  The loonies will also come out of the woodwork.

Donald Trump has let the genie out of the bottle.  It hardly matters whether one of his Deplorables feels validated or victimized.  When he decides to pull the trigger, he doesn’t worry about whether he kills a few people on his own side.  God will know his own.

The only way to break the fever is to repudiate Donald Trump and everything he stands for.  That’s what’s at stake in 2020.  Eyes on the prize, please. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/opinion/national-conservatives-republicans-trump.html