Authored by David Wong, originally posted at Cracked.com,
I’m going to explain the Donald Trump phenomenon in three movies. And then some text.
There’s this universal shorthand that epic adventure movies use to tell the good guys from the bad. The good guys are simple folk from the countryside …
Lionsgate Films
… while the bad guys are decadent assholes who live in the city and wear stupid clothes:
Lionsgate Films
In Star Wars, Luke is a farm boy …
LucasFilm
… while the bad guys live in a shiny space station:
LucasFilm
In Braveheart, the main character (Dennis Braveheart) is a simple farmer …
Paramount Pictures
… and the dastardly Prince Shithead lives in a luxurious castle and wears fancy, foppish clothes:
Paramount Pictures
The theme expresses itself in several ways — primitive vs. advanced, tough vs. delicate, masculine vs. feminine, poor vs. rich, pure vs. decadent, traditional vs. weird. All of it is code for rural vs. urban. That tense divide between the two doesn’t exist because of these movies, obviously. These movies used it as shorthand because the divide already existed.
We country folk are programmed to hate the prissy elites.
* * *
That brings us to Trump…Here are six reasons for the rise of Trump that no one is taking about
1. It’s Not About Red And Blue States — It’s About The Country Vs. The City
s
I was born and raised in Trump country. My family are Trump people. If I hadn’t moved away and gotten this ridiculous job, I’d be voting for him. I know I would.
See, political types talk about “red states” and “blue states” (where red = Republican/conservative and blue = Democrat/progressive), but forget about states. If you want to understand the Trump phenomenon, dig up the much more detailed county map. Here’s how the nation voted county by county in the 2012 election — again, red is Republican:
Holy cockslaps, that makes it look like Obama’s blue party is some kind of fringe political faction that struggles to get 20 percent of the vote. The blue parts, however, are more densely populated — they’re the cities. In the upper left, you see the blue Seattle/Tacoma area, lower down is San Francisco and then L.A. The blue around the dick-shaped Lake Michigan is made of cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago. In the northeast is, of course, New York and Boston, leading down into Philadelphia, which leads into a blue band which connects a bunch of southern cities like Charlotte and Atlanta.
Blue islands in an ocean of red. The cities are less than 4 percent of the land mass, but 62 percent of the population and easily 99 percent of the popular culture. Our movies, shows, songs, and news all radiate out from those blue islands.
And if you live in the red, that fucking sucks.
See, I’m from a “blue” state — Illinois — but the state isn’t blue. Freaking Chicago is blue. I’m from a tiny town in one of the blood-red areas:
As a kid, visiting Chicago was like, well, Katniss visiting the capital. Or like Zoey visiting the city of the future in this ridiculous book. “Their ways are strange.”
And the whole goddamned world revolves around them.
Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes — either wide-eyed, naive fluffballs (Parks And Recreation, and before that, Newhart) or filthy murderous mutants (True Detective, and before that, Deliverance). You could feel the arrogance from hundreds of miles away.
Warner Brothers Pictures
“Nothing that happens outside the city matters!” they say at their cocktail parties, blissfully unaware of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you’d barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and doing an astounding $125 billion in damage.
Mark Wolfe / FEMA No sports team = no fucks given.
But who cares about those people, right? What’s newsworthy about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer? New Orleans is culturally important. It matters.
To those ignored, suffering people, Donald Trump is a brick chucked through the window of the elites. “Are you assholes listening now?”
2. City People Are From A Different Goddamned Planet
“But isn’t this really about race? Aren’t Trump supporters just a bunch of racists? Don’t they hate cities because that’s where the brown people live?”
Look, we’re going to get actual Nazis in the comment section of this article. Not “calling them Nazis for argument points” Nazis, but actual “Swastikas in their avatars, rooted against Indiana Jones” Nazis. Those people exist.
But what I can say, from personal experience, is that the racism of my youth was always one step removed. I never saw a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the actual black people we had in town. We worked with them, played video games with them, waved to them when they passed. What I did hear was several million comments about how if you ever ventured into the city, winding up in the “wrong neighborhood” meant you’d get dragged from your car, raped, and burned alive. Looking back, I think the idea was that the local minorities were fine … as long as they acted exactly like us.
If you’d asked me at the time, I’d have said the fear and hatred wasn’t of people with brown skin, but of that specific tribe they have in Chicago — you know, the guys with the weird slang, music and clothes, the dope fiends who murder everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarro nature of the cities, as perceived from afar — a combination of hyper-aggressive savages and frivolous white elites. Their ways are strange. And it wasn’t like pop culture was trying to talk me out of it:
It’s not just perception, either — the stats back up the fact that these are parallel universes. People living in the countryside are twice as likely to own a gun and will probably get married younger. People in the urban “blue” areas talk faster and walk faster. They are more likely to be drug abusers but less likely to be alcoholics. The blues are less likely to own land and, most importantly, they’re less likely to be Evangelical Christians.
In the small towns, this often gets expressed as “They don’t share our values!” and my progressive friends love to scoff at that. “What, like illiteracy and homophobia?!?!“
Nope. Everything.
3.Trends Always Start In The Cities — And Not All Of Them Are Good
The cities are always living in the future. I remember when our little town got our first Chinese restaurant and, 20 years later, its first fancy coffee shop. All of this stuff had turned up in movies (set in L.A., of course) decades earlier. I remember watching ’80s movies and mocking the “Valley Girl” stereotypes — young girls from, like, California who would, like, say, “like” in between every third word. Twenty years later, you can hear me doing the same in every Cracked podcast. The cancer started in L.A. and spread to the rest of America.
Well, the perception back then was that those city folks were all turning atheist, abandoning church for their bisexual sex parties. That, we were told, was literally a sign of the Apocalypse. Not just due to the spiritual consequences (which were dire), but the devastation that would come to the culture. I couldn’t imagine any rebuttal. In that place, at that time, the church was everything. Don’t take my word for it — listen to the experts:
Church was where you made friends, met girls, networked for jobs, got social support. The poor could get food and clothes there, couples could get advice on their marriages, addicts could try to get clean. But now we’re seeing a startling decline in Christianity among the general population, the godless disease having spread alongside Valley Girl talk. So according to Fox News, what’s the result of those decadent, atheist, amoral snobs in the cities having turned their noses up at God?
Drew Angerer/Getty Images, Scott Olson
The fabric has broken down, they say, just as predicted. And what rural Americans see on the news today is a sneak peek at their tomorrow.
The savages are coming.
Blacks riot, Muslims set bombs, gays spread AIDS, Mexican cartels behead children, atheists tear down Christmas trees. Meanwhile, those liberal Lena Dunhams in their $5,000-a-month apartments sip wine and say, “But those white Christians are the real problem!” Terror victims scream in the street next to their own severed limbs, and the response from the elites is to cry about how men should be allowed to use women’s restrooms and how it’s cruel to keep chickens in cages.
S
Madness. Their heads are so far up their asses that they can’t tell up from down. Basic, obvious truths that have gone unquestioned for thousands of years now get laughed at and shouted down — the fact that hard work is better than dependence on government, that children do better with both parents in the picture, that peace is better than rioting, that a strict moral code is better than blithe hedonism, that humans tend to value things they’ve earned more than what they get for free, that not getting exploded by a bomb is better than getting exploded by a bomb.
Or as they say out in the country, “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
The foundation upon which America was undeniably built — family, faith, and hard work — had been deemed unfashionable and small-minded. Those snooty elites up in their ivory tower laughed as they kicked away that foundation, and then wrote 10,000-word thinkpieces blaming the builders for the ensuing collapse.
4. The Rural Areas Have Been Beaten To Shit
Don’t message me saying all those things I listed are wrong. I know they’re wrong. Or rather, I think they’re wrong, because I now live in a blue county and work for a blue industry. I know the Good Old Days of the past were built on slavery and segregation, I know that entire categories of humanity experienced religion only as a boot on their neck. I know that those “traditional families” involved millions of women trapped in kitchens and bad marriages. I know gays lived in fear and abortions were back-alley affairs.
I know the changes were for the best.
Try telling that to anybody who lives in Trump country.
They’re getting the shit kicked out of them. I know, I was there. Step outside of the city, and the suicide rate among young people fucking doubles. The recession pounded rural communities, but all the recovery went to the cities. The rate of new businesses opening in rural areas has utterly collapsed.
See, rural jobs used to be based around one big local business — a factory, a coal mine, etc. When it dies, the town dies. Where I grew up, it was an oil refinery closing that did us in. I was raised in the hollowed-out shell of what the town had once been. The roof of our high school leaked when it rained. Cities can make up for the loss of manufacturing jobs with service jobs — small towns cannot. That model doesn’t work below a certain population density.
If you don’t live in one of these small towns, you can’t understand the hopelessness. The vast majority of possible careers involve moving to the city, and around every city is now a hundred-foot wall called “Cost of Living.” Let’s say you’re a smart kid making $8 an hour at Walgreen’s and aspire to greater things. Fine, get ready to move yourself and your new baby into a 700-square-foot apartment for $1,200 a month, and to then pay double what you’re paying now for utilities, groceries, and babysitters. Unless, of course, you’re planning to move to one of “those” neighborhoods (hope you like being set on fire!).
In a city, you can plausibly aspire to start a band, or become an actor, or get a medical degree. You can actually have dreams. In a small town, there may be no venues for performing arts aside from country music bars and churches. There may only be two doctors in town — aspiring to that job means waiting for one of them to retire or die. You open the classifieds and all of the job listings will be for fast food or convenience stores. The “downtown” is just the corpses of mom and pop stores left shattered in Walmart’s blast crater, the “suburbs” are trailer parks. There are parts of these towns that look post-apocalyptic.
I’m telling you, the hopelessness eats you alive.
And if you dare complain, some liberal elite will pull out their iPad and type up a rant about your racist white privilege. Already, someone has replied to this with a comment saying, “You should try living in a ghetto as a minority!” Exactly. To them, it seems like the plight of poor minorities is only used as a club to bat away white cries for help. Meanwhile, the rate of rural white suicides and overdoses skyrockets. Shit, at least politicians act like they care about the inner cities.
5. Everyone Lashes Out When They Don’t Have A Voice
It really does feel like the worst of both worlds: all the ravages of poverty, but none of the sympathy. “Blacks burn police cars, and those liberal elites say it’s not their fault because they’re poor. My son gets jailed and fired over a baggie of meth, and those same elites make jokes about his missing teeth!” You’re everyone’s punching bag, one of society’s last remaining safe comedy targets.
They take it hard. These are people who come from a long line of folks who took pride in looking after themselves. Where I’m from, you weren’t a real man unless you could repair a car, patch a roof, hunt your own meat, and defend your home from an intruder. It was a source of shame to be dependent on anyone — especially the government. You mowed your own lawn and fixed your own pipes when they leaked, you hauled your own firewood in your own pickup truck. (Mine was a 1994 Ford Ranger! The current owner says it still runs!)
Not like those hipsters in their tiny apartments, or “those people” in their public housing projects, waiting for the landlord any time something breaks, knowing if things get too bad they can just pick up and move. When you don’t own anything, it’s all somebody else’s problem. “They probably don’t pay taxes, either! Just treating America itself as a subsidized apartment they can trash!”
The rural folk with the Trump signs in their yards say their way of life is dying, and you smirk and say what they really mean is that blacks and gays are finally getting equal rights and they hate it. But I’m telling you, they say their way of life is dying because their way of life is dying. It’s not their imagination. No movie about the future portrays it as being full of traditional families, hunters, and coal mines. Well, except for Hunger Games, and that was depicted as an apocalypse.
So yes, they vote for the guy promising to put things back the way they were, the guy who’d be a wake-up call to the blue islands. They voted for the brick through the window.
6. Assholes Are Heroes
“But Trump is objectively a piece of shit!” you say. “He insults people, he objectifies women, and cheats whenever possible! And he’s not an everyman; he’s a smarmy, arrogant billionaire!”
Wait, are you talking about Donald Trump, or this guy:
You’ve never rooted for somebody like that? Someone powerful who gives your enemies the insults they deserve? Somebody with big fun appetites who screws up just enough to make them relatable? Like Dr. House or Walter White? Or any of the several million renegade cop characters who can break all the rules because they get shit done? Who only get shit done because they don’t care about the rules?
“But those are fictional characters!” Okay, what about all those millionaire left-leaning talk show hosts? You think they keep their insults classy? Tune into any bit about Chris Christie and start counting down the seconds until the fat joke. Google David Letterman’s sex scandals. But it’s okay, because they’re on our side, and everybody wants an asshole on their team — a spiked bat to smash their enemies with. That’s all Trump is. The howls of elite outrage are like the sounds of bombs landing on the enemy’s fortress. The louder the better.
Already some of you have gotten angry, feeling this gut-level revulsion at any attempt to excuse or even understand these people. After all, they’re hardly people, right? Aren’t they just a mass of ignorant, rageful, crude, cursing, spitting subhumans?
Gee, I hope not. I have to hug a bunch of them at Thanksgiving. And when I do, it will be with the knowledge that if I hadn’t moved away, I’d be on the other side of the fence, leaving nasty comments on this article the alternate universe version of me wrote.
It feels good to dismiss people, to mock them, to write them off as deplorables. But you might as well take time to try to understand them, because I’m telling you, they’ll still be around long after Trump is gone.
Yes indeed, the Regressives are sub-human, but hug them anyway at Thanksgiving; I will do the same for my fallen family members.
Thanksgiving. We may not make it to thanksgiving.
I agree.
“You should try living in a ghetto as a minority!”
Yeah, getting paid to sit on my ass watching TV and crapping out kids who will never amount to anything-SO hard. Waaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaaa
Much funnier and much,much shorter:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/hillary-to-usher-in-golden-age-of-post-rationality/
I live in a city. I’m college-educated, make a good living and am surrounded by libtards, some of whom I like. I support Trump for several reasons: 1) illegal immigration is bullshit 2) I don’t want to surrender US sovereignty to international panels 3) I don’t want any more stupid & pointless wars.
Iska, ditto. Great comment
I have some of this treasonous liberal leftist shit in my so called family.They are the worse kind of enemy.You cannot reason with them ,they don’t care about facts or history.They have no real concern for the future of our republic.They are truly” useful idiots” or ” useless eaters “.I will not hug them or even eat with them.If I never see the worth less son of a bitches again that would be OK.I truly hate these motherfuckers . Family or not.?
Wait, I thought you were a Christian?
“I truly hate these motherfuckers” Sounds like a real adherent to the Prince of Peace, no?
Cognitive dissonance is a real bitch.
I fucking love the downvotes; keep ’em coming, hypocrites.
Sorry bb but I get the prize for the biggest asshole tonight. I called Hillary a crook in front of one of my wife’s friends this evening and it made her tear up. When she said that she was tired of evil men running the world I told her that evil was an equal opportunity profession, one that women were quite capable of exercising and since Hilary was the one beating the drums of war against Russia that she was likely even more evil than Trump. She cried.
Mrs. Marion was not impressed.
I had to go for a long run to get rid of the shit eating grin. I doubt we’ll be invited over for the Christmas party this year.
tell us how you really feel.?
He lays out a real good argument on why people should vote for Trump and why Trump will win.
Those poor rural white areas should be the fairly well off areas, but I bet not 1 in 1000 understand why they are getting their asses kicked.
Round of applause, great article, right on point.
I just drove through rural Michigan on the way to, and from, the funeral of my 58 year old friend that dropped dead of a massive heart attack. While under treatment, and tens of thousands of dollars of drugs, of heart problems. Plus depression problems that were probably brought on by the other drugs and recommended diet/guilt.
Oh yeah, and the fact he served 20+ years as a meteorologist in the Air Force, and neither he, nor his family, had the money for his funeral.
He left town when there were many companies, but thanks to the recession few jobs at that time. Which after Alton left, many of the jobs came back and things were really cooking right up until the time the Globalists threw open the trade doors and clamped down on every aspect of America’s small businesses.
He, with all his training, ended up doing maintenance part-time for a private school. And a few odd jobs.
On my drive yesterday I noticed another factory along my route morphed. It was a corrugated box company that had grown and grown for at least the past 20 years. There were dozens of cars in the parking lot and many times a “Jobs Available” sign out front.
Yesterday morning there were 3 or 4 cars in the lot and a new name on the sign. That is a grand total of 6 factories that have gone out of business on a 20 mile stretch of US 127 since Obama took office.
I really pissed off a couple unionist democrats at the wake – which, btw, in rural areas they are generally the only democrats, privileged, paid way above their neighbors, and always vote the way the union brass (located in cities) tells them to – by asking if Hillary and the democrats are our saviors, exactly what have they done with the past 16 out of 24 years they have held the Presidency? Or with the multiple years they have held majorities in the House and Senate?
Aren’t they the ones that helped screw it up as much as the putrid Repukes?
“But, but, crude, insulting, women…blah, blah, blah…”
Trump may be a pig, but as far as I know he isn’t responsible for hundreds, if not thousands/millions of deaths, nor is he responsible for destroying this country through corruption, regulation, war and greed.
And I don’t like him. Not one little bit, never have, never will.
The over-educated, liberal, city dwellers are eating their seed corn and, for today, too blind to notice. As long as the band plays on the VAST majority of our fellow countrymen are going to continue to support the status quo no matter how evil, ignorant, destructive, even murderous, it truly is.
Facts won’t dissuade them. For years I have become either angry, or despondent, over this conundrum. How is it freaking possible for people that are directly suffering to not see what is causing it? It finally dawned on me, brain damage. We, the citizens of America, are literally chemically brain damaged.
Believe it, or not, the evidence is everywhere. And until the day you make every effort to shed the chemicals that are killing us off one by one, most will be unable to wake up and realize just how truly f*cked up this country is.
Peace all. Vote your heart, vote early and vote often.
Always good to see a TE post, isn’t it folks?
Yes, TE … “brain damage” makes a lot of sense. You talk about chemicals. Very valid. But, don’t forget the biggie …….. television. Teevee has turned millions into morans.
Peace to you, also.
Yes, Stuck, TE is an asset.
As are you.
I am disappointed you are not posting as often. I miss the opportunity to kick your ass now and again. It keeps my legs limber having to swing the boot up so high. I am really starting to tighten up in the hammies.
Hey TE, great comment! The mystery of how otherwise intelligent people can be brainwashed into zombie flesh puppets is at the heart of our current cultural breakdown. Like you, I think that chemical and pharmacological factors are a big part of the process; not all of the process, but definitely a big part of it. Ditto on Stucky’s pointing out how the idiot box TV is a big part as well. Personally, I ditched my TV a couple of decades ago. I also watch carefully what sorts of foods and medicines I consume.
There are some human drives that are so integral to survival that we are forced by our own experience to acknowledge them. The desire for air, for water, for food, and for sex are near universal. There may be a few non-sexual anorexics out there — but not among the long term survivors. There are, however, other survival drives that (while tremendously powerful) are almost invisible because there are seldom circumstances where those desires are not fulfilled. One of those survival drives is the need for community. We are social animals and 99% of the people would not survive more than a few months without community support and interactions. A person deprived of community is a dead man walking. Propaganda and brainwashing takes advantage of this drive by setting boundaries on what we are able to think of as our community. Convince a person that “we are the good people, we are saving the children, the earth, and all that is wonderful, but those OTHERS are full of hate, war, greed, and evil-isms” and you have bound that person to a community. Once you have persuaded him that he is part of the “good people” community, he will support whatever his community tells him to support BECAUSE ABANDONING HIS COMMUNITY IS DEATH. Even if his community tells him to do something diametrically opposed to the reasons which convinced him to become a member, he will follow his herd. The bright golden promises of helping children, saving the planet, etc. are just the hook to get him to join the group. Once he has swallowed the bait, he cannot spit out the hook because leaving the group is an existential threat. He is more likely than not to go along with the group, even when they tell him that freedom is slavery and that war is peace.
While the need for community is near universal, there are the rare exceptions, or at least there are those who still have the need, but in a lesser degree. Those are often the explorers, the (real) scientists, the original thinkers, the lone wolves. Those are the first people to shake off their blinders, or who even refuse to wear them in the first place. My suspicion is that the alt-right is generously peppered with such people.
Great article. Reminded me of the little town I grew up in. It’s still a farming community with not much happening. It’s like we are all now given a choice: live in a small community with a low cost of living but no way to support yourself or live in or near a large city with insane cost of living but plenty of ’employment’.
Yep. I always say that where I live (DC area) is a great place to make money until you’re ready to retire. I’m just counting my duckets and when the time is right, I will find a perfect little town where I can buy acreage and live off my savings/SS. That is IF SS is still around.
Okay, here’s my two cents worth.
People like TBP regulars go vote their choice and have a salad for lunch. They don’t take off driving from polling place to polling place to try and vote for some unaccounted for name on the voter rolls. We have some latent subconscious ideal that OUR VOTE, once legally cast in the voting booth of our minds, counts more heavily than any fraudulent votecaster out there. So, even though some DNC operatives may be bussing loads of fraudulent voters from polling station to voting booth, we think the count is somehow going to reflect our own preference.
In other words, we be sniffing the fairy dust here. Just a bit.
Ready yet?
[img
[/img]
David Wong….
[img
[/img]
“So this week, Crooked Jack O’Brien is joined by Lyin’ Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) in hopefully our final Trumpcast. They take one last look at Mr. Tinyfingers by looking at the 40% or so of people who are voting for him in a couple weeks no matter what. It’s easy to pass them off as toothless rednecks, racist uncles and cartoonish extras from Daily Show segments, but they are real people who didn’t come to support Trump out of nowhere. This cultural shift has been hiding in plain sight and the only problem was the left hadn’t even bothered to look. By really dissecting the reasons for this social chasm, we’ll prove that even the craziest of Trump supporters should actually be listened to, no matter how orange and absurd their political mouthpiece is.”
Listen here: If you want to waste about an hour and a half…
https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/289670538/download?secret_token=s-OAyjt&client_id=a3e059563d7fd3372b49b37f00a00bcf
So, this guy so nailed it?
Since the collapse of industry thanks to investor class buying political power on both sides of the aisle and the false narritive that it was due to union wage demands and you hear it over and over . OK “THEY” stamped
out industries eroding the tax base printed money as a debt instrument and instigated wars any place they can running up $20 trillon on debt to cover up the mess ! Now as my great grandmother would say ” They are all down there in Washington scurrying around like cats covering up shit ” ! Billions missing and trillions in unfunded mandates underfunded pensions yep it was that union wage that did it ! Nice story we all. An relate to , it looks like our nation is doomed ! Time will tell ?
Comments from a vendor today:
Vendor: What do you think about all of this election business.
Me: Pretty sad really but there is clearly only one choice.
Vendor: I agree, it will be really nice to see Hillary be voted into office.
Me: Oh really? Why is that?
Vendor: Because if Trump wins then we would lose all the good things Obama accomplished.
Me: Like what?…………And don’t tell me Obama care!
Vendor: What do you mean?
Me: You said we would lose all the good things Obama accomplished. I’m asking you to tell me what those good things are?
Vendor: Well you know all the good stuff.
Me:(Silence)
Vendor: Well I can’t think of anything off the top of my head but there has been a lot believe me. Besides you yourself said that there clearly is only one choice.
Me: Your right, I did say that, but the choice is clearly Donald Trump. I have a hard time believing that you would be okay with a career criminal, possible murderer, scandal ridden, corrupt, evil person as the face of this country for the next four years. It just boggles my mind that people like you will accept that.
Vendor: Well just so you know nobody had proven anything it is just big boy politics and she is better at it than he is. Are we done here.
Me: I do believe we are.
And off he goes. He couldn’t name one positive accomplishment the Obama administration has had, not one. But he sure could repeat what he has heard from the MSM and recent sound bites from the media that have been repeated to death.
Voting is for 2 or 4 years.
I bet the vendor has reproduced. That’s even scarier.
I moved to a small, very small town near 5 yrs ago. Shed the city
with relief. The community has logging, tourists/vacationers/hunting,
farmers, orchards and so on. The people are very hard working and
volunteer for many fund raisers, and as firemen, eg.
Many of the people are born and raised here or near so are third and fourth
generation residents at least. There is poverty, and there is poverty of
intellect. The upside is that what you see is what you get. No preening,
or bragging. People say they enjoy a simple life. The children have pets
and horses and learn good skills early in life. I love it here. I love the birds, the deer, the occasional bear and most of all I love the people. I am a very friendly
person and mostly everyone has been very friendly to me.
My only serious complaint is that some forces have managed to bring very
inexpensive heroin into the area. I would like to know who is doing that.
Not as in Joe Jones, but the big players that apparently enjoy poisoning
young people. These are evil people and I wish they would get banished
to a desert and die.
I am voting for Trump and I like him. I don’t care about his brash,
(unsophisticated) manner of speech, or his history of doing business,
and that he is on some people’s A list for NYC parties. I like his plain
talk and the content of his speeches. I hope he wins the election and
begins the process of giving the deplorables a voice again.
“My only serious complaint is that some forces have managed to bring very
inexpensive heroin into the area. I would like to know who is doing that.
Not as in Joe Jones, but the big players that apparently enjoy poisoning
young people. These are evil people and I wish they would get banished
to a desert and die.”
You should really keep up. Read all about the CIA’s involvement in ginning up the Crack Cocaine epidemic that swept ‘Murica for a time. They have one office full of good people like our own SSS fighting against it (to give them public policy creds) while having several offices full of scumbags that are quietly bring the shit in the back door. It really adds to the black ops budget when they have no overhead.
As far as heroin……….look no father than our continued presence in Afghanistan. Again, its a CIA operation using the military to protect the fields and farmers and even military transports to bring the heroin in on their planes.
However they aren’t the true source of the problem………that falls to the central bankers who enable it by financing the whole thing with phunny munny. Take away the fed charter and their ability to print phunny munny and the CIA goes away. The CIA didn’t exist prior to 1947 and I’d bet their entire $15 Billion (publicly acknowledged) budget that we can get by just fine with out them.
The real bonus for the central bankers comes as we have to spend (borrow from them) untold billions more for rehab, prosecutions, the destruction caused by the drugs like more families on welfare, a fake/ginned up drug war and bigger prisons. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Make a U turn, left at the stop sign, and before you know it you’ll be at the Daily Kos.
I don’t read Daily Kos so you’ll have to ‘splain yer comment.
I actually just heard minutes ago on Michael Rivero’s youtube broadcast of his radio show that according to the UN, opium production (used to make heroin) is up 43% thanks to the protection provided by the US Military in the region.
IS,
There is a book, “methland: The Death and Life of An American Small
Town” by Nick Reding/2009. The coke and crack, the meth, and the
heroin, sponsored by forces within gov. Who knew? I heard that
Afghanistan’s “production is up” and “record crop.” I like listening
to Mike Rivero. Multi talented man, along with Claire on Fridays.
Hey Indentured Servant! That 43% increase may be just the year over year increase. Before the US went into Afghanistan in 2001, the opium production had been cut to only a few percent of traditional harvest. Then the troops went in and began guarding the fields.
Hurrah! Former CIA head George “Poppy” Bush gets his secret drug money restored…
I wonder if the heroin isn’t used as a purgative of the rural areas?
Steve
I grew up on the outskirts of Cleveland at the edges of farm country (all developed now.) Today, I live on the dirt road as they say, far from the cities in NW Arizona. It seems that people are less and less connected to the farms, and would die if the TV was off for a week. They wouldn’t know what to think.
Just had some friends visit, and they had some extended family with them. The wife & I went up to Vegas to meet them, and have dinner. The infrastructure seems to be a little worse every time (roads, bridges etc.) And the traffic… Just outside the strip it begins to look third worldish, and one can get by with only Spanish. I love to freak the gals working at the stores there when I respond in Spanish. They never expect an old white haired hazel eyed gringo to be fluent…
I digress. I was speaking with my friends’ brother and he asked who are you voting for, and I said Trump & then the conversation changed to the same one that you hear from every hard core lib. It’s a triumph of propaganda & cluelessness. I mean, they truly all sound the same. It’s a little weird to say the least. Logic & reason, even civility have gone away. Hence the shy Trump voter.
Get your stuff together folks, I think fun times are about to start…
@ Maxer’s mom,
[img
[/img]
I know I know, really mom? We have all these bad boys selling shit here too. I just can’t believe it’s my baby’s fault, you know if it’s sold to our youth, but it’s so unfair. It’s soooooo unfair, somebody oughta do something. There oughta be a law. Where are my tissues?
Here’s some background on the shift that took place in the 1970s between rural vs urban shows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge
“The “rural purge” of American television networks (in particular CBS) was a series of cancellations in the early 1970s of still-popular rural-themed shows with demographically skewed audiences, the majority of which occurred at the end of the 1970–71 television season. One of the earliest efforts at channel drift, CBS in particular saw a dramatic change in direction with the shift, moving away from shows with rural themes and toward ones with more appeal to urban and suburban audiences.”
One executive is even quoted as saying that he was cancelling every show that had a tree it in. It’s a shame because those “rural shows” still hold together well and have wide appeal.
I am closing next week upon a lovely bit of remote idaho, stocking the holy shit out of it the week after and I advise all y’alls to do the same.
We’re gonna be neighbors? Good! There is still far too much liberal CA trash moving to this area. Idaho, outside Los Angeles North (Boise) is paradise on Earth! I’m in eastern Washingtonstan but Idaho is my personal playground.
Don’t come to Idaho; getting crowded and turning to LA north.
Many congratulations to you Hope,
closing can be a beautiful word.
I just now finished an article tonight that I will upload into the TBP queue sometime tomorrow. It has a some very interesting twists and turns regarding “rural vs. urban”.
Tune in later, then hold on tight.
I think y’all will find it to be a real freakshow.
Stand by…
Which “kind” of freakshow Unbelievable?
The Halloween kind. Where those wearing masks take from you that which is sweet, like candy from babies; and, where headless horsemen run rampant smashing pumpkins and otherwise wreaking havoc in burning villages all throughout the land.
Just vetting a few more things today as I have time and then I will be posting it soon.
Sorry, was working earlier, yes I am a deplorable, and didn’t have a chance to explain why the rural areas are getting screwed over. Disclaimer, I am not as eloquent as some individuals like HSF.
As best that I can explain it, due to the banks (Federal Reserve) creating money out of think air and lending a rather large amount, 20 trillion so far, to the Federal Government, the money created has shifted a massive amount of income and wealth from the rural areas to the suburban and urban areas. The Federal Governments biggest spending (interest, military, medicare, medicaid, and social security) is primarily into said suburban and urban areas (Wall Street, classic example). Rural areas don’t have major hospitals and other healthcare. While at the same time, taxes suck money out of the rural areas.
A great comparison is the poverty of West Virginia to the affluence of northeastern Virginia (adjacent to Washington DC), or a movie example, the districts compared to the Capitol.
I have a little lake house inn the foothills of the Ozarks in arkansas. Quiet, peaceful, rural…the hospital closed five years ago which has held down sales of property since retirees that settle there want better access to healthcare than Jonesboro 1 1/2 hours away.
A lot of these rural areas suffer like that because of health care is consolidating in the urban areas.
Great article!!!!
I have been saying this for years if not decades – the red/blue divide is urban/rural.
I am the first born son of Canadian immigrants – I was the first in the family to ever get a college degree – I grew up speaking Quebecois in southern Califirnia – I attended catholic school because my father worked as a janitor to pay my tuition – until the Church raised it in third grade and my family had to put me in public school – shit got real at that point – I was so far ahead of my class mates that the school wanted to put me in the MGM program (mentally gifted minors) – what an eye opener at the age of 8.
My family told me they they moved to the city from the country in rural Canada to “live a better life” – I did not agree that living in the city was a “better life”- I left home and high school at 16 and joined the California Conservation Corps (CCC) – I decided to be a professional forester – got my GED and put myself thru college – graduating with a BS in Forest Management.
I have since been a mayor of a small town (~770) – and been politically active, serving on my local County Republican Central Committee – what did I get out of that? The republicans give us lip service – they don’t give a shit about those of us that are RURAL BY CHOICE.
The article is spot on that those of us that are rural are portrayed as hicks. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of us that did not grow up here ……I married a fourth generation covered wagon pioneer descendant – are here for a reason – we do not like to live in an urban environment.
I see there was a recent news story that wood fueled electricity was ruled “not green energy”by the Federal Courts – THIS TOOK OUT THE TAX STATUS FOR OUR LOCAL WOOD FIRED POWER PLANTS -(please excuse the caps)
So what does that mean for our rural area? (loss of jobs)
I ask you – have you followed the keystone pipeline issue? Are you aware that it is a secondary line to handle the increased flow from the Bakken oil field? Are you aware that the main benefactor if this is not constructed is Burlington Northern – Sante-Fe (BNSF)….which is owned by Warren Buffet? Who do think is the number one contributor to environmental groups that want to stop Keystone pipeline? If there is no pipeline, then the oil is railed via BNSF – believe me – I see Buffets oil train rolling thru northern California every day.
Who do you think would support the ridiculous notion that wood is not “green energy”? How about the same people that write regulations and pay politicians to to pass them into law!! (special interest) The system is way fucking corrupt…to say the least. Big business passes regulations written by them to stifle small business – or to make the cost of entering the market so expensive that they cannot raise capital to even consider it!
I am old enough to have witnessed sawmill closures to “save the spotted owl” …what a bunch of bullshit….now much of our wood comes from Canada…I have considered repatriating several times believe me…especially after I watched old men cry after spending 30 years at the company only to realize they have lost everything due to politics – it was heartbreaking and has affected me to this day – how could it not? I happen to care for people.
The spotted owl is a western bird – it’s cousin is the eastern Barred Owl – they are genetically similar enough that they can cross breed and produce viable offspring – meaning that the offspring can reproduce as well. The eastern barred owl was declared by the US Fish and Wildlife Service several years ago to be the number one threat to the continued existence of the federally endangered Northern Spotted Owl, because the barred owls males are larger and displace the smaller spotted owl males
This is an allegory for the western US – the eastern thugs come over – beat us up – take our jobs – and fuck our women – thus they take us over by shear numbers – think the vampire squid on a species level. Throw in the illegal mexican labor and it is game – set – match.
If you think I am full of shit – I no longer care…..
Ten years ago I would have linked all of my assertions above with an HTML link so one could verify what I am telling you is true – now I am simply done with it all –
I am periodically asked to serve on this governing board or run for some other public position from time to time – I politely tell them I am too busy with work…..the time is not right
I am not alone. Many of us are waiting for the right moment in the fourth turning. We are the Nomads – …….we are waiting………
forester is one of the few commenter’s who has successfully connected all the dots. Everything he states is correct. The remnant will come from the country from people who can provide for them selves without Government. The only groups that have successfully done this for generations are the Amish and Mennonites.
forester,
excellent review and it is very appreciated!! Thanks,
and good luck.
Suzanna
Forester
Great comment sir!
A friend of mine manufactures wood burning furnaces that need a small shed outside of the home and pipe the heat into the home/building. They are very efficient and safe.
The feds closed his plant down because of all fo the new regulations for putting pollutants into the air! For burning a couple of sticks of wood per day!
From France, today’s news. it’s in French, but the pictures are enough
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/plusieurs-incendies-allumes-dans-la-jungle-de-calais-cette-nuit_1844522.html
Our socialist president’s approval rating 4% yes really, four percent
http://www.lci.fr/elections/francois-hollande-a-4-que-disaient-les-sondages-de-ses-predecesseurs-a-six-mois-de-l-election-1-2009493.html
A person who cannot provide for themselves is not an adult. In physical form, in capacity to consume, in terms of having a vote-sure- but as a human being?
This is the real divide. People in urban areas play at being adults, they enter intimate sexual relationships without the framework of long lasting relationships and building families, they eat meals made from food produced by others, prepared by others, they live in dwellings they did not build and do not own and work at occupations based on things that are not necessary to life- media, entertainment, hospitality, couture, etc. Childlike imitations of real lives, like toddlers playing mommy and daddy with PlaySkool sets. These people long for meaning, for the fuller participation in life itself, but they are spiritually isolated, socially atomized, infantilized in the extreme and products of broken homes, often several generations from an intact family unit that resembles the ones that have existed since the dawn of time.
So there it is in a nutshell. Unable to form relationships and lifelong bonds, they seek the in-group feeling by joining a political party. Unable to feed themselves or provide for their basic needs, they look to the State to fill that role based on rhetorical promises. Free from the responsibilities of raising their own offspring they promote the causes and champion the needs of surrogates- refugees, downtrodden minorities, cats. And like muscles that have never been flexed, their adult lives have atrophied to the point where they can barely function. And yet we are politically on a 1:1 parity with them.
It is ironic to note which group tends to be the most dismissive of the other, which one looks down their nose and which one is most often ridiculed and vilified. In psychology the term is projection.
HSF, you gotta know that is being revised into my latest thoughts being written.
Been thinking about it too. The Liberal/Libertarian divide is a question of who to trust.
For Liberals they don’t trust anyone, including themselves. They instead contract the government to strong-arm the rest to provide for them.
For Libertarians trust in themselves is a core belief.
So Hardscrabble is right.
The city may have the bright lights and gleaming towers.
But
The prosperity is an illusion that hides dependence.
The so-called backwardness of the countryside only hides it’s strength.
RiNS, I am only joking about plagiarizing HSF. Really.
Maggie. I wasn’t trying to pick on you. So if you got that impression it wasn’t intended.
I liked what HSF said. It kind of sums up in words the divide without too much of the hyperbole.
Soon I am going to get to business of writing on my project. I am starting to learn that there are more lessons in observations then in confrontation. Writing isn’t something that flows naturally for me. But I am learning as I go in this Boot Camp of Bits and Bytes.
No she’s not, she rips off good comments and claims them as her own. How low can you go?
“No she’s not, she rips off good comments and claims them as her own. How low can you go?”
god you people have forgotten what learning even looks like anymore.
clearly everyone should have the time to write their own essays or just shut the fuck up?
or are you The Chiller?
HSF,
Your description of the divide is perfect. I love it.
Maggie wishes she had thought to write it first.
I liked the last, “looking down their noses” part.
They, city dwellers can be so condescending, yet
so ‘sophisticato’ at the same time. Not.
HsF,
Thank you.
Thanks HSF – I’ll be quoting some of this in my next piece.
Wow, you really are a country divided. You hate each others’ guts.
Perhaps you should think about divorce.
Already tried…
Read American history, circa 1860s.
Met with force, coercion, obfuscation and lies.
Oh yeah, and some ugly half-assed bearded fucker who led about 750,000 people to their deaths.
That war war still continues.
Very good article. I guess we will be the last generation that can claim coming from the small town to the bad big city.
The urbanization of America has always been the plan of the globalists,
destroy the family unit, promote single parent families dependent on the state, and now you have a voting bloc that will not survive without their .gov free benefits. Add in a massive dose of propaganda and the deal is almost complete.
“hey, it’s those stinky Russians, hacking the DNC and hillariouslys private e-mail”
“we don’t even know if what they are leaking is true!”
we are fucked. If the shrew wins, prepare for more gun control legislation, and more PSYOPs and false flags for the empire.
If Trump wins, prepare for an unfortunate plane crash, just before inauguration, and a Pence presidency.
PS – that was a great article, with lots of excellent comments from all.
As much as I agree with HSF that people in this country are detached from the real life the creator laid out for humanity, I have to say that there were plenty of bums before the “Great Society” and the social safety net.
The British peerage is and always has been parasites not only on the workers in the UK but also here in the US. Classic bums looking to marry money or skin “we the people” to save their castles from wrack and ruin. We also have here their equal in the elites who stack the deck with the help of government to line their pockets while they sip $300 a bottle champagne on their yachts paid for off the backs of the middle class. Why do you people always worship these varmints and leave them unaccountable?
There has never been a lack of bums whether they live in a NY penthouse or a section 8 housing project so why not be more honest about this?
To the Australian who was surprised by the hatred:
The divorce is coming. The US really isn’t a unified country any longer. The corruption of the monetary system is the real cancer eating the country away and turning it against itself.
I imagine this is much the way it plays out in history every single time- a critical point is reached where the governing elite are forced by their previous actions to go allin trying to keep their supporting bloc from either starving to death, or being forced to fend for themselves and thus withdrawing support for that elite in consequence. In the end, the entire society ends up consuming all the accumulated capital because, why would anyone bother saving any surplus production? The old parable of ants and grasshoppers didn’t arise out of nowhere- it was the wisdom of experience that wrote it- but we seemingly have to forget it and relearn it too late every time. We have reached that tipping point. One can literally see it with the graphic Wong created in this essay showing the shocking decline in the start of new enterprises- capital accumulation and deepening has already stopped, and its reverse is accelerating. We are even losing the ability to maintain the capital we don’t actively consume. I recently read the following comment on Marginal Revolution and there is a warning within it:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/09/mike-rowe-on-charles-koch.html#comment-159487144
If you want a preview of what is coming in the US and the rest of the West, just look at Venezuela, and specifically Caracas. People in cities delude themselves into thinking that in a crisis, they can band together and grow their own food in open plots and in parks, but, of course, this is never an option in the crisis because varmints simply wait to steal your food while you sleep, or they just cut your throat if you do try to guard it.
HSF, those who can’t think for themselves aren’t adults either, I would suggest.
That may be the real divide; between those who can look at reality and adjust their thinking, or those who look at reality and _demand that it adjust to their ideology_.
After all, Marx / Engels and Keynes looked at reality, and proposed sweeping changes to create a “better” society or financial system. Adults can now look at a hundred years or so of socialist / communist / crony capitalist failures and adjust their thinking: socialism / communism /Keynesianism _does not work_, and we should quit trying to use / adapt / modify it hoping that it can be _made_ to work.
If you cannot look at a hundred years of failures [from Russia to Red China to Cambodia to Cuba to Venezuela] and CALL them failures and STOP emulating them, you cannot be an adult. Adults have to do what’s best for their families, communities and nations, and repeating socialist failures is definitely NOT best.
Adults are sadly lacking in Congress, D.C. in general, the media, and both political parties. The wreckage is going to be legendary.
Good essay but I think the urban/rural divide isn’t as black and white as it may seem to someone from “small town” America. I’ve seen different essays about how we aren’t red or blue but a purple nation, etc. Yes, when you think of small town vs. big city (i.e. Chicago) the contrast is that big…but even when you look at the county map of IL, once you leave Cook County the color fades to light blue to red over one county to the next.
The USA of 2016 is largely a suburban nation. More American’s live in bedroom communities that surround major (200,000+ pop) cities than live in the country OR the core cities. These are the voting blocs that really decide elections. This is the squishy middle that is 2016 America. When rural folks move to the city for opportunity suburbia is where they end up. When city folk flee city problems, suburbia is where they end up. It’s truly the melting pot of our times.
As someone who grew up in the suburbs and resides in one today I take offence to the urban/rural oversimplification. Suburban dwellers are definitely not the compatriots of the urban elites living in their glass towers. Leftists like Kunstler sure as shit don’t like us – and he lives in a fucking small town.
My opinion is suburbanites have more in common with rural folks than urban. After all suburbs were invented to get the fuck out of the cities. That said, for the most part we’ve fared well. The revolution will start when the suburbs burn.
EC
I can tell when someone has really pissed you off during the day, someone really pissed you off today.
Our news shows AZ as being a lot more liberal than i remember.I guess we are to close to California.
The article was really good.I wish it could be sent to millions of people who will never come to TBP.
I advise getting ready for the coming storm.
Ok, everybody, important announcement here: please sear that county map into your sizzle-brain. California is not entirely liberal. The AV is republican. Well, it was but now we have been invaded by LA trash. That includes any color.
These are proud fucks that hate to lose even one second on their way wherever they are going. The attitude is infectious. I had one asshole pass me on a hill using the right turn lane as a passing lane.
You know why road rage occurs? Because assholes act as though they own the road, they pass you on the right and if they bother to pass on the left, they cut in front of you with inches to spare to let you know you inconvenienced them. These are city rats with no respect for life or common courtesy.
I once made a list of ten cities (Decaipolis) that would be good candidates for a nuclear attack. I think I got thumbed down for that by the bleeding cunts here.
Then again, Unevolved was surprised I ranted about the half-stepping millionaire mofos in Congress. I really should work on shedding my toothless retard image.
“I once made a list of ten cities (Decaipolis) that would be good candidates for a nuclear attack.”
Hmmm… The first half dozen are easy. DC, NY, Boston, LA (including Hollywood), San Fran, Chicago. After that it gets more difficult. Detroit? Atlanta? St Louis? Philly? So many choices…
We’re going to need more bombs.
Don’t forget, Miami and San Diego.
Ungrateful, I still have most of my teeth and half my brains. My looks are gone but I make it up on personality. What’s your story, Chemo-sloppy?
Now, EC. I NEVER thought you were toothless. Bwwwaaaahaaaaaaa…!