I write this brief essay
because I communicate with folks living in urban America (presently in New York
and California) who really seem oblivious to the way many of us think and live
in “the fly-over states,” or in the “Farm Belt,” or in the South. From repeated
experiences with self-professed “liberals” or “progressives” living on the
coasts or major urban areas such as Chicago, I realize that the gap between
their thinking and the more “conservative” way in less urban America is probably
wider and more disharmonious than at any time in our country’s history. Having
read considerable material about the development of the so-called “Civil War,” I
think that the gap between pro-big government liberals and more rural
conservatives is at least as large and as unresolvable as the gap between the
urban, aggressive, imperialistic, and capitalist North and the more traditional,
agrarian, and defensive South before 1860.
Consider a concrete case: As a political scientist, I should have realized that Romney’s bid for President
was in considerable trouble from my everyday experience in Montana, but at the
time, I failed to see it adequately. Nearly no one I knew said that they would
vote for Obama. So I took that to favor Romney. What I overlooked was in plain
sight: nearly no one--if indeed a single person I know in central
Montana--expressed any enthusiasm for Romney’s candidacy. And it was not
because he was “Mormon,” although media know-it-alls could latch onto that
superficial explanation. Only one person mentioned Romney’s religion as
disturbing, and that man has been a lifelong Democrat who said that he could not
vote for Obama because of his “big government liberalism,” but he could not vote
for Romney, either. He related that he had had a “Mormon” boss years ago who
expressed anti-Catholic sentiments to him, and that turned him off. No, the
utter lack of interest in Romney’s candidacy was much more basic: Romney was
seen as “one of them,” as “another liberal,” as a “big city man,” as “part of
the establishment,” and most definitely not as “a conservative.” Romney was
“one of them,” not “one of us.”
What I have discovered in
Iowa, South Dakota, and perhaps most especially in Montana is a fascinating and
highly serious political phenomenon: most people with whom I live and work show
little if any attachment to the Federal government. Indeed, there is among
Midwest and mountain Westerners two primary sentiments regarding “Washington,
D.C.,” and the Federal Government in particular: many folks are highly
suspicious of the government, distrustful, and in a word, alienated from
American politics in general and surely from the political elite and rulers
found in Washington, D.C. Whereas many, indeed most, are openly hostile, some
would simply be indifferent, or have no positive attachment to the Federal
Government. The hostility and the indifference are so deep and long standing
that I am forced to wonder if open rebellion from the central Powers would not
be possible, or even likely.
It was said of the American
Revolution (by John Adams, if I am not mistaken), that the real revolution and
break from Britain occurred in the hearts and minds of the colonists long before
firing a single shot. I would say that the break in political consciousness, of
any real attachment to the Federal government, has already occurred in large
areas of the United States of America. We are not united except by power, by
force, and to a much lesser extent by a history that has all but faded from
consciousness. Popular culture creates some bonds with the urban culture in
America, but it does not yield a harvest of attachment to the regime.
To put the matter in
different words: A common belief among Montanans (at least those whom I know,
and with whom I speak of such matters) is that our loyalties are to our ranches,
farms, and small towns, perhaps to the county, and more weakly to the state. I
detect little loyalty to, or respect for, the central government. On the
contrary, as I have noted, what people think and feel is at best indifference,
but more strongly a genuine antipathy to Washington, to the ruling powers, to
government’s attempt to control our lives, and so on.
The “red state / blue
state” dichotomy is trite, and hides the deeper reality: Americans living in
most counties across this country have attitudes and beliefs at odds with those
living in major urban centers. From the rural perspective, the country is
dominated by power elites, money, and highly degenerate culture from a few urban
centers: Los Angeles, the Bay area of California, greater New York, City,
Boston, and of course, Washington, D.C. The attitudes and “values” (desires,
wishes, beliefs) of these self-described “liberals’ or “progressives,” or
“establishment politicians” of both parties, claiming to know what is best for
everyone else, and seeking to impose a way of life on all of us through the
media, through the destructive entertainment industry, and especially through
the Central Powers are wholly out of tune to rural and small-town Americans.
Two vastly different
political cultures have emerged within our country, so much so that in reality,
we are two overlapping and co-existing regimes, not one. The “Union” so
idealized and idolized by such figures as Lincoln, and forced on the whole
country by Union armies, carpetbaggers, and much meddling legislation, is no
longer a reality. America of the post-Civil War era is dead, or, shall we say,
has evolved into what it was becoming in the Civil War: an enormous power shell
devoid of spiritual substance, and seeking to dominate the lives of all
citizens. For many living outside of big-city America, the mask is off, and the
central and centralizing government is seen for what it really has become:
tyrannical, even totalitarian. It is alien to the traditional American way of
life.
I dare say that this is the
reality felt and rejected by many living in rural and small-town America. The
Federal Government is seen and felt as “the oppressor,” as an enormously
powerful conqueror over our way of life. Resistance to its dominance takes
various forms, and needs to be solidified, to be more effective. At times I
wonder if a state such as Montana would join with Texas if it were to secede
from what is felt to be the tyrannical Union. Perhaps politicians working in
Helena would seek to keep Montana in the Union, in large part because their own
power is linked with the fate of the federal regime. But I can imagine an
issue, such as an attempt to confiscate rifles and handguns, that would ignite
an open rebellion against the Central Powers unlike what has been seen for many
years in this country. And the underlying reason needs to be kept in mind: the
break from the tyrannizing governmental powers has already occurred. Some have
realized this, others have not.
