The day before today,One day, making tracks
In the prairie of Prax,
Came a North-Going Zax
And a South-Going Zax.
And it happened that both of them came to a place
Where they bumped. There they stood.
Foot to foot. Face to face.
“Look here, now!” the North-Going Zax said, “I say!
You are blocking my path. You are right in my way.
I’m a North-Going Zax and I always go north.
Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!”
“Who’s in whose way?” snapped the South-Going Zax.
“I always go south, making south-going tracks.
So you’re in MY way! And I ask you to move
And let me go south in my south-going groove.”
Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.
“I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.
And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways
If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!”
“And I’ll prove to YOU,” yelled the South-Going Zax,
“That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax
For fifty-nine years! For I live by a rule
That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.
Never budge! That’s my rule. Never budge in the least!
Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!
I’ll stay here, not budging! I can and I will
If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!”
Of course the world didn’t stand still. The world grew.
In a couple of years, the new highway came through
And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax
And left them there, standing un-budged in their tracks.
-- The Zax, by Dr. Seuss (1953)
Now that the existential dread and Oh My Fucking Gods What Have We Done? stage of grief has passed, I'm back and I'm pissed the fuck off. Now starts the anger stage, and it's just going to keep on keeping on from there.
So to start this one? Stop fucking telling progressives how we need to understand the rust belt and where we went wrong in not coddling and appealing to the "concerns" of rural white voters. We already understand them, way the fuck better than you do.
It's not "economic anxiety." These folks do not give a rat's sweet pink ass about their financial situation. Because if they did, they would recognize that some jackass real estate mogul from New York Fucking City who built his career by not paying his bills and playing with bankruptcy also doesn't give a rat's sweet pink ass about helping them out. They voted for him because he wants to get rid of all the people they hate. Brown people, Jews, Muslims, the disabled, LGBT...literally anyone that isn't a straight white conservative Christian.
That's not anxiety. That's bigotry. And they were all too happy to vote for it. Even the ones who voted for a black guy just four years ago. Because it's a lot easier to take out your impotent rage on someone else than to fix your own shit.
Yeah, I'm fucking going there. The reason I do not feel a single scrap of sympathy for rural white America is because literally every fucking problem they bitch about is their own fucking fault. Because they refuse to adapt to a changing world, and like permanent spoiled goddamned children, they expect to get what they want when they want it and seriously fuck everyone else's priorities.
They don't want a job. They want their old job. They want to do exactly what they were doing before, nevermind that their old job is obsolete and being done by a robot. And they refuse to learn the skillset required to get a new one, because as conservatives they don't want to change. Period. End. Like literal fucking toddlers, they are going to stamp their feet and scream and demand that candy bar at checkout no matter how many times they're told it ain't happening.
Trump just happens to be the enabling grandparent this cycle, and his promise specifically is "you will get your old life back because I will get rid of those whom you've been convinced by years of bigoted pandering bullshit are responsible for all your problems." That's a sewer into which neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney was willing to crawl; even they have standards. Trump has none.
You want to see real economic anxiety? Go to the urban core. Where people are fighting for higher wages, better education, affordable childcare, affordable housing, student loan forgiveness and more affordable college, more efficient mass transit, etc. All the shit that will actually improve their lives in a tangible way. The truly economically anxious don't blame the already marginalized for their situation; they do what they have to in order to get by. The truly economically anxious adapt.
And therein lies the difference. Rural America does not want to adapt. Rural America does not want to do what needs to be done. They want to do the same shit they've been doing and just have it magically work this time. They want the rest of the world to cater to them.
They are those two stubborn Zax, and the world is not going to stand still.
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