“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. William S. Burroughs
“Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.” Benjamin Disraeli
Attached is an illustration of the voting pattern for the 2016 presidential election. The 2020 illustration is nearly identical. The significant changes came in the suburbs of major cities and in coastal communities. These areas have been There are two things that are striking about this illustration. One is how geographically red the United States is and the other is how much difference the concentration of population makes. Unless something unforeseen changes, this trend will continue. Just one reason why the electoral college continues to be so important.
The people who live in these red areas are the “basket of deplorables” according to Hillary Clinton. Jake Tapper of CNN says these are the people who eat at Chilis and Olive Garden and stay at the Holiday Inn Express. This is “fly over country” and Amity Shlaes’ would call them The Forgotten Man. These are the people who have grown up working for a living, go to church on Sundays, know their neighbors, send their kids to public schools and pay their taxes. They are typically outdoorsmen. They grow, build and repair things. They are extremely resourceful and are more patriotic than their fellow Americans in urban environments. They do not have private jets or yachts. Typically the home they live in is their only home. And they have limited financial resources in the event of an unanticipated setback. They no longer trust government to have their best interests at heart and they hold the media in very low esteem. Most are gun owners and they fear for their 1st and 2nd amendment rights. These are the disenfranchised in America.
As industries begin to get shutdown and people begin to lose their livelihoods they get desperate. If you lose your job in energy in upstate NY or Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma or Texas you don’t just go to work building solar panels. And what about all the collateral damage? Restaurants, dry cleaners, store owners, daycare centers? Need I go on? This is part of the disconnect between average Americans and the elite oligarchs that are now running our country. Desperate people do desperate things.
In their book “The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny”, 1997, William Strauss and Neil Howe talk about four turnings that every culture goes through. These saecular periods repeat themselves. Strauss and Howe describe the Fourth Turning this way. “The new mood and its jarring new problems will provide a natural end point of the Unraveling-era decline in civic confidence. In the pre-Crisis years, fears about the flimsiness of the social contract will have been subliminal but rising. As the Crisis catalyzes, the fears will rush to the surface jagged and exposed. Distrustful of some things, individuals will feel that their survival requires them to distrust more things. This behavior could cascade into a sudden downward spiral, an implosion of societal trust.”
When this happens people begin to withdraw from the public sphere. They begin to associate only with those they can trust. For the most part people in “red-state America” are far less dependent on social media than elites. They do not mind having face-to-face meetings and/or talking on the phone. They are used to meeting in the local grange or coffee shop. Our hanging out at the local auction or a friend’s garage or barn. If you have spent any time away from large cities you will know exact of what I speak. These people could function just fine working with the local coop and communicating on their ham radio. They can be incredibly self-sufficient.
Pew Research tells us that 42% of American households own a gun, 2017 Pew Research poll. 60% of adults who own guns own more than one. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency reports that there are approximately 434 million guns in the U.S. which means that America is a heavily armed citizenry. It is estimated that 65-75% of all guns are owned by conservatives.
As the government continues the push to eliminate fossil fuels farmers wonder what is going to fuel their tractors and trucks. How will their products get to market? Energy workers are not likely to learn how to adapt to technology jobs. As energy prices climb so will consumer prices. If this creates a recession, even a mild one, where do all these people who are replaced by “clean energy” or artificial intelligence go for a job? How long will the average American agree to be ruled by an educated elite?
Jeffery Gundlach, founder of Doubleline Capital, LP a large bond trading firm, predicts a time in the not too distant future in which we will have two America’s. One driven by technology and the “haves” of society and the other made up of the forgotten man. He does not predict how this will end, but he does say it will likely not end well. Gundlach was one of few who predicted in 2015 the Trump would win the 2016 election. He also predicts that 2022 will be chaotic but that 2024 will be the tumultuous election we have ever seen.
If all these forgotten people who live in a universe of mistrust have nowhere else to go, they will go to ground. Could we have an American that looks something like the “Hunger Games” or the “Man in the High Castle”? An America that is dystopian in nature with a sophisticated technological façade, one in which your speech is censored and your daily life is coerced by big government will not last. There are at least 75 million Americans that value their independence too much to have it take away. You can only stifle this basic human desire for so long.
Margaret Thatcher wrote the following in 1990. It applies equally as well to the U.S. “The new world of freedom into which the dazzled socialists have stumbled is not new to us. What to them is uncharted territory is to us familiar and well loved ground. For Britain (and the U.S.) has returned to those basic truths and principles which made her great—personal liberty, private property, and the rule of law, on which democratic freedoms everywhere are based. Ours is a creed which travels and endures. Its truths are written on the human heart.”
God bless America
Hmmm. . . I always find that US map of red vs. blue voting intriguing. What I would like to see is a similar map showing the distribution of federal dollars vs. precincts. My hypothesis that the bulk of federal bucks would be a fairly close overlay of the blue regions. It would help to have various shades of light red and light blue to darker colors. Still I think the bulk of dark blue would closely match blue voting patterns. If true, maybe most of us really vote with our wallets. Who knew, we could be for sale?