Too bad about Cracker Barrel

 

As these dis-United States sink into fascism, the right-wing mob's grievance of the day feels too entertaining to ignore. There's a MAGA faction that feels the new (boring, very corporate) Cracker Barrel logo is a defamation of all that is good, patriotic, and holy. 

 

Maybe you've encountered Cracker Barrel, the imitation old white men's diner, at some desolate Interstate interchange? 

 

John Ganz delightfully deconstructs this kerfuffle. 

... It’s sort of pathetic to reflect that we have so few—maybe no—authentic and unmediated experiences that the thing that now really upsets people is an alteration of a simulation of authenticity. 

It’s felt as a loss of national identity on par with the defacement George Washington, because our national identity is now just corporate brands and consumerism. It’s no different than the “trad wife” fantasy, which is also a simulation and simulacrum of pre-modern living. 

You see this across the reactionary right, and it would be amusing if it didn’t muster real political energy: people genuinely angry over the loss of comforting consumer experiences. ...

It’s tempting to look down on people for this, but on further thought, it reflects a deep spiritual poverty in our country. The right is capitalizing on this spiritual poverty, both politically and literally, and saying, “Yes, theyyyyyyyy are taking yourrrr beloved things.” 

This forecloses anybody asking whether we might deserve more. 

An actual small town in America might have problems with drugs, unemployment, it might be reduced essentially to a ruin, but as long as Cracker Barrel or the equivalent exists, people can feel okay about the country. 

The question is never raised, “Hey, why are we being fed commoditized slop all the time?” It becomes, “I want the red-brand slop, bring me my red-brand slop!”

... Conservatism is now the protection and hoarding of old-seeming simulations, hence all the AI-generated “traditionalism.”

Naturally, this brings me to fascism. On the one hand, fascism might seem to be an awkward fit because there was still some volkisch referent, a memory of pastoral existence, in the fascist imaginary. But that, too, was already a kitschy simulacrum of the pre-modern past. ...

Cultural poverty follows material poverty all the way down in too many of our lives. 

What are Republicans so mad about?

No, not all Republicans. But a noisy faction -- mostly the MAGAs so ensnared by Mr. Trump -- are perpetually aggrieved about something. Or a lot of things.

I found Kevin Drum's catalogue of Republican grievances, of the arenas in which the party has lost cultural power, a succinct synopsis: 

• Opposition to abortion remains limited: solid majorities say abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances and that women should be allowed to have abortions "for any reason." Bans on abortion have never been popular and are even less so now. They poll in the mid-teens following the Dobbs decision.

• Only about a third of the country still wants to ban gay marriage.

• Immigration remains polarized, but there's little support for abolishing policies like DACA. Even a majority of Republicans oppose getting rid of it.

• Less than a third of Americans want to keep marijuana illegal.

• Virtually no one opposes sex education in schools, and less than a third support the conservative insistence that sex ed classes should exclusively teach the benefits of abstaining from sexual activity.

• At the time they were taking place, only a third of Americans opposed the George Floyd protests. To this day, only a minority think the police treat white and Black people equally.

• Transgender issues are still new and fraught, but a core belief in protecting trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing, and general public acceptance generates only tiny opposition.

• Only a third of the country believes that churches should be involved in politics. Less than a quarter think churches should endorse candidates. Only small minorities think the government should favor Christianity. And only about a quarter think the religious freedom of Christians is threatened.

• Only about 15% of Americans think gun laws should be loosened. About a third oppose background checks, high-capacity magazines, and bans on assault weapons. That said, this is one of the very few issues where conservative views, broadly speaking, retain fairly high support.

... Generally speaking, though, conservatives have simply lost the country on cultural issues. ...

 Losing this thoroughly hurts.

Obviously, where they have the numbers to impose their views -- think Monica Potts' Arkansas -- they will try. This will be hard on their children who perforce are growing up into a different world. 

The pain is real. But real pain doesn't justify imposing your failed edicts on the rest of us. We need to practice majority rule with some respect and some kindness.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the old man in the White House seems to embody appropriate, though sometimes frustrating, virtues for this moment.

What's this "woke" stuff?

I've been trying for a couple of days to work up a post on "woke." Maybe I should just drop the effort, but instead I'll offer a sort of brain dump. Here goes, FWIW -- possibly not much.

For me, being "woke" connotes empathetic awareness of the feelings and life circumstances of other people. When practiced, it might lead to something like to politeness, curiosity, and striving "to be in love and charity" with our neighbors. That's both a lot -- and just the stuff of human life.

That set of connotations may underlie findings that seem to create consternation among political combatants:

According to a recent USA Today/Ipsos Poll, 56% of Americans surveyed say they think that being woke means “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices”.

The same Guardian article by Arwa Mahdawi points out:

The term comes from African American Vernacular English and, originally, was broadly defined as being “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”.

The term has somewhat escaped that origin context. As is so common with the Black experience in this country, other groups have repurposed the word to refer to additional conditions in which society renders people unseen -- and deserving of awakened attention. This strikes me as both a rip off and a form of cultural appreciation. Your mileage may vary.

As a white person who still, at 75, is often misgendered by oblivious retail clerks, I am viscerally aware that I have spent a lifetime wishing that people could be a little more "woke" to the person in front of them. Though having aged, I just figure they weren't paying attention when they make me male.

Meanwhile, as Molly Roberts observes watching the brouhaha over the "woke" (?!) Silicon Valley Bank:

Woke is the word these days, and conservatives are shouting it whenever they can — to the point that what exactly it’s supposed to mean, beyond “thing that I don’t like,” has become a mystery.

The best commentary on "woke" I've run across anywhere is this discussion between two smart lesbians coming from quite different histories. They decode what people say in Longwell's voter focus groups and by the end find themselves just talking personally about what "woke" has meant in their lives. Enjoy.

Shards from the Embattled Republic

An occasional list of links to provoking commentary. Some annotated by me.  

Johnathan Capehart: "... who gets lost in all this: Black parents and their children. All because some White people can’t bear feeling 'uncomfortable' learning about 'divisive' subjects. They want a gauzy, feel-good version of history that blinds them to the impact such a mythology has on events unfolding now. Meanwhile, Black people have to live with the real-life consequences of this blissful ignorance." Wouldn't want poor suffering White parents to have sad feelings ...

Economic historian Adam Tooze: "... one of the most profound hypocrisies in conventional talk about inflation [is] the asymmetrical treatment of the price of labour i.e. wages. If a central bank is truly committed to stabilizing the general price level, then it has no business lecturing any one particular actor on the need for restraint. Asking for wage restraint is literally asking for an allocative effect, one-sidedly, in favor of employers." You might guess Tooze is a Brit as well as an esteemed economist, more House of Commons question-time than Very Serious Expert.

Roxanne Gay: "When we are not free to express ourselves, when we can be thrown in jail or even lose our lives for speaking freely, that is censorship. When we say, as a society, that bigotry and misinformation are unacceptable, and that people who espouse those ideas don’t deserve access to significant platforms, that’s curation." Ms. Gay makes mincemeat of whining about "cancel culture."

Bill McKibben: "Provocation, of course, is the art form of our age, as music was of the 1960s and 1970s. Trolling is what we call it now, and the constant search for buttons to push has proved profitable—it’s what made Rush Limbaugh a fortune,  and what gets any obnoxious dude on Twitter enough attention to keep him preening." Interesting comparison. I do remember when you knew which side people were on if they liked Country Joe.

JVL at The Bulwark: "You get people like Susan Collins who would never consider herself a MAGA person and believes that she’s on the side of democracy. But she’s always been a Good Republican. She doesn’t want to rock the boat. And so she tells herself that everything will be fine. No need to do anything drastic or uncomfortable. Tomorrow will be just like yesterday. Everything is fine. And then you wake up one morning and things aren’t fine." Nobody is sharper at characterizing Republicans who are enabling fascism than a Never-Trumper.

Charles Blow: "Consciously including racial groups can be one of the most effective reparative remedies for centuries of racial exclusion." That's the true defense of much maligned affirmative action; it puts society on a path toward more justice.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser: "Today we’re talking about the filibuster, but consider this: We wouldn’t even be in this situation if Washington, D.C., had two senators—the two senators we deserve." Lest we forget the injustice done to nearly 700,000 citizens of the capitol city.

Kevin Drum: "If I'm tired or stressed out, my mood worsens. This is precisely when I need to be most careful about making decisions or concluding that everything is, in fact, hopeless. The combination of COVID-19 and the Trumpian takeover of American politics is obviously something that's produced a lot of tiredness and stress. So beware of your feelings. It's likely that democracy isn't really doomed; that America isn't sliding down a rat hole; that Russia and China aren't poised to take over the world; and that conservatives won't rule the country forever. It may feel that way sometimes, but that's just your downtrodden brain chemistry talking. Things are probably better than you think." Let's hope he's right. He's not even sure himself.

Ben Rhodes: "... The opportunity to save a multiracial, multiethnic democracy should be approached as a defiant and joyful enterprise—a source of unity and community at a time when we badly need both." Or perhaps we can delight that we are undertaking a bold, novel  journey together, if only we persist.

Eugene Robinson: "... seeing the GOP as some kind of unstoppable juggernaut is wrong. It’s more like a group of hostages and hostage-takers, united only in a quest for power, not knowing or caring why." We are looking at fear and weakness masquerading as strength.

Polarization puzzlement

I've been seeing an awful lot of doctors lately. So this chart grabbed my interest:

As always, click to enlarge.

The data seem to date from 2016. Or perhaps earlier. 

Looks like the more lucrative specialties lean toward the party of the plutocrats ...

One wonders -- might even some surgeons, anesthesiologists, and urologists have shifted their political leanings since then? Might doctors have been subject to what Matt Yglesias calls the "growing education polarization which renders every community of subject-matter experts left-leaning"?