Fault Lines
When thinking of politics I often think of analogies. One of the things I noticed on my cruise was that there were a lot of jackasses on the cruise. They were rude to the staff. They were abusive to employees and people on shore. They were every description of the ugly American you could think of. I have no idea if they were conservative or liberal. It would make life easier to assume they were conservative, but I have no way of verifying that.
In looking at the lyrics for Jason Aldean’s song “Try that in a Small Town” you can see the subtle nods towards racism. When looking at the video you can’t avoid the subtle nods for racism. Left vs. Right is the main fault line everyone focuses on, but big town vs. small town is another fault line. There are others. Honest vs. Dishonest. Asshole vs, Kind. Narcissist vs. Empathetic. America has always been a collection fault lines and separations. Essentially we have made it through by standing with people we have common cause with even if we have other areas where we disagree. As much as the overt racism and sexism bothers me, there was something else I noticed immediately.
“Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalkCarjack an old lady at a red lightPull a gun on the owner of a liquor storeYa think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya like.”
I hate to be the “nobody is talking about” guy, but there is an image inherent here about big city life. I’m sure this is what people in small towns believe. It’s only been shoved down their throats for decades. Hell, the 2017 inaugural address was titled “American Carnage”. It was offensive on any number of levels, but more offensive to me as a writer. It was like a sixth grade thought experiment where the winner got his/her dystopian essay read on national television.
The biggest fault line dividing America today is fact vs. fiction. Aldean is telling a terrific story here. You could probably picture Gotham from all of those Batman movies where everyone was afraid to go outside and crime was just around the corner. SNL had a sketch years ago where they talked about someone in New York getting mugged every thirty seconds. So, they just made it the same guy. Chicago, Portland, New York, and Los Angeles are all billed as hell on earth. Yet, crime statistics per capita would tell you that they are statistically more safe than traditional red areas.
Where does this fiction get us? Well, it gets a huge divide in our politics as rural areas vote red and urban areas vote blue. Since our constitution skews towards real estate and not people it means that these small towns are over represented in Austin, Washington, or your own state. Add in a little gerrymandering and the story keeps perpetuating itself. Only criminals and dead beats live in the city. Good people live in small towns. This isn’t left vs. right anymore. It is fiction vs. non-fiction. Certainly the picture they paint of big city life is frightening, but it is about as true as a dystopian novel.
Speaking of community safety, check out this chart comparing states with strong gun laws with states with weak gun laws (I’m looking at you, Texas) and their relative per-capita gun violence. It’s clear that the reddest states are the most violent and the most dangerous.
https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/?refcode=emne_states_courts_20230725&source=emne_states_courts_20230725&utm_source=pocket_saves
1Yeah, those small town people. When they come to my very diverse neighborhood–which is filled with all kinds of not very expensive food–what do the ask about? The directions to the one McDonald’s in my ‘hood. I guess that makes them more “American” and ‘patriotic” than me. Yeah, right.
2the small town/big city divide is also one of the major drivers of rampant gun acquisitions. In other words, just what Texas Expat in CA says.
3On a nitpicky note, Trump’s inaugural address in January of 2017, not his 1st State of the Union in 2018, was “American Carnage.” George W. Bush’s comment afterwards: “That was some weird shit.”
On a personal note about ugly Americans, my late in-laws used to take expensive sea cruises and also bus tours in the U.S. My husband and I always felt it would be our idea of hell to be stuck on a bus or a cruise with them because of their difficult attitudes. They eventually went to Europe. For all the money they spent, upon their return all they could talk about was how many “foreigners” there were and how nobody could make a good cup of coffee.
4All I could think of when I heard Aldean’s song was the town of Uvalde. He has screweed himself into a very stultifying corner.
5“The biggest fault line dividing America today is fact vs. fiction.”
6“Where does this fiction get us?”
In Oregon, this divide is really small towns and rural counties vs. more populated. Red vs blue. The fiction reinforces and in their mind, justifies their (red) politics. In turn, the fiction further polarizes the red vs blue, small/rural vs more populated areas.
It’s too bad that this divide keeps the respective groups from seeing, appreciating and enjoying the good in both sides of the divide.
My son and family are spending a week in a small, red town/area (E Oregon) renting an AirBnb which is a farm with farm animals. They’re there because my older grandson is participating in the state little league championship. My grandsons are really enjoying the place they’re staying and enjoying something that probably many kids won’t get a chance to enjoy- because of the divide and politics. That’s really sad. I could also say it works both ways. Many kids in this rural area may not ever enjoy the good things in the blue parts of the state. That’s where the fiction gets us.
One of the things that saddens me in this small town vs big city debate is that the other towns, those ranging from 15,000 to 30,000, get left out of the discussion. My present town is about 29,000, small enough that our fire department is almost all volunteer, and neither our elected officials nor any of the many volunteer members of any of our Town committees receive any salary or compensation for their time and effort. About 3,000 of the 29,000 know each other fairly well and make sure everything runs smoothly. [about 10,000 just sleep here, and work and play elsewhere]. We are about 1/3 [New England] Republican, 1/3 Democrat, and 1/3 unaffiliated, and while political discussion can at times get rather heated, in the long run we learn to get along. Now, admittedly, we have our lunatic fringe, about 3% on the far right, and 2% on the far left, but not enough to really upset things. To quote something said a while back, why can’t we all just get along?
7Speaking of ‘drivers’, Texas is Number 1! 1! 1! in another notable class.
Texas has the worst drivers in the entire US of A!
States With The Worst Drivers, Ranked:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/worst-drivers-by-state/
“Fatal car accidents are on the rise nationwide. In 2021, more than 39,500 fatal car crashes occurred on U.S. roads, a 10% increase from 2020. In some states, dangerous driving tends to be more common, putting you at greater risk when you get behind the wheel. But what state has the worst drivers?
To find out, Forbes Advisor compared all 50 states and Washington, D.C., across six key metrics. Our analysis identifies which states have the worst drivers and provides insight on the types of dangerous driving behavior in each state.
Key Takeaways
8Texas tops the list of worst drivers by state, while Washington, D.C., is home to the best drivers in the nation.
Five of the top 10 states with the worst drivers are in the South, including Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky and South Carolina.
Seven of the top 10 states with the best drivers are in the East Coast area, including Washington, D.C., Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island.
Montana is home to the most drunk drivers involved in fatal car accidents (19.01 per 100,000 licensed drivers) and New Mexico reports the highest number of fatal car accidents involving a distracted driver (9.54 accidents per 100,000 licensed drivers).”
Steve from Beaverton @6, Having a ‘discussion’ on nextdoor with RWNJs got me the following accolades [and they’re out of the blue, the topic had nothing to do with Portland or Oregon, but that area is apparently hot on the propaganda channels, so must be thrown at the libruls] :
“why don’t you move to Portland Oregon so you get your wish and can live amongst the filth and crime? ”
“Portland is a toilet unflushed”
“My daughter is on the Pacific Northwest coast and I know how bad it is all of Oregon gas almost went to the dogs”
ad infinitum …
9Sandridge, I cut some frustration out of my life when I deleted Nextdoor. The RWNJ’s use it for entertainment to try and get under your liberal woke skin (my skin).
10As for Portland, like many (many, many) cities, it has its problems with homelessness, drugs and guns. The spotlight on Portland got focused with the protests against the murder of George Floyd. Trumpf and the feds tried to make an example of Portland by a use of force to with weapons, batons and tear gas, etc. Many RWNJ politicians (and fux news) like to make Portland their poster child for bad while ignoring the fact that they have the same problems in their cities. The fiction is that they don’t when they do.
Having worked in a small town for many years, I know what it’s like. I’d never seen so much meanness, greed, and backstabbing. They’d take advantage of relatives, people they’d known their whole loves, members of their church. The local politics was ugly, drug use was rampant, the cops were all local boys, and the treatment of the “other” folks was nasty. Taxes were extraordinarily high, while the roads, schools and infrastructure were falling apart. If this is Jason Adean’s vision of small town life, it’s a vision of hell.
11Well, one description of the small town where I grew up reads as follows:
“With a crime rate of 32 per one thousand residents, has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 31. Within Mississippi, more than 89% of the communities have a lower crime rate than .”
12Looking for crime rates for my town [of less than 30,000]
Violent Crime Statistics
Calculated annually per 100,000 residents
Assault 7 national 282.7
Murder 0 national 6.1
Rape 3.5 national 40.7
Robbery 3.5 national 135.5
So we seem to be much better off than either small towns or large cities. Not that we don’t have our problems, especially with car thefts, especially catalytic converters, and pilfering unlocked cars. We have larger population centers on three sides, and people can easily take something and within minutes be on one of the state or federal highways and gone.
13It’s the politics of exaggeration. Do carjackings happen? Sure, of course they do. Do they happen at red lights? I suppose there’s a non-zero chance of that happening. Of course people rob liquor stores. I’ve never heard of anyone being sucker punched on the street but I suppose anything can happen.
It’s the same as the hysteria over child trafficking, transgender people, and other LGTBQ. I’ve never heard of an actual library doing drag queen story hour. These things all exist. Their existence is not a lie. Yet they are a statistical anomaly. They happen in the same proportion as they have before. Yet, if we follow conservative thought, all these things are on the rise.
I suppose the hysteria over “Democrat run cities” and “groomers” makes perfect sense in that bubble. If the gay/lesbian/bi/trans population were really 20 percent as they believe then something nefarious is happening. Except it’s not happening at that rate. None of it is.
14Steve from Beaverton @10, I compartmentalize these things, and actually have fun baiting the hell out of these whackjobs [up to a point] at certain times. When it occasionally starts to get to me I just turn it off a while.
Tying into the ‘hate motif’ that I mentioned in another comment, I actually sort of hope that some of them get worked up enough to stroke out or have a coronary.
15One or more less MAGAots left to go to the polls come election times. Yeah, really have ‘de-humanized’ these vermin.
Was a part of mil training decades ago, a still useful skill in wartime, which we are very much in…