I grew up in Racine County (which contains Mount Pleasant). Let me tell you, SE WI is a strange place. Caught between so many sensibilities and hit so, so hard by economic shifts of the last two decades. I think it suffers, like many places in the American Midwest, the phenomenon of an historically working-class population, who, a few decades ago, would have organized for labor and other rights very vocally and outwardly, but who now are radicalized to the right for no understandable reason.
I still like to believe that most of the people around there are good and mean well, but it gets harder and harder every day to believe the willful ignorance they possess of economic, societal, and cultural issues at hand, here and now, will fade. But there's hope. Younger leaders are working their way into local government (hi Greta!), especially over in the formal City of Racine. There's hope that Racine and Racine County might be a leader of progressive values in the area.
As an aside, I think there's oodles of opportunity in the SE WI area for younger folks. It really is a beautiful place, is near to Chicago and Milwaukee, and is inexpensive. You get all four seasons, for better or worse. I think it's better than SF's summer and grey-chillier-summer. Some joke that the four seasons are winter, construction, construction, and construction, but that's an exaggeration. Anyway, I think an influx of more diverse people in background and ideology could really stimulate an area like SE WI. Add to that making it worth young people staying around instead of fleeing to the coasts, and suddenly Racine can be a really cool place.
This whole Foxconn thing just makes me so sad, and angry.
Americans classically derive much of their sense of value from:
1. Work
2. Race (for many white people, especially historically)
...and that's about it. Unlike other cultures our "rugged individualism" means that we don't tend to derive as much sense of worth from family, traditions, organizations we belong to, etc. This is especially true for men who are raised to believe that who they are is what they do.
The economic shift to a service- and knowledge-based economy with many manufacturing and ag jobs being automated or outsourced away has devastated 1. in many communities. The march towards better civil rights and equality is chipping away at 2.
This has left a huge number of Americans feeling that they are worth less than they used to be. People like that are ripe for being exploited. People will buy anything if you tell them you're selling dignity. Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan was really "Make You Feel Like You're Great Again".
> Unlike other cultures our "rugged individualism" means that we don't tend to derive as much sense of worth from family, traditions, organizations we belong to, etc
I agree with the overall premise, but there is a single notable exception to to this, which is the military, which is the intersection of family, traditions, and government organizations. But even there, as we have seen recently, there is a white nationalism problem afoot.
>Americans classically derive much of their sense of value from:
> 1. Work
> 2. Race (for many white people, especially historically)
> ...
> People will buy anything if you tell them you're selling dignity.
All true, and it's important that politicians who hope to actually heal these folks focus their efforts on restoring the dignity that comes from work and community, and dispel the dangerous sort of "dignity" peddled by ethnic/racial nationalists.
> a single notable exception to to this, which is the military
This is a bit of cognitive dissonance I find fascinating among the far right. I have had conversations with many people who clearly simultaneously believe:
1. The government can't do anything right.
2. We have the world's best military.
And yet for most it hasn't seemed to click that the military is a government program.
But, again, I think this gets to my larger point that because the military is such a source of prestige for many Americans (especially poorer ones with few other upward mobility options), they are able to maintain that bit of cognitive dissonance.
(And, to be clear, I absolutely do not think conservatives have a monopoly on cognitive dissonance. I see many different ones all along the political spectrum.)
Hard to process this kind of cynicism, accurate though it is. Not your demeanor, by the way, friend, just the reality of it all. Ironic that I speak of willful ignorance and yet am happy to not think too hard about the very things you've called out here.
I really don't mean this to sound cynical, though I can see how it comes across. I think it's more about understanding human psychology and trying to use that understanding to empathize with and understand why people behave in seemingly irrational ways.
As a tribal primate species are absolutely hard-wired to seek ways to provide value to our tribe. Being worthless to the tribe means being left in the forest, which was a death sentence to our evolutionary ancestors. So our need for social prestige is as fundamental as food and shelter. Perhaps even more so since for most of our ancestors, food and shelter came from the tribe.
The ways we seek out that esteem are determined by our surrounding culture. If esteem is the game we're trying to win, culture determines the board and the moves we're allowed to make. We can push against culture somewhat and it evolves over time, but we're largely stuck with the one we're enmeshed in.
So you get a set of people who need to feel valued. You raise them in a culture that says the main way to do that is by having a well-paying job. Then you take away the jobs. This is a recipe for unrest and strife.
Oh definitely -- I'm not detecting cynicism in you and maybe it's the wrong choice of word. I'm more feeling a sense of disappointment in what you're saying being true. It's tragic, in truth.
I lived and worked in the area for four years, working in Pleasant Prairie, living in Kenosha and then Oak Creak. Parent is right, it's a strange place because of the mixture of so many influences: the proximity of Chicago and Milwaukee, a former industrial powerhouse region, access to great education but full of people who've never been to Chicago or Milwaukee (let alone further than them).
My sysadmin had a hobby of creating frankenstein cars. He put the powertrain of a Camaro into the body of Gremlin, for which he needed a second Gremlin to lengthen the chassis by a foot. It was so overpowered he needed a couple hundred pounds of sandbags in the back to give it any traction at all. This sort of thing wasn't that weird either.
You claim to not understand how that group of people can swing right and then proceed to attribute ignorance to that group of people. This doesn't compute. Very partisan and ignorant of you.
Hi friend, thanks for your response. I appreciate the criticism and the opportunity to re-evaluate my point. That said, after thinking about it, I don't believe there's a contradiction in what I've written. Point in fact is that I do not understand--in a personal sense of it "computing" (as you put it) to me--the forces at work that push people to be, as I said, wilfully ignorant of real issues facing the area and planet at large. It's not that I don't understand the people at all and simultaneously attribute ignorance to them, it's that how the ignorance comes to be is a mystery to me. An observer can see an effect without knowing the cause. That's usually how we begin to learn anything. There's a comment adjacent to yours that puts words to a gut feeling about it that takes a big step toward understanding, I think. Discourse is great!
Why is it partisan? Let’s pretend OP said “swing left”. Being against the left isn’t how partisan is normally defined. It’s usually the bias of being for a specific cause/political party. What would be the cause here? Not being pro American politics left? That does not give much info about what causes the person is biased for.
I still like to believe that most of the people around there are good and mean well, but it gets harder and harder every day to believe the willful ignorance they possess of economic, societal, and cultural issues at hand, here and now, will fade. But there's hope. Younger leaders are working their way into local government (hi Greta!), especially over in the formal City of Racine. There's hope that Racine and Racine County might be a leader of progressive values in the area.
As an aside, I think there's oodles of opportunity in the SE WI area for younger folks. It really is a beautiful place, is near to Chicago and Milwaukee, and is inexpensive. You get all four seasons, for better or worse. I think it's better than SF's summer and grey-chillier-summer. Some joke that the four seasons are winter, construction, construction, and construction, but that's an exaggeration. Anyway, I think an influx of more diverse people in background and ideology could really stimulate an area like SE WI. Add to that making it worth young people staying around instead of fleeing to the coasts, and suddenly Racine can be a really cool place.
This whole Foxconn thing just makes me so sad, and angry.