Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.
--Daniel Patrick Moynihan

May 4, 2016

The Unknown America

By David K. Shipler


            Just as the world has entered a phase of post-nationhood, where warfare is committed most persistently by non-state actors such as ISIS, the United States has entered a phase of post-party politics, where insurgencies sap power from the party professionals who are supposedly schooled in the arts of campaigning and governing.
The political upheaval would be exciting if it weren’t scary, and it would be uplifting if the grassroots impulses were humane and inclusive. But the populist resentments are varied, and they are channeled into different streams. Bernie Sanders taps the noble yearning of those who want a society pledged to open opportunity. Donald Trump gives voice to a sinister tide so surprising in its scope as to raise the question of how well most Americans know their own country. How many of us realized that so much ugliness resided just beneath the surface of civility?
Probably not many, perhaps not even among those who find themselves supporting Trump. As they keep telling reporters, he says what they think. But do they really think that stuff? Has some intoxication with Trump removed their inhibitions? Do they all detest people not of their race, religion, ethnicity? Are they actually, deep down, soft on the Ku Klux Klan? Do the men, in their hearts, disparage women, and do the women among his voters ridicule themselves because of their gender? Do they truly admire crude name-calling, and would they tolerate such coarse rudeness in their children or their spouses?
Do they seriously misunderstand the American system of checks and balances that would prevent Trump from doing most of what he promises? Would they really prefer an authoritarian system whose head of state had semi-dictatorial powers? Do they actually believe that government, which has so disillusioned them, can resolve all the economic anxiety and hardship many of them have endured?
Do they admire Vladimir Putin as Trump does? Really? Do they truly want the nuclear proliferation that Trump proposes, with Japan and South Korea in possession of the bomb? Do they actually want a trade war with 45 percent tariffs on goods from China and China’s inevitable retaliation? Do they believe that America’s leadership will be enhanced by dismantling military bases and alliances? Do they think that swagger and bluster and boasting are what make America great?
If so, I do not know my own country, as I told a friend over lunch two months ago. Last week, I heard my own remark echo back to me as Garrison Keillor told NPR the same thing, which was disturbing, coming from the quintessential troubadour of Middle America.
In that vein, the advance of Trump should be taken as a salutary experience, not just by the political pros but by the press, which—before giving us all Trump all the time—largely missed the current of angry disaffection that was coursing through the public. That failure to report adequately at the ground level is understandable in a closed society but inexcusable in an open system such as ours.
By its nature, and because of the essential work of covering government, the press has traditionally followed the issues on government’s agenda. During Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, for example, the plight of the poor got great attention; but as the topic moved off center stage for Washington, it did for the press as well. The same is true in foreign affairs, whose coverage tends to follow the United States into one or another region, and to ignore parts of the world where the U.S. is less involved. The parochialism is natural but unhealthy.
So, disaffected Americans were under covered until they started voting for Trump. One reason for the blindness lies in the erosion of local reporting by news organizations, caught by falling advertising in the digital revolution, that have cut back or gone under. Before the Trump phenomenon, the resentments of disaffected and powerless citizens went largely unchronicled.
Another failure has been the mainstream press’s aversion to throwing a spotlight on raw bigotry. Genteel editors excise the racist epithets and caricatures that are frequently directed against Barack and Michelle Obama, even when the bigoted expressions are germane to a story about a local official or personality getting fired, for example. The broadcasters and writers won’t usually tell us what was actually said, so you have to hunt for the exact quote on the internet. Thus do the principal news organizations bowdlerize reality and ignore a vile American subculture, which doesn’t tamp down the spread of bigotry but merely keeps it out of view until it explodes into a Trump candidacy.
Then, too, the balkanization of information makes it easier now than ever for all of us to read and hear only what we agree with. The country’s political polarization has cast opposing views as so offensive and immoral that we screen them out. (I get odd looks when I tell friends that I listen to Rush Limbaugh occasionally to know what that side is saying.)
And so the elites—whether in politics, business, education, or the press—are taken by surprise by an elite businessman’s play to the humiliation, fear, and deep alienation of a large segment of the public.
An open, pluralistic political system is at its best when it is both responsive and stable, when it reforms as the people wish but without lurching wildly to extremes. Injustice demands the impatience of a revolution and the measured tempo of steady progress. That complicated blend, dissatisfying to both the afflicted and the comfortable, has been achieved by the interplay of diverse American interests and sentiments living together on common ground.

Now is a time of testing, and we’ll see in November how much of that common ground remains, and how much of our country we did not understand.

3 comments:

  1. We live in an age of unbounded ignorance! - To me this explains Trump perfectly. Much of the American public is actually a bunch of NO-NOTHING CHILDREN out there, wanting a wise and "kindly" - but deadly at times! - Monarch to dictate everything in a simplistic "good" and "wonderful" way that reminds me of my little cousin - 50 years ago - playing "King" and shouting "Off with their heads!" What did people think the CONSTANT STREAM of LIES that Republicans have been freely shouting out for years would do to our electorate? - Obama was REALLY born in Kenya!! - He's REALLY a Muslim!! - Sarah Palin's accusations that Death Panels will REALLY decide when you die! - Obamacare KILLS PEOPLE! - Takes over from doctors! - ACTUALLY KILLS JOBS! - I mean the REPUBLICAN PANTS ON FIRE LIES have been blatant and steady for almost 8 solid years! This POISON - going unchecked out into the media steam - HAS ITS EFFECT!!! People who are pretty dumb and ignorant to begin with have no REAL information to balance their wildest fantasies that are fed constantly by the media (Fox!) AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY! IT IS THE PARTY OF LIE AFTER LIE AFTER LIE!!! And they've gotten away with it - People actually think Republicans and Conservatives are 'RESPECTABLE!" - which is the LAST THING IN THE WORLD THEY ARE!!! - They're just a bunch of DIRTY, DIRTY LIARS! - and now WE'RE stuck with the possibility the we could end up with a thoughtless, ignorant, hot-headed & hateful BUFFOON for Prez! Watching Trump (and his family) last night I thought, you know, there's millions of Americans "out there" who will look at that very attractive, "blonde and shining", fabulously wealthy family and think - Oh, yes! - That looks SO APPEALING! I'll definitely vote for Trump! He'll fix everything - at the same level as my little cousin's "Off with their heads!!!" will. It's so PATHETICALLY IGNORANT AND CHILDISH AND THE MEDIA AND THE REPUBLICANS ARE FULLY TO BLAME FOR THIS IDIOCY - FULLY TO BLAME!!! IT'S BEYOND DISGUSTING - IT IS A REAL INDICATION OF HOW DANGEROUSLY DUMB OUR COUNTRY HAS BECOME. WHAT A TRAGEDY - WHAT A TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE TRAGEDY FOR AMERICA!!!!!...
    Note: I find John Kasich to be pretty simplistic, too - not to mention pretty backwards - in the great Republican Tradition of recent years - but you might also say that he's a half-way decent CornBall Good Guy (did you see his bowing-out speech today? - in which he spoke about the many very kind and decent Americans he came in touch with during his campaign? - all over this country! Of course he's enough of a jerk to have called Hillary a Demagogue - (say WHAT?!!) - and to engage in a conversation with a group of Hasidic young men in Brooklyn in which he had the UNMITIGATED GALL to lecture THEM about the biblical Joseph - asking them if they had studied the Joseph story in the Bible! - (SAY WHAT?! - SAY WHAT?! - SAY WHAT?!!!...) He's a classically ignorant REPUBLICANQ but he comes across as a "decent" sort - if you're willing to discount his absolute ignorance... Typical Republican - they are a MASS DISEASE SCOURGE ON OUR COUNTRY!!! - A SCOURAGE!!!!....

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  2. Apro-pro my comment and your piece - PLEASE DO SEE LAWRENCE O'DONNELL'S PIECE TONIGHT!!! (MSNBC - The Last Word.) BRILLIANT OPENING ABOUT HOW DONALD FIGURED OUT EXACTLY HOW TO APPEAL TO THE IGNORANT, HATEFUL AMERICAN PUBLIC!! CHECK IT OUT!!!!! HE NAILS IT PERFECTLY. Brilliant.

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  3. I find it disheartening that Trump continues to garner so much support. I knew bigotry persisted in many Americans below the surface, but I didn't realize how readily vast numbers of Americans would unabashedly join a campaign fueled by overt bigotry.

    Perhaps we wouldn't be in this position if a few more people had read works like The Working Poor: Invisible in America, and A Country of Strangers: Black and White in America. Scapegoating is so much easier than engaging in critical problem solving, introspective self-evaluation, and putting meaningful effort into addressing our society's ills.

    As I look desperately for a silver lining, I find myself thinking at least I'll have an easier time convincing my friends that, yes, racial discrimination and injustice do still exist. Trump's candidacy makes it pretty hard for even the most fragile of white people to deny.

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