What Culture War?

What division? What fear?

You’ll forgive a small touchdown dance after I was right about all of my election predictions three weeks ago. It’s amazing how a regular guy who doesn’t use Stata and just talks to lots of different types of people all the time can be right and all the number crunching nerds can be wrong. Makes you think. I predicted Trump would win and that it wouldn’t be particularly close. I predicted he would win the popular vote. And I predicted that voter turnout would be significantly down across the board from 2020. I was clearly right about all of those.

I’m no fan of Trump though, and didn’t vote for him, so I don’t take a lot of pleasure in being right. Maybe a Barry Sanders style touchdown celebration is more in order. Either way, it didn’t feel that good. I’m also not freaking out like some people that didn’t vote for him. I’m used to my beliefs not being reflected in the government of the country I live in. That’s always been the case. When friends and family fret over the future of the Democratic party it’s nice to be able to say “yea, it’s tough. Glad I’m not a Democrat”.

And when Trump voting friends tell me about how everything is going to get so much better, I’m happy to have enough detachment to avoid investment in those hopes either. I think some of these guys are in for a rude awakening when the wars continue and the grocery bill doesn’t come down. Hope I’m wrong.

In person and online, I’ve had a lot of people give me props and ask “how did you know"?”. My answer is usually a shrug and “I dunno…vibes”. I’m far from the only person who could see this coming. You just have to cultivate a healthy distrust of media nerds, and get out and talk to regular people. But what I hope people realize is that I also predicted a lot of good things are going to happen post election, at least over a long enough time horizon. I predicted, to oversimplify it, a death of the culture war, a death of the overwhelming fear and hatred of our neighbors. And I think I’m going to be right. I already see it happening.

The East Bay General Store. Chippewa Lake, MI

In 2016, I lived in a town called Ypsilanti, down state. I loved it there (I just love it even more up here). Our neighborhood was racially diverse and very working class. One neighbor was a 60 something retired plumber and biker gang (“club”) member who often wore a shirt that said “stand up for the damn anthem” and also voted for Bernie. The house on the other side was occupied by a family of Romanian immigrants with 8 kids (and she had another baby since then!). It was wonderful. Ypsilanti also had a thriving left-wing community and we were part of it. My friends up here would assume I was talking about a cut off t-shirt if I said “tankie” but down there I knew a lot of them. We also hung out with anarchists, communists, and ecoterrorist types. They were pretty socially awkward, but they were fundamentally good and admirable people. Being involved in those communities made Trump being elected a bit of a shock. We were no fans of Hillary, but we still expected her to win. I think a lot of us were still laboring under a delusion about pulling the Democrats in a more pro-working class direction. Like a lot of people, we spent that post-election week worried about the future, and worried about living in a deeply divided country.

Then, that Friday night, I walked to the Regal Beagle, an old dive bar a few blocks away. I had a Jim Beam and a couple High Life’s and watched some football, shot the shit with some of the regulars. It was pretty busy in there. At some point two 30-something guys walked in. One of them was black and one white. They were clearly best friends (actually, they could have been more than that for all I know. If you’re going to be an interracial, working class gay couple there’s few places better in America than Ypsilanti). The white guy was wearing a “wife respecter” and I noticed a confederate flag tattooed on his shoulder under the word “Rebel”. They ordered drinks and quickly made their way to the jukebox. And what did they put on? “Cowboy” by Kid Rock. They started singing along and soon the whole bar was as well (go listen to “Cowboy” right now and try not to get amped. I dare you). Including the grimy anarchists and communists shooting pool in the back. I thought to myself, maybe things are gonna be alright. And you know what, sometimes they were and sometimes they weren’t.

Inside the Regal Beagle. Labbatt Blue Light and a Well Shot 5 bucks.

Eight years, two kids, and a new hometown later, I’ve been thinking back to that day.

The truth is, avoiding people who disagree with you, living in a bubble, living in fear of the “other”, has always, largely, been a luxury of the professional class. Poor and working class people simply can’t afford it. They have to rely on their neighbors to watch the kids and help shingle the roof. They have to patronize the local bars and diners for their recreation. They live in blue collar neighborhoods and work blue collar jobs, with other blue collar people, some of them of other races, and many of them of other political beliefs.

Of course, poor and working class people of all races are also very used to the government not giving a shit about them. They overwhelmingly distrust politicians, rightfully so, and accurately see them as members of a club they don’t belong too. Because of all this, they are able to keep politics at arms length, one way or another. Another advantage they have in this regard is they have to go to work. At real, non-computer jobs. They’re not looking at the news all day.

To be clear, I’m not saying that there aren’t a lot of poor and working class people who are invested in politics. I know tons that are, on both sides. There were plenty of blue collar liberals that were sad about the election and plenty of blue collar conservatives that were thrilled. What I am saying is that they are able to set it all aside and go about their day to day life. They have to. And I think when you get used to doing that, and when you get practice living outside of a bubble, you develop a sense that freaking out too much about politics is kind of crazy. What difference does it make? Still gotta pay the bills. Plus, you know, opening day is coming up. Gotta get a freezer full of meat for the winter.

I’ve been struck over the last two weeks as I talked to all the people I know, through work and day to day life, about who is freaking out and who isn’t. The only people that I think are truly hysterical, in an really counterproductive way, are highly educated, upper middle class, suburban liberal types. I feel a great deal of empathy for them. As I’ve always said, there’s nothing worse than being anxious about something that is completely out of your control. As for the other people I’ve talked to, they largely fall in to three camps:

1. Trump supporters. These are largely blue collar white people (at least the ones I’m talking to). Of course, they are happy. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how loosely most of them have held winning. I expected to be dealing with some really annoying gloating, shit talking assholes. And, you know, I’m sure you can dig up some examples of that kind of behavior across the country. But I haven’t seen much of it. Most of the Trump voters I’ve talked to have been magnanimous in victory. This could be because most of them I talk with are church people, and they really, truly, do believe that the most important thing is to follow Jesus and love your neighbor. Regardless of how they vote.

2. Blue collar white Democrats. Yes, they still exist (maybe not for long!). And I know a fair deal of them. These people are not freaking out. And it’s because they know Trump supporters and know that they aren’t evil. They’re not going to suddenly stop talking to their friends and family. They’re not going to move to Canada. Largely, they understand to some extent what led their neighbors to vote for Trump. They disagree, or maybe think their neighbors are just mistaken. But that’s different from hating and fearing them. These people, in my experience, are bummed out but have gone about their daily life much as before. They’re not stewing in defeat.

3. Blue collar POC’s in inner cities who largely voted Democrat (though not exclusively!). In my experience, so far, these are the people who are most unfazed. The day after the election we had a zoom meeting with my staff. I’m the only white person. The rest of the staff are black and from places like Flint and Benton Harbor. We spent time talking about the election, and everyone was pretty much like “welp, that’s a bummer, what’s next?”. In dozens of calls and meetings with blue collar black folks in places like Jackson and Battle Creek over the last few weeks that’s been overwhelmingly the attitude. They’re not happy Trump won, but they’re not surprised either. They had no expectations that America would do what they wanted it to do. And many, if not most, of them grudgingly understood why people would vote Trump (the economy! Any explanation for his victory that doesn’t start and end with cost of living should be taken with a dump truck full of salt, in my humble opinion). To them, this is an annoying bump on the road, not an existential crisis. I had a meeting last week in a mid sized, post industrial city with a racially diverse group of people. The person that was most heartbroken and melodramatic was a white woman with a masters degree and a high paying professional job. It’s funny that the people who she was professing to be so worried for were POC’s. Many of them were in the same meeting and rolling their eyes at her.

It should be no surprise that I think this sort of detachment is healthier than the upper-middle class liberal freak outs. It’s true that the Trump administration will do terrible things. I myself worry a great deal about irreversible environmental destruction and privatization leading to the rape of public lands. Of course, it’s also true that a Kamala administration would have done horrible things too, even if you believe they would have been marginally less horrible. And the question is, what’s better for yourself and the world? Sitting around reading about Trumps latest appointments and panicking silently? Or closing the laptop and doing something small but healthy for yourself, your friends or your community. Maybe go for a run. Maybe cook a meal. Maybe read a good novel (might I recommend “Lonesome Dove”). Maybe take the kids to the park.

I’ve been thinking it would behoove the suburban liberals I know to take hint from the blue collar people I know. I often think to myself “what do you think is going to happen?”. A friend of a friend who identifies as LGBTQ (but for whom it’s not readily apparent by looking at them) told my friend they were now afraid to talk to their neighbor in their wealthy suburban neighborhood, a Trump voter, post election because it didn’t feel safe. This was someone they had apparently chatted with many times over the years. I confessed to my wife I didn’t get it. That Trump voting neighbor is the same person they were before the election. You feel unsafe now? What do you think is going to happen? Now that Trump won, this guy who clearly knows you and gets along with you fine, now that Trump won he’s just going to shoot you? beat you up? I don’t get it.

On my way downstate last week I stopped at the "Hodenpyle Dam General Store” in Mesick, Michigan for a coffee and gas. I wanted to stop there because I had seen a sign that said they have “Sasquatch souvenirs” and my son is a) obsessed with Bigfoot and b) about to have a birthday. The guy behind the counter, presumably the owner, had a hat on that read “First Rule of Gun Safety: Always Carry One!”. Probably not a Kamala voter. There were two other people in the store: a blue collar black woman in a head covering and her daughter. My thoughts instantly went to the fact that lots of people in the progressive sphere I know would think this woman should be in great fear or was somehow in great danger. Anyway, she and her daughter went to the counter ahead of me and I overheard their conversation with the gun nut guy:

Guy at the Counter: “Oh Joanne (presumably his wife) is going to be so sad she missed you!”

Woman of Color: “I know! I was hoping she’d be here!”

GC to the little girl: “How’s kindergarten going!?”

Little girl: “Good!”

WOC: “She’s doing so good, aren’t you sweetie? Learning to read?”

GC: “Hold on, Joanne won’t ever let me hear the end of it”

And the gun nut at the counter pulled out his phone and facetimed his wife so she could talk to the little black girl about Kindergarten. They talked for a minute and the little girl was clearly super proud to tell Joanne about Kindergarten and Joanne obviously had her day made by talking to her. They wrapped up with the Mom telling Joanne they’d come by to see her over the weekend. This was all making me late, of course, but it was too sweet to get frustrated about. Afterward the little girl put a piece of fruit on the counter and the guy goes “Look at you, eating healthy too! Good for you! That's on the house”.

Clearly, these people were all friends. Clearly, they were in the habit of helping each other out when they could. And clearly, that woman and her daughter would have been poorly served by being told to fear that guy.

A Bowling Alley in Oxford, MI

I think when we log off, when we take out the ear buds, and step into the real world, we are shown that the “Culture War” at least in the way it is most commonly discussed, is a media creation. A narrative sold to us to divide and conquer. And buying it is a choice (incidentally, buying a narrative that is clearly used to divide and conquer, and to make you hate wide swaths of blue collar people? Sure seems like a profoundly conservative choice to me). And the truth is a pretty sizable majority of society has already rejected it. Has always rejected it. It’s just not the small segment of society that dominates our culture and media making. So if you spend most of your time consuming media, you get a distorted view. This also happens on social media, even more so. How much of your Facebook timeline is dominated by a tiny fraction of your “friends” who post incessantly about politics? And then you, naturally, get this idea that everyone is talking about it all the time. On the tip of the iceberg everyone is screaming at each other about pronouns and immigration. But the tip of the iceberg is in cyberspace. The majority of us are under the surface, living in the real world.

Here in the real world people get along just fine, for the most part. They’re not screaming at each other about politics, they’re talking about their kids soccer games or whether we’ll get enough snow to get the skis and snowmobiles out this winter. And this is good. This is as it should be. As a friend of mine said about his dad watching Fox News all the time “you watch it and freak out and then you walk outside and everything is normal”. May it continue to be normal. May we all embrace it.

The Hodenpyle Dam General Store was fresh out of Sasquatch souvenirs. But we’re planning to go into the woods to look for the real thing this weekend with my son and his friends. The culture war is fake. Bigfoot is real.

This newsletter will always be free. Any paid subscriptions will be taken as donations to my organizing work in Michigan. If you would like to donate directly to that work, you can do so here. Thanks so much.