Musing #46 “Trump-mania”

September 28, 2015

Just finished a book by Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus.  (Yes, that ‘deer’ is spelt correctly, though the ‘Jesus’ perhaps should have been spelt “Jeez-zuz.”)  It is a collection of reflections by a fellow who left Wincester, Virginia, the heart of Appalachia, as a young man, learned to write and survive in the outside world, and then returned home, and describes what he had left behind.  And what he came back to.  Appalachia.  I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, the outskirts of Appalachia, of parents who also grew up on the outskirts of Appalachia, in northwestern Pennsylvania and in Pittsburgh, so I recognized what Bageant wrote.  It is somewhat a part of me too, though I do not share the extreme depths of its despair.  I ministered in Cincinnati for a decade and then came to Cambridge, where eight years after my arrival I suddenly realized in a blinding flash, “Oh, this is Appalachia... which explains what I’m seeing here, and what they are feeling.”  

But more importantly today, as I read and finished Bageant’s book, I said to myself, “Now that begins to make sense of the phenomenon of Trump-mania in this presidential campaign, and as well of my estranged son in Lexington Park, Maryland.  Appalachianism.  Though not restricted to the boundaries of Appalachia, that mindset flourishes in other parts of our country as well...in the “Big Sky” country of our northwest, in the rural hinterlands afar from eastern urbia, in the south, and in Texas.

I had been somewhat confounded and scared by the outlandish and hard-scrapple appeal of Donald Trump.  His appeal might be stalled at the moment, but that’s not yet clear.  What is becoming clear though is that he has no need of policy statements, or of realism in his speeches about what he will and will not do, what he can and cannot accomplish.  His appeal is completely non-rational, with no content whatsoever, and purely to the gut,.  He does not think or formulate, he simply blurts some whatever, and then attacks, viciously and indiscriminately, with a ‘take no prisoners’ standard.  And I puzzle, “Why is that so popular?”  The answer “Appalachia” comes back to me.

Appalachianism is not new to me, but every time I recognize it anew, it surprises me.  I was surprised when my wife strenuously objected to our five-year-old-Ted’s pronunciation of his friend’s name, “Day-ah-nee,” with three syllables (we were then living on the river bluff overlooking the Ohio River across from Kentucky, and our neighbors were mainly expatriate Kentuckians).   The next time it surprised me was when I realized that where I was ministering, in Cambridge, while nowhere near the center of Appalachia, was very Appalachian.  And I was surprised later when I became aware that the parish where I was interim rector in Chillicothe Ohio was likewise quite Appalachian.  And I was somewhat surprised when I realized that the Trump phenomenon is simply another form of Appalachianism.  

Bageant does a good job of laying out what Appalacianism is about.  When the Scots and Irish and Scots-Irish immigrated here they brought imbedded in them a mindset born and fostered of their centuries-long oppression under the Brits.... peoples utterly crushed under a cruel and unrelenting heel, who had learned to make the best of the small bits of life left to them.  The resulting mindset is complex, but as I review it, four principles drop out for me.

The first is simply anger.  Anger at being so helplessly oppressed, denied, limited.  Anger at being oppressed for so long a time.  Eventually such anger becomes a way of life, then a foundation.  Deep, abiding, unfocussed anger.  It becomes a way of living, of knowing you are alive and who you are.  And it colors everything you see, and think and do.  I remember being at first confused by the sense of betrayal and abandonment I experienced in the community of Cambridge; yes, industries came and went, but that’s never been odd in this capitalist economy.  But in Cambridge it translated into “Screwed again,” and a feeling of hopelessness, disempowerment and deep resentment.  Appalachia.

And along with that anger came a deep distrust of authority: of the oppressing authority, but even farther, of all authority.  Authority does not help; instead it hurts, injures, defeats.  Some of the immigrants who came into this country from Ireland and Scotland paid their shipboard passage by selling themselves into indentured slavery.   And when they got here some of those ran from their enslavement... up into the hills and hollers of western Virginia, and West Virginia and Tennessee.  And for an escaped slave anyone with a badge was an enemy who might carry them back into slavery.  Even today if you wander into one of those hollers, you’ll likely be met with a shotgun in your face.  An authority of any ilk is unwelcome and unwanted... an enemy.  And that feeling bleeds out...  ANY authority, with or without a badge, even just an unknown, is an enemy, is to be avoided, is to be stripped of his power if possible.  That is the first hallmark of Appalachia; a quietly seething, underlying, abiding anger, and a distrust of all outsiders.

Probably the second most important hallmark of Appalachia is religious fervor and fundamentalism.  Those Irish arrived as devout Catholics, and the Scots and Scots-Irish as committed Calvinists, or maybe as members of the even  more severe and fundamentalist, dour Wee Kirk.  Their faith ran deep, and still does.  I expect that when you are oppressed, as the Hebrews were, and the early Christians after them, and then the Scots and the Irish, you turn to God as your last and strongest hope.  Today many, perhaps most, of them have wandered into evangelicalism and pentecostalism, forms of Christian faith with a strong emotional component... a faith that burns and convicts.  And their form of the faith becomes the only true form of faith.

And a third hallmark is a kind of fatalism.  The cause of their oppression is no longer the Brits; that has shifted and what the oppression is now about has become unclear, but it still feels like oppression.  The “American dream” assures us that by hard work, persistent effort, honest living, you can get ahead.  You can improve your condition.  Your children will have it better than you.  But that dream has not worked for these folk.  They are stuck in poverty and near poverty and a lower estate.  The ‘bootstrap’ stuff works for others, but not for them.  And they don’t know why.  But they know they must resort to being content living in ‘mobile homes’ and ‘double-wides.’  That’s as good as it gets.  And the Calvinist theology at the base of their fervent faith tells them it must be  their own fault, ’cause Gawd always rewards the good.  There’s something wrong with them such that God keeps them at the bottom of the ladder, never gives them a leg up.  They’re stuck, and it has something undefined to do with who they are, who they’ve come from and who they’ll always be.  They don’t succeed, and God is somehow implicated in their failure.  So there’s naught to be done about it.

A corollary comes along with that fatalism, a “know-nothing” mindset.  Education helps others advance themselves, but it’s never helped us.  So the mindset becomes an anti-intellectualism, which subsides into acting out of emotion rather than of out of thought or plan.  An impulsiveness.  And a shunning of planning ahead.  That mindset is reinforced by their fundamentalist faith which assures them that their knowledge of God’s word is the only way to salvation, nothing else will help.  You need know nothing but the Bible.  That is sufficient alone.

One more piece has been added to this complex, one which comes not from their pre-immigration heritage, but from their post-immigration way of life... guns.  I am a city boy, and while my father always had guns in the house (shot-guns, rifles, revolvers and one automatic pistol which lived under his pillow as he slept), I have refused them.  (I keep one .22 caliber revolver for killing the verminous, destructive racoons I trap.)  I have always been appalled at our country’s love of guns, all kinds of guns.  For me it comprises a lethal craziness.  Bageant’s reflections did open my eyes on this issue.  He understands the “meat-hunter’s” attachment to his rifles and shotguns.  They were a primary means of putting food on the table for his family.  My grandfather, who lived almost completely “off the land,”could shoot a running rabbit cleanly through the head with a .22 rifle.  That’s profound skill.  I can respect that.  And I can respect their strong attachment to their meat-hunting guns.  They were not only skillfully handled tools, they were often the primary means for impoverished hill-and-holler folk to eke out a living. (I am nonetheless appalled at the gun manufacturers’ lackey, the NRA’s efforts to sell handguns, which in today’s world are not meat-hunting tools, but designed solely for the killing of human beings.  That is immoral and unconscionable.) 

The last point Bageant makes is that the Appalachians are by default Republican.  And I reluctantly suppose that is correct.  American liberalism has not helped them.  Intellectualism has not helped them.  Their gut (not their minds) tells them that the least possible amount of government (read “authority”) is the best, and none at all would be even better.  And their “know-nothing,” unfocussed, background anger impels them toward the T-Party and Trump-mania.  So, like it or not, the Republican party has them as a pretty reliable voting block.

And Trump-mania?  Well it certainly appeals to the unfocussed anger.  And it certainly is a ‘know-nothing” populism; his policies are misdirected bullying and bluster reinforced with indiscriminate attacks, and irrationally lack any coherent content...but the opening words sound good if you’re angry enough.  And he makes a quite fine pretense of being competent.  What else need be said?

Jack Bowers