The Changing Face of Appalachia

The November 2016 issue of Harpers Magazine includes an excellent article by Chris Offutt called "In The Hollow :: The changing face of Appalachia--and its role in the presidential race." Mr. Offutt looks long and hard at the people, attitudes, economics, cultural norms, etc., of Appalachia--his homeland--and speculates about why it is like it is. And as the title says, he looks specifically at the role played by the people of Appalachia in the election of "a rabble-rousing strongman in the vein of Mussolini, a man proud of his multiple bankcuptcies, a braggart who is blind to his own bigotry."

It's an excellent article, and I recommend it without reservation. Here's a link to the article on the Harper's website, which should be free for reading.

But the reason I'm posting a note about it here is because of the last two paragraphs. Here they are, with bold added by me:



Anyone who has lived in the country understands the brutality of nature. Animals kill to survive and fight to the death. A cornered animal experiences a surge of sudden ferocity. During its final minutes, when the animal knows it's going to die, it will emit a specific sound, a warning to others of the same species. That sound is known as a death cry. I believe we are hearing the death cry of the G.O.P. in its current incarnation: racist obstructionists who welcomed the squalid alt-right into their midst and failed to produce a credible nominee for president. They had their chance, and blew it. They dismantled unions, systematically attacked education, and ignored the separation of church and state. They gave corporations the same rights as people while trampling the rights of actual human beings. Unlike other animals, which know the death cry as a warning, too many Americans are responding with a sense of outraged empowerment.

Will Trump make America great again? The question is absurd. The real question is this: when was the country great, and for whom? In the not-so-distant past, it was certainly better for union members who could earn a living, for educators whose jobs were not tied to test scores, for anyone who worked in manufacturing. The country is better now for people of color, for gays and lesbians, for women, and for the disabled. This progress has been grotesquely misinterpreted to mean that the country is worse for white people. Such thinking is false logic. One does not rule out the other. Straight white men, especially those who have inherited family fortunes, are doing just fine in America. The problem is that some of them are trying to ruin it for the rest of us.