America is a big and diverse country so any generalization that treats its people as a single entity with one set of qualities is going to be wrong. But having said that, I do want to make some fairly broad statements about one particular group, that of white, middle class, middle-aged and elderly Americans. Understanding the state of mind of this particular group is important because although it represents only one segment of opinion and class interests, it is vocal, votes disproportionately, and the shallow and sensationalistic media focuses on it and is sympathetic to its interests. Furthermore, as Kevin Drum notes, how responsive politicians are to your concerns is directly related to how much your income is. The sad truth is that the fundamental premise of democracy of ‘one person, one vote’ has effectively become ‘one dollar, one vote’.
My comments about the psyche of this group are based on those events that have received considerable attention in the news recently and the results of recent primary elections running up to the mid-term congressional elections.
The one thing that strikes me is that this group seems to be in the grip of irrational fear and despair, almost to the point of paranoia. One symptom of this is that they look back on the past as a wonderful time, a golden age of peace and prosperity and wholesome living, and the current times as fraught with a vague and inchoate sense of danger. They tend to take real but small current incidents, inflate their significance beyond all reason and evidence to gigantic proportions, and then quake in fear of the monster that they themselves have conjured up.
These people seem to think that the country is under existential threat from enemies internal and external. Externally, they think that al Qaeda or some Islamic equivalent is plotting to launch another attack on targets in the US. This is actually very likely to be true (after all, those groups explicitly keep saying they want to attack the US and its interests) but why does it cause such fear? Even the US government says that there exist less than a hundred such militants in Afghanistan, with the rest (still a small number) in the remoter areas of Pakistan. While such a small but determined group can create some death and destruction, even the remote possibility of one on the scale of another 9/11, it would still be a tiny pin prick for a country like America and not by any means an existential threat. Does anyone really think that Osama bin Laden’s forces will defeat the US military and that he will become the ruler of the US? Any mature country and mature people should be able to shrug off the threats of groups like al Qaeda as merely irritants and go about their normal business unconcerned. And yet these people are acting like elephants terrified by mice.
Related to this is the fear that Muslims are infiltrating the country, Christianity is under threat in the US and Islam taking over, and that Sharia law will soon be imposed on everyone. It is true that the number of Muslims is growing more rapidly than the general population because Muslims, like ultra-orthodox Jews and Catholics and Mormons, tend to favor large families, but they are still a tiny minority. The proposition that Christianity will be replaced with Islam in the US is laughable on its face but that has not stopped people from taking it seriously. The fuss over the Islamic community center in New York and the attacks on Muslims and mosques in various parts of the country are symptoms of this irrational fear.
Another fear is that the country is going to be overrun by Mexicans and other people from south of the border and this has resulted in increased anti-Hispanic sentiment, rooted in concerns about illegal immigration. Again, the symptom of the irrationality lies in these people taking the 14th Amendment guarantees that almost all babies born in the US are automatically US citizens and elevating this into fear of a colossal scheme for Mexicans to come to the US purely to deliver their babies here as part of a long term plan to overwhelm the US demographically. A variant of this crazy fear is that Muslims are also coming here to deliver babies so that, in a couple of decades, they can create home-grown terrorist cells.
These trends are disturbing to say the least. When enough people develop paranoid fears, they do stupid things.
Next: How these fears are inflamed.
Mano,
Perhaps you are planning on addressing this in future installments, in which case ignore my question, but I’m curious if this is a quality of this particular batch of old white people, or if I as a white person in my 30s am doomed to the same fate? Whenever I read something that infuriates me regarding old people’s bigoted stances, I calm myself by remembering that they’ll all be dead soon enough and the current crop of progressive younger folks will be taking their places. In 20-30 years, will I be more likely to be following some Glenn Beck heir and shouting lunacy all throughout my retired days?
Matt, don’t worry. I’m about to turn 55, I’m as white as white can be, and I’m far enough left to consider Barack Obama a conservative. 😉 And I got there by moving steadily leftward during the Bush years.
Matt,
I’m with Steve. I don’t know what causes people to shift their views but I don’t think it is a function of age.
Shalom Y’all,
Remember, it was Winston Churchill who told us that: “Any 20 year-old who isn’t a liberal doesn’t have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn’t a conservative doesn’t have a brain.”
I’m still pretty far left, but at 55 I’m farther toward the center than I was at 25. I think it is a matter of learning more about the human condition and frustration with having to suffer the incompetents.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Some very interesting points here, thanks for the post Mano. “When enough people develop paranoid fears, they do stupid things.” I think history speaks for itself with that statement.
Cheers
Ed
Matt,
Coming back to your question, there is hope for the future. After all, people are nowhere near as bigoted towards people of different ethnicities and the rights of women and gays as they were in the past. So there is definite progress.
But there are also periods of backsliding due to immediate factors like what we see now. Living through them is not easy and we need to counter them as they occur.
But I feel confident that the tide is with those who seek more freedom and justice. Even some of the worst oligarchies and dictatorships of the past have dismantled some of their most awful features.
Mano,
I had to smile. You say: “…So there is definite progress.”
Could there be a more unscientific sentiment?
But on to the main point of today’s essay, the paranoia of white people over the age of forty, and it seems to me you’re talking much more of men than women. It seems to me that, in a way, the group has some basis for concern. At least as regards their own well-being, they are indeed seeing their golden age receding. The fact that that age wasn’t so hot for so many other people doesn’t seem to get quite the press it deserves, in my opinion. But reality is changing for this demographic, and not in a good way (speaking materially and not in the spiritual sense you seem to have adopted(!)).
Is there hysteria among the white masses? There seems to be plenty of nonsense and a good bit of fear. Is it more rational to be very apprehensive about the Chinese development of missiles designed to destroy (let’s face it, American) aircraft carriers (as I am) or the demographic patterns of reproduction among Moslems or other ethnic groups? (as Rush Limbaugh probably is). Is it more delusional to listen to and believe Glenn Beck or to have invested in and believed what was being said about the world during the dot.com bubble era?
Is the Tea Party a product of hysteria? or some more legitimate search for an alternative to a political spectrum that stretches from Obama to Bush, all financed by Goldman Sachs?
On this last question I have a thought. I think Americans are looking for a form of government which is not, as you put it, one dollar, one vote. I think this is going to have to reorient the political process away from a “liberal-conservative” continuum and more towards an “inside-outside” continuum. Perhaps it is the energy created by the breaking of old bonds and the fusion of others that is being released that gives so much room for the explosively paranoid.
I just hope we get someone more like Adelaide Stevenson than some of the more infamous characters of the 1900s.
Well, Jeff, forget Winnie Churchill! If you aren’t liberal at 20 you have no heart. Aren’t liberal at 50? You have no head! That’s what I believe and it is perfectly within reason that some senior white citizens behave the way Mano describes. Mind you these people are not a majority, not even a majority as far as senior white citizens go. But then they are the ones who vote, disproportionately. There’s another thing Mano and I would understand, coming as we do from electoral democracies in the same part of the world, India and Sri Lanka I mean. In our neck of the woods, electoral participation is inversely correlated with income and politicians are most responsive to the concerns of this voting class. In the US and many rich nations, electoral participation is directly correlated with income. But while the welfare state in the other rich nations anticipates the needs of the apathetic public, in the US very large swathes of the non-affluent population is practically disenfranchised. Further the wealthy are always awarding themselves taxcuts and depriving the welfare administrations. As a result the less wealthy are almost cut out of the political process in America.
therse isnt a fear of mexicans…its the rule of law…if you cross the border with the proper documentation thats wrong and its against the law…its disorderly…its expensive and its wrong…apply for a visa…apply for a green card…apply for citizenship…its kind of plain and simple…enough with the “they’re only looking for work”…the people who hire these people should be tossed in jail for slavery…the employers provide no workers comp, no unemplyment compensation, dont pay payroll taxes..the “poor mexicans” cant complain, work for less and are essentially 21st century slaves…its about “do the right thing”.
irs levy, real penalties for the sweatshop businesses that employ these unfortunate exploited people (who are mostly doing jobs, at wages, that no citizen wants) are exactly what we never see and never will. That’s how “one dollar, one vote” works.
The exploiters have plenty of dollars, and will find it easier than ever to buy politicians thanks to the Citizens United decision.
P.S. It has no doubt escaped your attention (not entirely your fault, since our “liberal” media don’t report such information, because right-wing fearmongers wouldn’t like it) that undocumented workers have headed back home in droves since the job market crashed.
I have mixed feelings after reading this post and maybe as an European I’m not enough competent to comment on it. But there is one thing I would like to mention: Having paranoid fears and doing stupid things is for sure not only an American issue. This reminds me strongly of what was happening in Europe after the World War I and we all should know where this led to. So the point is to keep a health balance between fears and the reality because sometimes fears distort reality and this is a very dangerous process.
Sir, your book God Vs Darwin is an amazing one and this article shows a deeper understanding of Current phase of America.