Kevin Williamson leaped into the question by analyzing pick-up-truck ownership patterns in Houston, where apparently the usage is not authentically farm- or ranch-oriented. Neither is ours, of course; we just like having a tow vehicle you can cart stuff around in. I don't like driving it, and much prefer my SUV, which doesn't tow but works great for carting stuff around in. We all keep track of who owns a trailer around here who will loan it to us to haul anything really big.
Williamson's piece ends on a nice note, though, which I thought I'd quote here:
Our politics is less and less about using the clumsy machinery of the state to try to mitigate the effects of this or that problem, and more and more about what kind of people we are, what kind of people we aspire to be, and — not least, never least — what kind of people we hate: effete Santa Monica liberals who don’t know where their food comes from, small-minded prairie bigots who shop at Walmart and have never visited Europe. We have a keen understanding for the vices of those who are unlike us. Their virtues, less so.
But the farmers and the bankers need each other. It is a big country, and there is room for both. A few years ago, there was a controversial Republican political figure who spoke to this under rather more intense circumstances: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”
The election of 2016 was divisive, to be sure. It wasn’t Appomattox. The Real America has been through worse.
What kind of bankers do small family farmers need, I wonder? They need credit, to be sure.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of trucks, by the way, I've had several haul-capable SUVs that did everything I'd usually want a pickup truck to do. My current one is 20 years old, though.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize Molly Ivins was reared in River Oaks, the rich-rich section of Houston. Puts a different perspective on her schtick. It becomes one of looking down on the proles. Surprise, surprise.
ReplyDeleteHere's a good recap of the truck brouhaha: http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/04/watch-bunch-journalists-freak-asked-know-anybody-drives-truck/
ReplyDeleteThe flaw in Williamson's column is the idea that the folks in Lubbock aren't exposed to Urban elite culture, just as Manhattanites aren't exposed to rural culture. This is demonstrably false. If you watch TV, or listen to the radio, or read magazines and are exposed to the ads, they inundate you with Urban Elite culture. You can't hardly be insulated from it, but you can live in Manhattan and not only not know anyone with a pickup, but not know anyone (that you haven't hired) who isn't a whole lot like you. I live in the bubble- people like me who think differently mostly keep their heads down and mind their own business, so we're not taken notice of. I may have mentioned a recent incident at my daughters elementary school where at a meeting of parents several people got up and literally spoke about how it was great that 'at least we're all progressive here'. I finally had to take a turn and mention in my comments that 'we have more diversity than you think, I'm not a progressive', just to maintain sanity, and because I've decided it's important to not be so hidden. That's how in the bubble they are. The ones who do know someone with a pickup grew up somewhere else, or rose from a more humble background, and by and large are happy to have left it behind. Sure, there's some of that in the other direction, but it's not at all balanced.
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