Hatred in the Heartland

It’s really a black and white matter… er… maybe brown too. And it’s part of the big unresolved issue left over from our Civil War in the middle of the 19^th century. White traditionalists with strong rural values – heavily laced with the religiosity of farmers dependent on the Lord’s largesse in weather and pest-avoidance – against regions with ethnically diverse and strong trading/manufacturing urban values. With open sores rubbed with alcohol and salt from the recent executive action on immigration reform, the rural heartland, powered by a lethargic urban turnout and a GOP triumph in the mid-term election, is furious and bent on crushing that surge of urban values. And despite the fact that we are a nation of immigrants, the modern line of acceptability to many is defined by a single word: white.

The conservative right is suing the president, threatening impeachment again, vowing to curtail not just his open challenge to the Republican House (and soon-to-be Congress) on immigration but the reaches of the GOP-despised Affordable Care Act as well. Tea Party stalwarts are mustering support to shut down the government in a blaze of resistance as the new Congress takes over. Time to reverse it all and get our way, sounds the chorus, and if we have to stop government in its tracks, default on national debt payments to do it, so what?!

White traditional power, based on unwavering fundamentalist Christian values, defines what it means to be an American, they cry, and we’ve got Congress and the vast majority of state legislatures and governors on our side. Gerrymandered districts in much of the South and Southwest, not even remotely subject to challenge until – perhaps and a big maybe since state legislatures still drawn the lines – well after the 2020 census results, have insured that urbanites and ethnic minorities (together the vast majority of voters) will remain marginalized and subjugated to that rural minority of traditionalists.

To these traditionalists, it is a matter of their very survival. Many incorrectly believe that the Second Amendment even gives them the right to bear arms against any threats to this assumption. Ugliness is compounding, anger is growing and democracy is dying in this explosive mix. And thus it is interesting to look at one of those extremely “white, rural, traditional” states, Alabama, to understand the depth of the hatred and fear.

Let’s start with a statute that was passed three years ago. “When it was signed in 2011, Alabama's immigration law was considered the toughest in the country. It made it a crime for businesses to hire undocumented immigrants, required legal immigrants to carry documentation with them at all times and even had a ‘show me your papers’ provision, which allowed police to detain people during traffic stops for the purpose of checking their citizenship status.

“Not surprisingly, those measures, along with several others in the law, were met with anger by people not only in Alabama, but throughout the country. Legal challenges immediately followed, with the most powerful one coming from the Justice Department [arguing violations of the U.S. Constitution, including that such matters were relegated to the federal government and not states]. Now, after two years of negotiations, a federal district judge has upheld a settlement that was reached by federal authorities and the state that strikes down most of the law.” ImmigrationDirect.com. Latinos have been a part of small town life all over the Deep South for quite a while now, but resentment at their presence continually boils over.

The law’s intention was crudely obvious: “The goal, a sponsor said at the time, was to ‘make their lives difficult and they will deport themselves.’ In Albertville, [Alabama, for example,] many Latino families vanished… But the federal courts eventually rolled back many aspects of the law, and soon the immigrants were back, it seemed, in full force…” New York Times, November 21^st.

And equally not surprisingly, small town Alabama reacted strongly negatively at President Obama’s recent executive action: “[M]any whites said they felt stung by what they see as an audacious and unconstitutional move by a president that they never much cared for in the first place. Some worried that the action would trigger a new wave of illegal immigrants…  Joey Hartline, a local [Albertville] contractor, called Mr. Obama’s action an act of ‘domestic terrorism.’… ‘He needs to be arrested and tried for treason,’ he said.” NY Times. While Mr. Hartline’s extreme statement doesn’t represent all of Alabama, his sentiments seem to reflect an overwhelming consensus of that state’s majority of conservative voters.

Indeed, if this fundamental schism that has not been resolved in the roughly 150 years since our Civil War ended is as great an emotional a divide as it as it has ever been, what chance does the United States have of holding together in the longer term? Whether it is the next Census or the one beyond that, sooner or later the gerrymandering that holds that white traditional values in power will erode and vaporize. Urban values and non-White “minorities” will inevitably control most state houses as well as Congress.

Given the seething emotion in rural communities – even cities in the South and Southwest that live by rural values – is there any way such traditionalists would remotely tolerate being relegated to out-voted conservative minority status? And as we look to severe challenges out in the international community – from the Islamic State to a malevolent and expansionist Russia – are they more serious threats to our national security than the big threat that looms within our own internal clash of values?

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we do not soon rally together and redefine what it means to be an American, that beautiful nation we cherish will perish into the lost memories of history.