The Rejection of Authority and Government

[GloomCookie]

Small town America is under threat because most industries that used to prop up small towns like papermills, logging, mining, etc. have become scarce. Raw resources can be mined almost anywhere on earth for a lot less than an American worker even with power equipment making them many times more efficient. I know, I've grown up in one of these small towns, trying desperately to find work when the few jobs out there are being taken by an aging population holding on because they can't afford to move elsewhere, which means younger generations must move. This leads to a downward spiral as the only way to get new talent into these far flung places is to offer them incredibly high bonuses and incentives, and the second the job doesn't pan out, they're gone too.

These are the places where ultra far-right ideas take hold and fester. You get Billy Bob, who spent the past 2 decades working in a place where he made decent money, not a lot but enough to survive, and it's been him and his buddies for that entire time. His kids moved off for college and come home with these crazy ideas (at least to him) and he doesn't understand, and next thing he knows one of these college-aged punks shows up with bright pink and green hair and starts talking about new ideas and changes, and suddenly he's in trouble for "Not being sensitive" when he made fun of her hair once in confidence.

Not saying our fictional person here is right or wrong, just that when you have ultra-conservative people introduced to new ideas they don't like and they're the ones being punished, they tend to dig in their heels and resist change. That in turn makes them fall for people like Tucker Carlson who says "Look what these pink-haired morons did trying to sell us out to China and Russia!" Now, Billy Bob believes in the American dream, he respects the flag, but he's also heard where Jethro had his firearms taken away (doesn't matter it was because he'd beaten his wife while drunk), so now he's wary of cops and doesn't want to cooperate. He isn't hurting anyone, why are they harassing him about having a beer or two?

These are people who want things to remain the same, and it's easy to point at someone from the outside and say "They're here to mess up your life." Whether it's the annual Fox "Attack on Christmas" or painting China as being the big evil for both taking their jobs and being Communist, they're being told that some of the changes around them are the result of evil people and they shouldn't have to put up with it.

[Zaer Darkwail]

Indeed, add that somehow Billy Bob gets access to the internet (by cellphone bought by his kid), then via the internet meets other people who live far away but in a similar situation; a dying small town Billy Bob2. Thus they connect with each other through similar life experiences and likely similar values and also dislike new ideas and pink-haired goths. So thus further reinforcing their both's ideas and opinions even further.

Not to mention the scale and speed how much technological and even social development of new ideas emerge rapidly in the past decade alone.

The situation is very sad for small towns and folks living there (the aging population). There is no immediate cure or solution to it besides just wait for the old generation to die out and then those towns become abandoned unless people who can work remotely move up there because they dislike the hectic and noisy big city lifestyle (and as folks move in, then need for services once more emerges).

[Fox Lokison]

Agreed on all fronts. The really sad thing is, those who do accurately identify the problem - their government is letting their local economy collapse and outsourcing those jobs - are decried as conspiracy theorists because the way they talk about it is influenced by the news they watch.

I've been one of those factory workers, in Missouri, and it was a good wage, enough to provide for me and my partner if we wanted. I spent a lot of time rubbing elbows with folks who thought NH was a stone's throw from NYC and that I was a big city liberal, and who had no idea that the situation is the same up north - the tone we talk about it with is just bluer. I'm a lot further left than liberal and they're a lot further right than Republican, and we still all had the same issue and the same problem. We just want to provide for our families, and no matter what we do, we can't.

So that disconnect between people is also widening simply because the language used. Which only heightens tensions and make people quicker to leap to "fuck you", be it with one another or with their government, because they feel doubly unheard. Billy Bob thinks his kid is ridiculous for caring about gender and pronouns and race and stuff like that when he should be caring about money and a house and a family - meanwhile kiddo's thinking about both, and being crushed under it, and the two just jab at each other, only to vent their rage elsewhere when the government yet again makes what they think is an unreasonable demand. Except Billy Bob thinks raised taxes are unreasonable, and his kid thinks police injustice is, and the fight starts over again.

Everyone's getting reinforced to sink further into their own beliefs, and not hearing one another. I do strongly feel that if we heard one another, worked together, and organized, there'd be change, but divisions like these lead to pockets of strife and outbursts towards authority, not a united front of "we need this".

[Zaer Darkwail]

There is a detailed analysis on millennials on youtube which I watched a couple of weeks ago, that how millennials are the generation that gets lots kicked about 'ruining the economy' or whatnot when the matter is more to blame the older generation who still had influence over the economy before millennials were even able to do anything. Because results of the economy have led to point that modern kids cannot even dream of getting a house and family and this leads to a drop in birth rates because people do not marry and form families (just for the simple reasons because they cannot afford it financially). Also, the older generation clings tighter to jobs than yielding them to young folks because they run into the same financial and economic problems as young folks do and want to work longer until retirement.

It may not appear directly related to the rejection of authority but it relates in the sense people suffer tightly on the economic scale and if the government does anything which threatens people's finances, their opinions rapidly become anti-government-minded pretty fast. More so as young people suffer the worst because the older generation had the 'golden years' while the younger generation is still waiting for theirs to even start at all. Because the older generation holds the reins it forms resentment by the younger generation towards the government as well just that alone.

Because the older generation is more wealthy, it holds more power and thus influences the government to care for what they view as important and ignore the problems of the youth in favor of their problems. So there is some generation vs generation problems.

[Oniya]

I spotted a headline today that - in conjunction with one I'd remembered earlier - kind of highlights the horseshoe effect.

(It took a couple tries to get the search results to line up for a convenient photo)



Business Insider article
Yahoo article

I suspect that the truth is more along the lines of 'I can get a profitable real-estate deal out of this, or scam some cash off of people like I did with that whole wall thing.'