I live in a fairly wealthy area of a very rural Maryland county. Most nearby properties are five acres or more--or they are 200-acre farms. My next door neighbor is a retired guy in his late 40s, very helpful and friendly. He used to have a union job but now has a lot of money; I don't know how. We regularly chat about things like tractors, but never before about politics. I like him.
Recently a McCain sign sprouted on his lawn, so I immediately retaliated with an Obama sign on my lawn.
Today I ran into him while driving to work, and we spoke for about 20 minutes. To me the conversation crystallizes much of what we Democrats are up against.
My neighbor is a decent, honest, Christian family guy. He just doesn't know much at all about politics and government, beyond fleeting soundbites picked up on Fox News while channel surfing. Our local newspaper has no national news at all beyond a handful of AP feeds.
Disclaimer: I may well leap to some conclusions here. Perhaps this is not all entirely fair. But I've known this guy for several years, and I have decades of professional experience with evaluating people. And my intuition is usually pretty good, though far from perfect.
So I asked him what he thought about the big crisis yesterday with the bailout bill failing. He knew something had happened, but he didn't have a clue what it was. He said several times that everybody in Congress is a crook and we should throw them all out. I told him I generally agreed with that. Then he said: Oh I remember, I heard there was an important law that needed to be passed, but that Pelousi? Pay-losy (I said, you mean Pelosi?) he said Yeah--I heard she blew things up. He doesn't really understand who she is, or what the Speaker is, but he knows she is BAD.
I kid you not. That's all he knew about it! The junkies here all know that Nancy Pelosi gave a very nice, restrained speech long before it was her prerogative to do; that nine Republicans spoke after her and not a one said anything about her; that several prominent Republicans said her speech had no impact at all on the Republican caucus. Nonetheless, after the disaster, Boehner told a whopper, Fox reported it, and my neighbor believes it and repeats it. Behold the terrible Wurlitzer of Doom. (Haven't seen the term Wurlitzer here in a long time...used to be a staple.)
I was trying to explain lots of what was going on to my neighbor, without being critical or condescending. That's not much of a challenge, since I really do like the guy. He regularly goes way out of his way to help me and my family. One day in 98 degree weather he crawled on his belly and almost broke his arm fixing my tractor, something I could never do. So I'm always going to give him triple benefit of the doubt.
At this point, he looked down sheepishly and said something like, You know, I'm sorry about the sign--my kids said I should put up a sign! I said, Oh that's okay, it's a free country--but my guy Obama is better--and I explained a bit. He said, Well, you know, I can't stand that creepy McCain myself. "I really don't like him at all."
"But," looking down and sheepish, he said "you know, I just can't see voting for babykillers."
Huh! Well, I explained to him that I'm a Catholic, that I'm pro-life, although I also think a woman ought to have the right to make her own decision about abortion, that I think the Democratic Party really does more for supporting life, that there are always more abortions during Republican than Democratic administrations, etc. I was kind of soft and patient and not very intense about it. Maybe it planted a little seed. But I suspect not. The Republicans have brainwashed so many people so completely on that issue!
So how did he respond? He said: Well, you know, I also like the fact that Republicans lower taxes. Then he added: I used to be a Democrat, back when I was poor. "I guess if I ever get poor again, I'll go back to being a Democrat, so I can get some handouts."
He said this in a jocular way, the way you'd talk with your buddies over a football game. No malice. No hatred of Democrats. No hatred at all.
I had had enough of that, and was late to work, so I switched the conversation briefly to manly things like trucks and construction projects, and then went on my way.
So what is my take on this? Note that while this diary expresses only maybe 10 percent of what I said, it expresses nearly all of what my neighbor said about politics and government. (He is a rather taciturn guy. I do most of the talking. But that's just the natural balance between the two of us. He never interrupts, and when I stop, he often just stays silent for awhile. It's a working relationship that I'm pretty sure doesn't grate on either of us. And of course, it's a nightmare if you don't get along with your next-door neighbor!)
Here's my take:
- He is basically content with his life, so he's content to operate with almost zero information about politics and government. He thinks it is all corrupt and removed from him. I think he thinks the government mainly operates to punish him by exacting taxes. (But he's not stupid. If pressed, I'm sure he understands very well that you need taxes for roads and schools and so forth.)
- His key political concern is a self-centered, even greedy, concern for money. I think taxes is the core idea. (My view of this is cemented by his volunteered notion that if he were poor again, he'd switch parties again, so he could get some "handouts." What is that, by the way? I've never gotten any "handouts." Where can I get some?)
He also (this occurs to me on edit) said a few things indicating that he hates that everything operates in secret and that he feels powerless about government. Obviously I need to have more discussions with him. Applying the Golden Rule, I guess I should assume he's not as shallow as I'm picturing him. Or maybe not.
- The FIRST thing he said about politics (after a generalized expression of throw all the bums out) was to express a concern about "babykilling." But my own take on that is that this is not genuinely a central, deep-felt concern, although I have no doubt that it is a sincere concern.
- In short, I suspect that low-info Republicans like my neighbor (and I have some relatives like this as well) use the abortion issue as a way to cloak with an ostensible noble motive what is actually an internal focus on entirely selfish, and primarily monetary, concerns.
- How can we break that construct?
This is my first diary since 2004. I realize these ideas are rather prosaic and have been expressed many times in better ways by better minds. But I thought today's conversation had a kind of iconic purity about it, at the height of this drama over the election and the fiscal "crisis." So I hope some of you might find it interesting.
Now I need to go find out how to get a 6-ft x 10-ft (I'm not exaggerating) Obama yard sign to retaliate against the jerk who put up such a McCain sign right across the street from my office building.