A demographer friend of mine, Miriam Powell, pointed out to me recently that I am a member of the American Gentry. Also, that when I cross the border into Canada I become a member of the Canadian Gentry. Then Miriam recommended this Substack essay by Patrick Wyman to introduce me to the American Gentry.
But very few of my classmates really belonged to the area’s elite. It wasn’t a city of international oligarchs, but one dominated by its wealthy, largely agricultural property-owning class. They mostly owned, and still own, fruit companies: apples, cherries, peaches, and now hops and wine-grapes. The other large-scale industries in the region, particularly commercial construction, revolve at a fundamental level around agriculture: They pave the roads on which fruits and vegetables are transported to transshipment points, build the warehouses where the produce is stored, and so on.
The first few times I read Mr. Wyman’s American Gentry: Local Power and Social Order I wanted to throw hub caps at him. It seemed unfair to me. While I fit the demographic profile of American Gentry I didn’t behave like the people he describes. I took it as an inaccurate personal attack.
In time, I had to admit that I have seen all of these bad behaviors in members of my social class. Hell, I can add to Mr. Wyman’s database. The American Gentry love power boats, big powerboats. These boats are the miniature version of the Russian Oligarchs yachts, and sometimes not so miniature.
They particularly love these boats when they are parading up and down lakes, their boats covered in Trump signs, and their companions are fashionably attired in tiny bikinis apparently made from the American Flag. It is essential for the true peak experience that everyone on the boat be hammered and behaving badly. Swamping other small boats is mandatory for having a good day at the parade.
You may have deduced that I don’t like power boats. Accurately, I hate them. I don’t own one and never would. I prefer my kayaks and wind powered Laser Class sailboats. I did once contemplate mounting a small cannon on the bow of my sea kayak so I could patrol local lakes sinking the wake generating powerboat yahoos. But physics got in the way.
I don’t think I have ever mentioned here my mad love affair with ancient weapons. I first learned to make cannons in metalwork classes in Grade Eight. Apparently we weren’t supposed to make small cannon balls and actually fire them from the cannons we had made. I admit I did take a big chunk out of the cement block wall I used as a target. I got an A on that project and a D for behavior along with a stern warning. It could have come from Senator Collins herself for all the good it did.
But much as I love cannons my favorite ancient weapon is a catapult. I blame it all on Monty Python. I swear Monty Python and the Holy Grail should have trigger warnings. I went right out and made myself both a catapult and a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
‘Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it. '
Oops, I see to have wandered off topic. I shall make an attempt to avoid the many weird and strange ideas bouncing around my head and return to my subject, the American Gentry.
My point is that it is easy to see the American Gentry at play and assume we are inconsequential. But it is a serious mistake. Returning to Mr. Wyman’s essay,
When we talk about inequality, we skew our perspective by looking at the most visible manifestations: penthouses in New York, mansions in Beverly Hills, the excesses of hedge fund billionaires or a misbehaving celebrity. But that’s not who most of the United States’ wealthy elite really are. They own $2 million houses on golf courses outside Orlando and a condo in the Bahamas, not an architecturally designed oceanfront villa in Miami. It’s not that those billionaires and excesses don’t exist; it’s that they’re not nearly as common as a less exalted kind of wealth that’s no less structurally formative to our economy and society.
There are an enormous number of organizations and institutions dedicated to advancing the interests of this gentry class: Chambers of Commerce, exclusive country clubs and housing developments, the American Society of Concrete Contractors, and fruit-growers’ associations, just to name a small cross-section. Through these organizations and their intimate ties to local and state politics, the gentry class can and usually does wield significant power to shape society to their liking.
I should say for the record, I don’t own any $2,000,000 houses on golf courses in Orlando nor a condo in the Bahamas. I don’t want you to feel bad for me, I wouldn’t even if I had the money. Which I don’t.
I do have a house on the beach in Senegal. Though you have to be pretty generous in your definitions of house and beach, or be a real estate agent. I think less imaginative souls would call it a tin roofed shack on a rocky promontory. It was a gift from a group of small local companies and the local University for helping them develop a solar project.
But I am wandering again. I want to explore the definition of American Gentry.
First, your wealth must be land based and local.
I own farm land and ranch land. I also own local businesses including a Seed Cleaning Plant, a Farm Implement Dealership, several Commercial and Industrial buildings and a number of undeveloped Commercial Lots. Well, the Farm Trust I founded and still control owns these assets.
Second, you have to be a community leader.
I am on the Board of the local library, the local recreation centre, the local hospital, and the local Chamber of Commerce. These are all common Gentry type roles. I also am the head of the local Marxist-Leninist society. Hey, nobody is perfect.
That is the definition in its entirety. Now what do you get as a member of the American Gentry? Political power, large amounts of political power.
This is the American class that most identifies with Donald Trump. The American Gentry have a very simple way of thinking about America. If something is good for them it has to be good for America.
We American Gentry worship tax breaks. We generate the wealth, earning every drop of it with our blood, sweat and tears. Why should we give a dime to the government? They should be giving us handouts otherwise what good are they? I mean we have kids in Harvard for fuck sake and the wife is bugging us to get a bigger yacht and a fancier place in Florida. The government owes us for all the jobs we create.
We can’t afford to pay our workers a living wage. If it wasn’t so expensive we’d replace them with robots. Blood sucking leeches that is what workers are. They should be glad just to have a job. How do they expect to get ahead in America if they don’t fucking speak American?
Bottom line, these are all things I have actually heard my rich neighbors say in the last few years. And they mean every word of it. Want to know something? They all inherited their land and usually their local businesses as well. They are the epitome of unearned white privilege.
Guess what else? You never see them reflected anywhere in American culture. You get shows like Yellowstone. The tough as hell, self made asshole patriarch and his vicious, wicked smart children desperately trying to impress him and screw each other.
You never see the doughy patriarch who always packs his viagra in his holster before hopping on his trusty golf cart. You never see the doughy patriarch’s children managing the family business into the ground. Nor their trips on hunting safaris where the hunting guides have to actually shoot the trophy animal for them. If America saw the reality of the American Gentry they’d realize that they are all just Trump mini-mes.
I was appalled to discover I am a member of their social class. I am still appalled. But I am also curious why Americans seem to know so little about one of the most powerful classes in America.