A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

21 November 2015

Is a neighbor in need a moral failure indeed?

A lot of white working class voters think so, report David Atkins at the Washington Monthly and Alex McGillis at the New York Times. Says McGillis:

In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.

As I noted yesterday, these Republican voting working class whites are much more conservative on social issues than urban Democrats, but that’s only part of the story. Atkins says they also have religious convictions that leave them with little or no compassion for the less fortunate a weakness and a failure to obey God’s will:

Democrats don’t really have a good answer for this problem … if voters are willing to give away tax breaks to Wall Street while intentionally voting for policies that will throw their friends and neighbors into the street and deny them lifesaving medical care, there’s not much you can do.

These mostly suburban and rural communities are infused with a Calvinist ethic that attributes success to moral virtue and failure to moral weakness. The cultural and psychological pull of that doctrine is incredibly powerful and buoyed by hucksters preaching the prosperity gospel that God will make you rich if you are faithful enough and want it badly enough. This toxic stew creates an instinct to push down the person below them rather than up against the person above them, and transcends simple racism and cultural resentment at this point.

A lot of this applies to Montana as well as Kentucky. Montana’s Democrats are found mostly in urban clusters and on Indian reservations. Outside their socially liberal enclaves, they find it exceeding difficult to earn the trust, respect, and agreement, of working class whites who have far more to gain from Democratic than Republican policies.