Why They Hate Government

The Trump era brought in the first president that represents the libertarian voters. (Though Reagan certainly started it.) All the talk of ”too much regulation” is aimed at these haters of the ”nanny state.”

The so called white working class has come to respect authority, people you meet face to face. Government leaders to them are just doing ”useless unproductive work.”

We have not come that far from our hunter gatherer days. In those times there were small tribes. There was a pecking order among the males, whereas experience probably ranked the women from leader to follower and novice. The elders were needed in things like childbirth. The men had to adjust to their role in the tribe. There may have been a leader you had to submit to, but the rest of the men of your generation were of equal standing. Some took roles as specialist: tool maker, shaman. If you had no special skills, strength mattered.

In today’s world all that breaks down. You take orders from your boss. Your community has leaders you may know somewhat. You vote based on how you want local taxes spent. Above that level things become less meaningful for the average person.

The concept of a national government in a country of 300 million leads to distrust of this government far away. All interactions with no personal touch are alien to our tribal heritage.

The libertarian is angered by dealing with faceless bureaucrats at any level. He starts thinking everything can be handled by the private sector, supply and demand!

In today’s high tech world the private sector gets doctors, engineers and scientists trained by partly tax money. There is no going back. even the science and technology is pushed ahead by government involvement. Either as basic research of funding. 

There are of course people that know full well how all this works, but in public express the same views as Trump voters. They are able to personally profit from things the government does. (An example of this is weather forecasting, Accuweather as a business).

Me too election

Nebraska has a woman, Jane Raybould, running for the US SENATE against another woman, a would be rancher who is actually a previous resident of the same city, Lincoln. Omaha, Kansas City and other urban areas throughout the great plains have a record number of women running for state and city level offices.

There was a lot of activity in 2017 already, but this has lead to more concrete involvement in 2018, an election year. Trump will lose a lot of support. Kavanaugh and Trump himself have drawn enough attention to themselves, so this will also be a #metoo election. Women's rights, including reproductive rights (at stake with Kavanaugh appointment) will be more strongly supported than the traditional GOP "Jesus guns and babies" that we hear from the prairie.

Trump himself is in a bit of trouble, as there is no judicial candidate after Kavanaugh that he can pick who is going to be the same level of supporter of presidential autocratic rule. "You can't charge a sitting president with a crime" is what Kavaunaugh thinking amounts to.

Draining the swamp and Trump followers

The 2016 election was about many things. The majority of the country were satisfied with more things, and even with Hillary as the establishment, Obama part 2. But the very vocal white working class thought things should change. In their minds they simply wanted jobs by whatever means. Unskilled labor was the part of the economy that was dragging and we got these guys.

The problem is that the actions Trump came up with are not helping the economy as a whole. There may be more jobs in coal mining areas (though most of it is not in mines, the Wyoming coal is just mostly scooped up). Steel jobs may have improved with Trump tariffs, but not the industries using that steel.

The problem we are facing is that these Trump voters are unwilling to change their lives in any way. The voters who voted Trump are going to be a key in elections in 2018 and 2020 no matter what happens to Trump. They will feel cheated if Trump is put aside and the party just continues some of his themes. The party never gave a damn about the white working class, they simply went along with all this just to get tax cuts for the wealthy class. Lobbyists also got something with the EPA essentially put on hold till Trump is gone.

The other part of draining the swamp, in the minds of the white working class, was to get rid of all the politicians established in DC for decades, the special interest groups guarding minorities. These things such as race and sexual minorities were not any part of Trump backers.

At this point we must point out that they are a minority. Working classes from 1900-1960 had a hard time moving up the ladder. They might move up to the middle class by becoming business owners. Education was not yet for the masses. For a while (1970s) even kids from working classes went to college and had a bit of success. The new white working class is a bit more of a failure. There is no interest, or perhaps the funds, to get a college education. Many just do not have the smarts for a college degree. But we cannot use this in politics, we cannot address them as losers.

Populism tends to run its course when the populace have had time to vent their frustrations and when things come to a halt as the result of presidential actions failing to meet everyday government tasks.

The Wall will not bring jobs for long, and it does not even solve the problem of illegals. There are millions already here. The tariffs Trump introduced will take a year or two to go to full effect. The rural voters will still not admit they made a mistake and that the Trump plan was a failure. "At least he tried, he was working for us!" they will claim.

There will maybe be one permanent effect: two more conservative judges. Draining the swamp will give Evangelicals something. Nobody else got anything. Well, corporations did. The Trump voter will have a hard time facing up to the fact that Trump stood with corporations every time against citizens. He in fact is mainly a corporation. Very little humanity in this man who is failing to connect with most of the country in a leader role. To but it bluntly, he is daily an asshole to most of us.

Recent book on Great Plains politics

The book by Peter J Longo is fair enough in covering the individuals that were selected. There is some criticism of Virginia Smith involving Reagan. She was a bit too gung ho about building dams. This worked in the Calamus reservoir, but when the people along the Niobrara were presented this idea, the power and irrigation produced was just too little compared to the loss of land. Instead, they went for federal protection and got a national scenic river. It took some convincing to push for some tourism on the river but soon enough all people in the are were on board. Virginia was not listening to the people well enough. On the matter of missiles in the extreme West end of Nebraska she did. Reagan had to put the missile silos on the Wyoming side.

There is even a mention of Nebraska pipeline protests in the conclusions. All in all it focuses on the positive aspects of politics here. I think that Senator Deb Fischer would not fit in the framework of the book. She has voted 100% with Trump, this just is not the way Nebraska people see things, such as the pipeline. Protecting land takes priority over right wing issues.

To generalize, republicans sought to bring food to those in need and other help to needy individuals in the state, as well as farm loans. Churches were employed in the Virginia Smith efforts to pass along food. All this was brought about with minimal government bureaucracy. That is, they want the money and they even want to help with surplus crops from time to time. But it all has to fit in with the "small government" thinking currently in vogue. Also, there is a self reliance at work, solving things entirely without the federal government, if possible.

Somewhat refreshing in the current hate filled Trump world.

The careers of Bob Dole and South Dakota's McGovern are discussed pretty much in terms of local politics. The presidential campaigns are not discussed.