Thinking Bigger, Longer Term

With Empathy, Attempting to Understand

So many of us have bemoaned the fact that our nation has shifted from being one of “we” to one of “me”. We are all guilty of “meism” at some point. But sometimes we can recognize that and consider the “other” point of view. There was a time when churches, temples and mosques would ask us to love everyone. The core message was about embracing the stranger, feeding the hungry, helping the needy. It was a message of community and inclusiveness.

What happened to “Everyone is welcome at our table.” ?

The following is a short story. Not actual people. It’s a fiction but depicts actual life circumstances. It’s a portrait of a family not living the “American Dream”. Their lives had begun with hope and the simple aspirations of living a “good life” raising their kids with friends nearby. Their “Dream” has evaporated.

I think the story explains, to some degree, why there are Two Americas now. There have always been cultural divides. But this is a chasm too wide.

Random picture - not “Jack”

There is a late middle aged guy in a state like Missouri. Jack doesn’t know me, but he hates me. He despises “liberal elites” and “progressives”. He lives in a “Christian” ecosphere. If he knew that I thought his religion was fantasy and that I see him swimming in unadulterated bigotry, he would hate me even more thoroughly. I am the essence of evil.

Jack’s life has been one of hard work. He had expected to retire from the same plant his father and brother had been at for decades. He is proud of the home he has maintained so well. He even added a family room with his own hands. His bosses had liked his work ethic and made him a foreman. A little more money and some pride when he came home to tell his family. He has two nights with the guys. A card game and bowling.

Random picture - could be a “Jean”

Jack’s wife works two jobs. Jean is an office manager at a local insurance agency. They love her because she holds the place together, smoothing over difficulties with customers. But the pay is modest - just like Jacks. The kids will be going to college soon (they hope), utility bills are higher and higher. Food prices are upsetting to say the least. So Jean also works evenings at a “nice” restaurant where her people skills are rewarded with good tips. It’s exhausting, but just like at the agency, she is well liked and appreciated.

Jean is helping to close the restaurant, serving the last customers. One of them casually says: “Too bad about the plant…” Jean says: “What are you talking about?” The customer says: “The place is shutting down. Over the next three months. Completely. All production is moving to Mexico.”

About 50% of the population of this town work in the plant or in smaller job shops that supply the plant with what it needs to operate. The ripple effect of the closing is actually a tsunami. A town drowns. The insurance agency closes. The restaurant closes.

Jack and Jean have always been proud of paying their bills on time. But now that their incomes have been decimated, that becomes impossible. And it is worse than that.

House from my imagination

They purchased their modest home in 2005. Because of the Housing Crisis leading to the Great Recession, its value is nowhere near the purchase price. They owe way more than the assessed or appraised value. And now that the town is dying, they couldn’t sell the property if they wanted to. Jack and Jean read how the big banks and insurance companies were bailed out to “save the economy” - but little help was provided to them or their neighbors. To describe their situation as desperate is to understate it dramatically.

But that’s just the beginning. Of Hell on Earth. Jean has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Oddly, several other women in town of her age, have also been told the same. Their town is apparently a hot spot for cancer. But that’s a story for another day.

Jacks health insurance can be extended through a program called COBRA. But the premiums are out of reach and it has an end date. The only way Jeans surgery, chemo, radiation and 10 years of hormone blocking drugs can be paid for is through Medicaid.

Medicaid is administered by the states. About 70% of the funding comes from the Federal government - in part because of the Affordable Care Act. Jack and Jean’s representatives in Congress are about to vote for a reduction in Medicaid to the tune of several hundred billion dollars. Because it’s viewed as “socialism”.

---

Jack and Jean have three children.

Not Ian

Ian, the oldest at 17 has just returned from rehab. He has been on this journey of addiction twice before. First it was alcohol, then pills like oxy. He had taken them for a football injury. The knee pain had been excruciating. When the doc shut down his supply, it was easy to find something on the street. This time, it had been some new drug they had never heard of. Ian stopped talking to them years ago. Jack and Jean are discouraged beyond words. They fear they have lost him.

Not Jen

Jen, their middle child, is 14. She hangs with older kids. They all have enormous tattoos and listen to music their parents hate. She refuses to go to church and uses words they have never heard of. Jen won’t listen to Jean when she tries to caution about unprotected sex. Now Jen says she hopes to tattoo most of her body.
Jack and Jean are terrified.

Not Kal

Kal is the youngest at 10. He is super bright. His teachers consider him to be exceptional at math and he is very interested in science. He has been trying to explain climate change and the interconnectedness of all species to his folks. Their eyes glaze over as he launches one of his “lectures”. Kal also thinks he was supposed to be a girl. Jean had had tried to ignore the fact that Kal would slip into Jen’s clothes and play with her discarded collection of Barbies.
Jean turns to Jack:
“What are they teaching these kids in school?! This is not our fault!”

Jack isn’t particularly religious. But he doesn't like to argue with Jean. She insists they go to church each Sunday. Originally, all three kids would come along. Kal is the only one who attends now. But he is getting confused by the preacher who had taught them about loving thy neighbor. Lately, the minister at the “New Life” church has been ranting about the changes in society and how their children are being programmed in school to question “God’s ways”. He tells the community that they need saving from the new influences of social media and warns that the schools are now infested with “DEI” which he calls the Devils Evil Insanity. Kal is losing interest.

Jack and Jean are worried that Jen and Kal are turning into something they don’t understand. They may not be able to “save” Ian in the long run. But Jean’s “faith” says all this must be stopped.

---

Hot bed of “socialism”

Jack and Jean hate me and what I stand for. But my wife and I - and everyone I know in our bright blue socially liberal state - want Jack and Jean to be treated with “Kindness and Fairness”. Some would call that a “religious” attitude (old school). I call it compassion and empathy and the Golden Rule in practice.

I think that if that plant was to be shut down, there should have been a public/private project to retrain Jack for other work and money to relocate if that made sense. We think Jean shouldn’t have to think about the cost of her cancer treatment. We think they have been betrayed by the Oligarchs that control businesses with no thought to the welfare of their employees.

We think they have been betrayed by the Oligarchs that influenced politicians to abandon them. We think “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” doesn’t work very well if you have no boots.

Regardless of our religious beliefs or lack thereof, we “Blue Staters” want our fellow Americans to have a safety net and a way to prosper. We think of our nation as a place for “We” to thrive. How do we convince “Jack and Jean” that we are all in the same big boat? How do we bridge this gap?

My brilliant wife sent me this short fascinating article. It lays out the great divide between us. We need a break through. Democrats need to find a path to Missouri and beyond.

“Even if everybody in Washington simply vanished, we would still have the same problem because the underlying cause of it, which is partly growing social isolation and partly a class gap about social isolation,” Putnam said, adding that less educated Americans were becoming especially separated.

“That’s why Trump won, and unless we fix it, we’re going to get more and more Trumps forever,” he said.

“Now is probably the most polarized political period in American history, with a possible exception of one five year period that you will have heard of between 1860 and 1865,” he added. “That’s the Civil War.”

Read the whole piece here.

Post Script:
One of the most powerful and eloquent voices on the Substack platform is from Missouri. Jess Piper is a blue dot in a red world. She is making difference. Maybe she has some of the answers we are seeking. And she is a terrific writer.
https://jesspiper.substack.com/