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A short thread about cultural resentment. I am old enough to remember when rural and small-town people were considered virtuous upright upright, and city dwellers were considered diseased bags of walking sin. /1
There was a reason for this: the cities were a collapsing mess, and “real America“ judged the people who lived in them. Especially if they were black or some other shade of non-white, but also plenty of hate for the white pinko elites. /2
Ted Cruz talking about “New York values“ was an attempt to do that kind of nostalgic throwback. But everyone was in on it. Even Billy Joel sang songs about the dead future of sinking Manhattan out at sea. /3
In New York, corporations advertised that they were leaving the city and that not being located in New York made them a better place to work. On billboards. In New York. /4
People forget that movies like “the Warriors “ and “Escape from New York” were a pretty standard cultural depiction of a big city like New York. I could name others. (Robocop.) City dwellers took it on the chin. /5
But Donald Trump loses an election and Real America loses its shit, talking about how much everybody hates them and how no one respects them and how we all have to sit around in diners asking them why they hate everyone else so much./6
So here’s an idea. No place is perfect. Few of us live exactly where we want to be. If you like where you live, great. If you don’t, that can’t be helped. But endless comparisons to rich people in penthouses is stupid. /7
Small-town America once didn’t give a shit about the cities. Understandably. Maybe it would be good if they went back to that and focused on the things that happen around them, instead of things that happen clear across the country. /8
Someplace in America is always on the upswing and someplace is always on the decline. In 1975 the cities were on the rocks. Today it’s the small towns. That is not a massive failure of government, no matter what pandering right wingers try to tell us. /9x
