He would rather die

Give a man somebody to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you. Maybe even die for you.

The first is a paraphrase of a sentence attributed to President Lyndon Johnson. The second will make sense below.

I had written that during my August travels and debates with Niece she said we should listen to what conservative voters are saying and understand their values. Author Jonathan Metzl has done that and written the book, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland. Ian Reifowitz reviewed the book for Daily Kos and I’m quoting Reifowitz below.

One of the people Metzl talked to was Trevor, a 41 year old white man in Tennessee. At the time Trevor was dying of liver disease. His state had rejected Medicaid expansion. If Medicaid had been available it might have saved Trevor’s life.

But Trevor wouldn’t have accepted it. He “would rather die” than “support Obamacare or sign up for it.” Why? “We don’t need any more government in our lives,” Trevor answered, before fleshing out his response and fully revealing his thinking: “And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens.” And there you have the argument of this book in a nutshell. As the author, a physician with a Ph.D. in American Studies who currently serves as the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, puts it, “Trevor voiced a literal willingness to die for his place in [the racial] hierarchy, rather than participate in a system that might put him on the same plane as immigrants or racial minorities.”

Such is the strength of supremacy.

Now note the dynamic here. The GOP has stoked racism so that people like Trevor will vote for them. Then the GOP enacts policies that make Trevor’s life worse or, in this case, end it. All the GOP cares about Trevor is his vote. They are working on their own supremacy goals of showing they are better than Trevor.

Metzl shows how GOP policies in three states – Kansas, Missouri, and Tennessee – “gave certain white populations the sensation of winning, particularly by upending the gains of minorities and liberals.” But those “victories came at a steep cost” – cuts to health care, gutting of infrastructure and education, allowing greater environmental damage, and enacting pro-gun-rights policies. Reifowitz (or maybe Metzl) don’t mention other damaging GOP goals – union busting, privatizing services, and encouraging predatory capitalism, among many others.

Yes, these GOP policies significantly affected minorities. The policies also significantly affected lower- and middle-class whites. They’re dying of whiteness. Metzl acknowledges how devastating racism is for people of color and that white people do have advantages in a society structured around racism.

I add that it is the desire maintain those advantages – proof that white lives are better and they’re higher on the social hierarchy – that allow the GOP to oppress – and indirectly kill – middle-class whites.

Reifowitz wrote:

Above all, Metzl has made it impossible for anyone who reads his book to deny that the public policies supported by white conservatives—which are thoroughly suffused with racial resentment and a desire to maintain white supremacy—cause direct harm to all but the most well-off whites. Whether that information helps change large numbers of minds about either the wisdom of their beliefs about white supremacy or their voting habits remains an open question.

Even the GOP can take it too far. In 2018 Kansas elected Laura Kelly, a Democrat, for governor in specific rejection of the policies of her GOP predecessor Sam Brownback. Perhaps a bit of hope.