The myth of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth American

Last Thursday Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had instituted a policy that any departmental expense greater than $100,000 required her approval. That meant FEMA could not do its usual pre-positioning of its Search and Rescue crews ahead of the central Texas floods. The floods happened on a Friday and Noem didn’t give her approval until the following Monday. A DHS tweet bragged that by Tuesday FEMA had deployed 311 staffers to help with state-led rescue efforts. On Thursday Noem was on “Fox & Friends” and declared CNN’s reporting of the delay was fake news. Abrahm Lustgarten, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the flooding and said things will get worse. The effects of global warming are just getting started. Each small increase in average temperature means a large increase in the amount of water the atmosphere can hold, leading to a large increase in the destructiveness of the storms when that water is released. Lustgarten wrote that President Lyndon Johnson was briefed about the coming climate crisis way back in 1965. Here we are ten presidents later still discussing the problem and doing very little about it. And the current guy in the Oval Office has revoked funding for data collection and research into what the climate is doing. Kos of Kos wrote another article on a topic I’ve written about a few times.

One of the most enduring conservative myths is that of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth, rural-dwelling American who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, wrestles a steer before breakfast, and builds his own house out of patriotism and chewing tobacco because, by god, they sure do love America! If that were ever true, it hasn’t been for a while. These days, rural America is largely dependent on the federal government it claims to hate. In fact, far from self-reliant, rural America is subsidized by blue states. And it’s not even close.

Kos discussed several of the government programs rural areas depend on because so many young people have fled to the cities over the decades. The big ones are, of course, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Government benefits are a good thing, so none of this is inherently bad, per se. But it does mean those rural areas are dependent on the very social safety net that Republicans are gleefully hacking apart with their cuts on Medicaid, food assistance, and the like. They’re also poorer than expensive urban regions, so they rely more on federal food assistance to eat. But hey, that’s what these voters asked for. Rural areas lean heavily Republican, and farming-dependent counties voted for Trump at an eye-popping average of 78%.

George B. Sánchez-Tello, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported on ICE and Border Patrol agents at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The park is in an area where a lot of people from Central and South America live and it has a lively scene. The agents thought the could sweep through the park and easily make their quota for the day. But the park was nearly silent.

The previous day, warnings appeared — single sheets of paper taped to light poles, trees and fences around the park — warning locals to stay away. They cited rumors of possible ICE raids at MacArthur Park. Word also spread on Instagram, as well as other social media apps such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp.

The park wasn’t completely empty. Local Spanish-language television crews were ready to film. Photographers from various newspapers were there. Dozens of organizers from anti-ICE rapid response teams and legal observers there there too, some using megaphones to warn people to stay away and to tell people their rights. By the time the agents had completed their sweep across the park they were surrounded by hundreds of people. Some yelled, “ICE out of L.A!” Many recorded the confrontation on their phone, livestreaming straight to social media. The agents retreated without making any arrests. Normal life in the park resumed. Signs had been taped to poles in the park:

Military Members Is this what you signed up for? Will you feel proud about what you’re being ordered to do when you look back on it? If you have concerns about mobilizing against civilians, you’re not alone. You have options. You have rights.

Lisa Needhan of Kos discussed the legal challenge to the nasty guy’s executive order banning birthright citizenship when parents are undocumented. The Supreme Court had ruled that lower courts (I think there were three of them) could not place a nationwide injunction against the EO without a class action suit. The previous injunctions were not based on class action cases. So the ACLU filed a class action case, covering the nation. And Federal District Judge Joseph Laplante quickly certified the case as one for a class of plaintiffs and issued a nationwide injunction. Isn’t that what the Supremes told him to do? Well, certifying a case as covering a nationwide class has rules that must be scrupulously followed. These rules take time. And Laplante couldn’t possibly have followed all the rules so scrupulously in so little time. Of course, it was Justice Alito that wagged that finger.

Getting nationwide relief this way is complicated, but it’s necessary. The plaintiffs are fighting the Trump administration, but lower court judges have also found themselves locked in a battle with a lawless Supreme Court, which essentially decided that lower courts are enemies who must be stopped from thwarting Trump. But the lower courts are the ones that are following the rule of law. Someone’s got to.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote the nasty guy ranted on Truth Social that his base should not be criticizing AG Pam Bondi about the Jeffrey Epstein case. One reason is, contrary to claims the files don’t exist, the nasty guy claimed they were “written” by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So his base should not waste their time on Epstein, “somebody that nobody cares about.” That Truth Social post brought out something quite rare – many more negative responses than positive. The base was not pleased. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Heather Digby Parton of Salon:

The appointment of Patel and Bongino — as well as Bondi, who jumped into pursuing the scandal with both feet, promising far-right influencers that she was personally overseeing the investigation — made MAGA true believers believe they were about to get their hands on what Glenn Beck called “the Rosetta Stone of public trust.” These new appointees were the very ones who had been chasing this scandal for years, and they were now in a position to blow the lid off the whole thing. All those who had mocked the MAGA movement as kooks would soon be proven fools. The Justice Department’s memo was a slap in the face to the MAGA faithful. They were stunned. And when Trump rudely dismissed their concerns in a cabinet meeting and then admonished them on Truth Social in a long rant blaming former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, demanding that his followers focus on the scandals he wants them to focus on, the crushing betrayal was personal. Never before has a Trump post received such a massive negative response on his own platform. Even his most loyal influencers, including popular MAGA commentator Benny Johnson and Fox News, were hostile. Trump’s loyal base has taken all that heat for so long, defending Trump through everything, and now it appears their Dear Leader is just another deep state operative covering up the crimes of his accomplices — and possibly his own. They are confused and angry and inconsolable. Have they had a mass epiphany and collectively awakened to the fundamental dishonesty and corruption of the man they worshipped for the past ten years? It’s hard to believe.

bear83 of the Kos community reported the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim was destroyed by wildfire on Sunday. It was built in 1937. Dozens of other structures, including individual cabins, were also destroyed. The fire was started by lightning on July 4. It was initially managed as a controlled burn to clear away what could fuel a larger fire. But nine days later low humidity and strong winds and the fire was no longer under control. bear83 wrote that DOGE and the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, terminated a lot of jobs, including people who would have helped prevent and fight wildfires. The nasty guy had said the Los Angeles fires wouldn’t have been so bad if communities would clear the combustible undergrowth. Which the crew at the North Rim were trying to do with perhaps not enough staff to do it safely. The North Rim website has a photo gallery of before. I was at the North Rim as part of a family vacation decades ago. We stayed at the campground near the lodge, though I’m sure we went past it to peer down into the canyon. On the long drive from the main road a large deer jumped onto the road and paused. We had to brake quickly and did not hit it. I’ve been to the South Rim a couple times, much more recently, though still decades ago. The Grand Canyon is a beautiful and impressive place. In Wednesday’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted a tweet by Matthew Cappucci, commenting on a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene. First Greene:

I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense. I have been researching weather.

She’s the one claiming that Democrats can control the weather and she’s referring to jet contrails that Robert Kennedy Jr. is calling chemtrails, the release of chemicals into the atmosphere to do dastardly things. Cappucci’s response:

It’s not a political statement for me as a Harvard-degreed atmospheric scientist to say that elected representative Marjorie Taylor Green doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. She’d be equally qualified to fly a Boeing-737, practice nuclear medicine or train zebras.

Dworkin quoted Jack Jenkins and Smietana of Religion News Service discussing the recent IRS announcement that churches can endorse political candidates from the pulpit. This is in response to a lawsuit brought by two Texas churches and religious broadcasters.

Americans — including religious Americans — generally take a dim view of political endorsements in the pulpit. According to an analysis of 2023 polling provided to RNS by the Public Religion Research Institute, majorities of all major religious groups oppose or strongly oppose allowing churches and places of worship to endorse political candidates while retaining their tax-exempt status. That includes white evangelicals (62%) as well as Black Protestants (59%), white mainline or nonevangelical Protestants (77%), white Catholics (79%), Hispanic Catholics (78%), Hispanic Protestants (72%) and Jewish Americans (77%). Researchers noted opposition to the idea among white evangelicals remains virtually unchanged since 2017, when they last polled on the topic. There was one outlier, however: People labeled by PRRI as “adherents” to Christian nationalism — people who agree with statements such as “the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation” — were statistically more likely (45%) to support endorsements from the pulpit, with only a narrow majority (51%) opposed.

Dworkin added that pastors are wary of splitting their congregations so tend to avoid blatant politics. In the comments is a cartoon by Bill Bramhall. It shows a job interview and behind the boss is a sign saying, “Disclosure: The content of this interview will be used to build a chatbot we will hire instead of you.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted John Timmer of Ars Technica:

From a distance, the gathering looked like a standard poster session at an academic conference, with researchers standing next to large displays of the work they were doing. Except in this case, it was taking place in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, and the researchers were describing work that they weren’t doing. Called "The things we’ll never know," the event was meant to highlight the work of researchers whose grants had been canceled by the Trump administration. ... Many of the grants were focused on STEM education, and it's extremely difficult to imagine that people will be better off without the work happening.

In Friday’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet from Echelon Insights:

Where do most American voters fall on the political compass? Using nine questions on cultural issues and nine questions on economic issues, we mapped voters onto a political compass.

This is the start of a thread on X I don’t have access to. However, here’s the summary of the results:

Liberals, both economic and social: 43% Populist, economically liberal and socially conservative: 22% Conservative, both economic and socially conservative: 31% Libertarian, economically conservative and socially liberal: 5%

Dworkin added:

This is why Democrats on occasion (and warily) try to recruit populists. Conservatives won’t play and libertarians are too few. But the name of the game is a majority.

Aaron Astor tweeted:

Ever wonder why the CDC is based in Atlanta? The reason: its forerunner was the WWII-era Office of Malaria Control, based in Atlanta to fight malaria around rapidly growing US military communities in the South.

In the comments Zoli Osaze posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz showing an ICE agent confronting a farm worker holding a box of produce on his head.

Agent: Keep your hands up! Worker: Don’t worry, they’re busy holding up your economy.