As this piece in the Washington Post notes, J. D. Vance is really all you need to know about modern conservatives. (That's a gift link, or it should be.)
I remember when Rod Dreher and the rest of the "deep thinkers" of the conservative pack discovered Vance's ridiculous book. They were so happy they were peeing themselves. Why? Not because the book tells the truth about people in Appalachia. It doesn't -- there have been by now literally dozens of take-downs of Vance's nonsense.
These refutations of Vance's book were, of course, dismissed or ignored by the Right. Of course they were. Our current crop of conservatives could not possibly care less about the truth, or evidence, or facts. What they like is anything that "feels" right to them. And by "feels right" they mean anything that justifies their bigotry; or anything that justifies the status quo.
To be clear, Vance doesn't believe anything he's saying anymore than Trump believes the nonsense he spews. They both wants applause and fame, and don't care what they do to get it. Today's conservatives want to feel vindicated, and don't care what lies they have to swallow to get that feeling.
True fact: More than once when I have provided evidence to a conservative that a given piece of information is false, or untrue, they have responded, "I don't care." That's the crux of it. They don't care what is true. They care that they are being affirmed.
Why is this a danger? Well, that "doesn't care what he does to get it" bit. Neither Trump nor Vance is a true believer. But they will do whatever they need to do to get that applause, that fame, those $$$. Today's conservatives will do whatever needs to be done to get that affirmation, so that they can continue to believe in the lies* that build their world.
It's practically the American way, so I don't know why we're surprised. But as Matt Bai notes in his opinion piece
History tells us that repressive movements enabled by cowards and hucksters are just as bad, if not worse, than those perpetrated by the legitimately hateful. You can wreck a country with cosplaying careerists just as easily as you can with bloodthirsty revolutionaries.
That's the sad truth.
*This is why Rod Dreher's book, Live Not by Lies, is so ridiculous. Every "truth" he lives by is a lie.
I have thought he was a complete phoney ever since learning he went to Ivy Biglaw. I much prefer Elizabeth Catte's book, "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia." She actually still lives here. I also had her come talk to my college bioethics class about Pure America once- a terrifying book for anyone who's not part of the white Christian evangelical male in-group.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check Catte's book out. I had to have a look at Vance's book (though I couldn't make it all the way through) because my students kept being given it by conservative relatives hoping to counteract the liberal brainwashing they were getting from people like me.
ReplyDelete(If I could brainwash students, they'd all be doing the reading and turning their papers in on time.)