When it comes to shitholes, many are hypocrites

By Rubashov

Shitholes... seems like there are a lot of them. 

And how they are defined depends on one's perspective.

When we go to a diner and the soup has a fly in it, the eggs are adorned with someone's hair, the table top is greasy, and we can smell the restrooms (another cozy euphemism, eh?) we say that "we'll never go back to that shithole."

But for others, the bar is set much, much higher.

Like Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, who once said of Binghamton, New York, and its environs:  "This place is kind of a shithole... There was nothing that I passed (on the three-hour ride from New York City) that I couldn’t milk."

We get it.  For some Americans, the fly-over portion of America is, to use Jon Stewart's phrase, "a kind of shithole."

In the aftermath of President Donald Trump's alleged remarks about a few Third World nations, some have attempted to define it as "racist" -- the most overused moniker in use today.  So much today is called "racist" that the word has lost its punch, much in the way the word f*ck has (though still blocked by some Internet filters). 

But can we actually define the term "shithole" in any meaningful way?

Actor James Woods made this attempt:  "Rule of thumb: if the water where you live is not potable because local engineers can’t somehow separate well water from sewage water, you live in a #shithole country."

Fair enough.

Writer Scott St. Clair suggested that we turn our attentions to the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics and its studies of each country's level of "open defecation" to determine which are "shitholes" and which are simply borderline.  Does a high level of shitting in the street define one's nation as a "shithole"? 

Many people don't like the idea of characterizing a whole nation that way.  They say that you can't paint with a broad brush like that.  But many of these same people are quick to claim that all white Americans have "privilege" -- ignoring the fact that there are more of them in poverty than any other "group."  Many of these people assume that all white Americans have ancestors who owned slaves (percentage wise, it is far more likely that a black American had an ancestor who owned a slave or was involved in the slave trade).  Black Lives Matter's great misstep was to ignore all those "sovereign citizen" videos on YouTube and to assume that their white fellow citizens were racists instead of fellow sufferers (albeit, for many, to a lesser degree) of a vastly empowered and increasingly militarized regime of policing. 

BLM could have won outright had it not taken a "minority" position.  But when one considers that Al Sharpton and Chris Christie use the same establishment public relations firm, maybe it has gone the way it was supposed to go.  After all, working class black Americans and working class white Americans haven't been at each others' throats like this for decades... while the one percenters are getting richer and richer off a booming stock market.  Go figure.

The media is constantly programming Americans to paint groups with a broad brush.  The entertainment industry's portrayal of black Americans are the imaginings of suburban Gen-X writers and is decades off.  So too are its ideas about the South -- while its portrayal of working class America, particularly of those who reside in mobile homes... well, talk about one's perception of what a "shithole" is -- the suburban trailer park must jump in the minds of America's media.

It seems to us that two kinds of people make a nation a "shithole" -- that nation's politicians and the world media.  Rich celebrities like Bono -- a world class tax-avoidance artist -- reap public relations windfalls from advocating for the Third World, sending working class taxpayers' money into the hands of a corrupt political class, who invests it in places like Switzerland.  When anyone notices this, they are called "racist" by the media -- who run heart-tugging appeals that picture suffering children, covered in flies, without proper drinking water.  America's taxpayers see all this media and say, "What a shithole!  We need to help those people!"  The people who live there say, "This place is home, but the politicians have turned it into a shithole and there is no getting rid of them, so we're out of here."  You can't blame them.

Yes, you can't blame them, because they are no different than most Americans in wanting to escape the "shithole" and move on.  In America, the grass is always greener somewhere else.  We are a people on the move.  That's not how is used to be.  A few generations ago, we stayed in one place for so many generations, we developed regional --even neighborhood -- accents.  Once upon a time, there were people in a section of Philadelphia who talked like Rocky did.  Now it is an out-of-date stereotype on SNL. 

That's why so many of our most educated and well-to-do fellow citizens take a relaxed view of illegal immigration.  Lacking loyalty to a place -- leaving it for greener pastures instead of staying to make it better -- is a way of life for many Americans.  And when there is something they don't like, they move.  No wonder they so readily understand when others abandon somewhere, leave it to those who would despoil it, to come here.  The working class and the poor, they can't move as easily and are often left with no choice but to improve their community in order to improve their circumstance.  Of course, they look upon illegal immigrants coming into their community differently than do the rich and mobile.  They see increased competition for jobs, increased taxation to support expanding social services, increased pressure on remaining green space, the potential disruption of established folkways, and the loss of property value (which, for many, could lead to them to ending their days in a substandard nursing home, laying in their own piss).

We might expect the better-off and well-educated in places like Haiti to stay put and help their nation out of its troubles -- but how many rich people stayed in Detroit, Michigan, to help the town that raised them get out of its troubles?  No way!  It is easier to tear the shithole down, street by street.  In the end, there will just be two groups left in Haiti -- the political class stealing the international money that media coverage and the western elites bring them -- and the poor who will be kept poor so that those appeals and the money keeps coming.  Who is to blame the more adventurous of poor Haitians who attempt to follow their middle-class to places like France and the United States?  And you can say just about the same thing for Detroit.

If the nation's moving companies are to be believed, New Jersey is one of America's main shitholes.  Lots of people are moving out of New Jersey because of the tax and regulatory policies imposed on them by the political class here.  Not that the political class itself stays.  Rich guys like former Speaker Joe Roberts, Democrat of Camden, get out of this over-taxed shithole the moment they leave office and move to Republican-run states, like Florida. 

Of course, there are a lot of people who come from a whole lot worse shitholes and who would love to get to New Jersey.  So maybe, in the end, what is or isn't a "shithole" is a matter of where you are?

We thought of this when reading a Facebook post by a Republican candidate -- a fellow named John McCann -- who repeated the silly mantra:  "All are welcome."  Yeah, yeah, but this candidate has moved from state to state throughout his life.  He's a lawyer, his wife is a doctor, and they are plenty rich to say "enough of this shithole" if too many people he ends up not wanting to live near take him at his word.  Yep, "all are welcome" until too many of those "open defecators" take advantage of your front lawn, and then... "we're rich honey, so we can move to someplace better."  Only the poor and the working class who can't move get screwed by the silly virtue-signaling of elites like this guy.

Speaking of which, we came across a breathless article on a Trenton-based political website, written by a former official of the administration of Governor Christine Todd Whitman.  This fellow was demanding that every Republican publicly break with President Trump by calling him bad names over his alleged "shithole" comment.  He really had his knickers in an uproar over it.

Too bad that he never had anything public to say about all the sexual abuse and skirt-chasing (by both males and females) that went on during the Whitman administration.  We distinctly recall one high-ranking official chasing after her female assistant with a cigar.  Then there was the high-ranking legislator whose staff made sure that females were accompanied whenever they ventured into his lair, as is done during physical examinations in a doctor's office.  Or another high-ranking legislator who enjoyed luring the female members of his staff into attending what can only be called "sex" parties.  Oh, it goes on and on, and it is all far worse than saying the word "shithole."

Look, for better or worse, Donald Trump is a performance artist.  Always has been.  Like Jon Stewart, he practices what can be called a transgressive art form.  He engages his audience by getting a rise out of us.  By the time his presidency is over, he will probably be running through George Carlin's list of "words you can't say" at the start of his press conferences.  But hey, he is the elected President of the United States and will be so for the next three years unless there is an illegal coup of some kind.  By-the-way, such an act would make the United States of America... officially... a shithole -- politically, if not materially.

Always remind yourselves -- you holier-than-thou pricks in the political and media and corporate establishments -- that it didn't need to be this way.  The Democrat Party could have run an honest primary process.  You didn't all need to conspire to give us the "President" you wanted us to have.  You fixed the Democrat Party primary process but couldn't fix the national election.  So here we are.  Stop complaining about it.

Al Doblin is speaking from "The Bubble"

Alfred P. Doblin is the Editorial Editor of the Record of Bergen and the surrounding counties.  His writing is strong, with few of the over-the-top emotions that are often on display over at the Star-Ledger.  He appears to try for balance, for persuasion instead of name-calling.      

But we fear he is trapped, as so many others are trapped, in a perception that is based more on geography and on class than on ideology or party identity. 

In his recent column -- "GOP at the crossroads" -- Mr. Doblin falls back on the tired values of an old religion.  Using terms like "mainstream right... extreme right... hard-line conservatives... social issues," we feel that he misses the lessons of the 2016 presidential election.

And who are the people Mr. Doblin turns to in his column to illuminate his argument?  All members of the ruling class:  former Governor Christie Whitman, global lobbyist Mike DuHaime, and Senator Kevin O'Toole Esq.

From them we get the same, tired prescriptions we get after every presidential election -- win or lose:  “(Republicans) can no longer be defined both statewide and nationally as the older white man’s party and expect to succeed (even though they just did)... (Republicans) have to do a lot more to attract females, to attract African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics. We have to be far more diverse than we have in the past.” 

The perspective of these people is one of class.  They are far, far more richer and more prosperous than the average American or the average Republican. When they speak of diversity it is the false diversity of gender, color, ethnicity, or sexual identity.  What is studiously ignored is class. 

In his book, White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making, Duke University's Nick Carnes points out that while upwards of 65 percent of citizens are "working class" and 54 percent are employed in a blue-collar occupation, just 2 percent of the members of Congress and 3 percent of state legislators held blue-collar jobs at the time of their election.  How about some diversity?

Donald Trump's campaign saw through the false political divide of Democrat and Republican to the vast economic and social divide that is the truer measure of America today.  Authors as diverse as George Packer of the New Yorker (The  Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America) to Charles Murray (Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010) to Chris Hedges (Days of Destruction Days of Revolt) to David Brooks (BoBos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There) have written about this, with Brooks actually employing Donald Trump as an example of what the "new upper class" finds unfashionable.  In a prescient piece of writing, Ralph Nader gave an outline of what was coming when his book (Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State) was released in the summer of 2014.

On election night, MSNBC's Chris Matthews came closest to the mark, with this surprising exchange:

Of course, the ruling class will try to fit what happened back into the perception that they are most comfortable with -- and so we get the familiar postscripts about "old white men" and "diversity" of the surface variety.  It is an exercise in virtue signaling, whereby one member of the ruling class assures his "goodness" to another.

White collar America spends its time concerned about issues like the availability of condoms to Ivy Leaguers.  Such concerns are the marks of privilege. Blue collar America, working class America, worries about foreclosure, about housing, about having a job, about getting out of debt, about having enough to give their children the life that they've enjoyed.  With the greatest respect to Christie Whitman and Mike DuHaime and Kevin O'Toole, they don't have those problems.  So relieved of such pressing concerns, they can float above the mass and think sweet thoughts, reaffirming their "goodness" to one another.

The lack of shared experience places much of our ruling class, and those who aspire to it, into a kind of "bubble" -- secure and apart from the mass. Senator O'Toole's statement to Editor Doblin that what he regretted most was not voting for same-sex marriage is a symptom of that "bubble."  The Senator is a wise and judicious man and surely, if he thought about it a bit, he would have said that his greatest regret was not being able to cut property taxes down to a sane level.  For it is property taxes, a major driver of foreclosure and of homelessness, that is the greatest concern to the greatest many.

The idea that some Americans exist in "bubble" communities that vastly outstrip neighboring zip codes in status, wealth, cultural influence, and corporate/political power is not new.  Although now it seems to be going mainstream, filtering into "pop" culture.  Consider this recent skit from Saturday Night Live:

Wealthy professionals, like Al Doblin, should be aware of their class bias.  As a journalist, great care should be taken to seek out and include the opinions of genuine members of the working class for balance -- and not just members of the ruling class who happen to be labeled "diverse" for whatever reason

Is Sen. Beck the new Christie Whitman?

Senator Jennifer Beck is a strident social liberal, out of step with the Republican Party platform, but very much in-step with the views expressed by former Governor Christine Todd Whitman.  Whitman, the author of It's My Party Too! (a liberal tract that urges the Republican Party to become more like the Democrats), "presented" her policies as fiscally conservative and "anti-tax".  Off course, those of us who were there remember just how unsound and un-conservative her policies turned out to be -- and how they caused a property tax explosion. 

These days, Senator Beck appears to be following the Whitman playbook on more than just the social issues.  Like Whitman before her, Beck is presenting a campaign talking point as a policy prescription.  The term "anti-tax" is a useful blurb during a political campaign, but how anti-tax is the slogan "anti-tax" if it prevents cuts in the tax on retirement income and the phase out of the estate tax?  How anti-tax is the claim "anti-tax" if it causes property taxes to rise?

The controversy revolves around how to fund the bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund (TTF).  Without money from the fund, the repair and maintenance of the state's roads and bridges will grind to a halt.  On this, Senator Beck is in danger of becoming a casualty of the "inside-the-box" thinking of her leadership.  It was they who presented the option of a user tax on gasoline without context.  This is like asking voters if they "support or oppose war" and then using the result to make "war" some political "third rail."  Of course voters will always claim to "oppose war" -- until it is placed in the context of a December 7th or September 11th.  Then those numbers change in a hurry.

This is illustrated by the data from a poll conducted last week in Monmouth County by a highly respected, national survey research firm.  Look at what happens when an increase in the user tax on gasoline is placed in context with a tax cut on retirement income:

T15. A proposed increase in the state gas tax would cost the average driver an extra 200 dollars each year. Eliminating the state tax on retirement income would save the average retiree more than twelve hundred dollars each year. Knowing this information, would you support or oppose a proposal that would increase the state gas tax and eliminate the state tax on retirement income at the same time?

Total Support .......................................................... 74%

Total Oppose .......................................................... 14%

Strongly Support ...................................................... 58%

Somewhat Support .................................................. 16%

Strongly Oppose ..................................................... 12%

Somewhat Oppose .................................................... 2%

Unsure, No Opinion ............................................... 12%

The Tax Foundation -- the granddaddy of conservative think tanks (founded in 1937) -- is a proponent of user fees/taxes simply because it is the fairest way to impose a tax.   Americans innately understand the fairness of paying your own way and that there is no free ride.  But that's the biggest problem we have with Senator Beck's plan to fund the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) -- it makes New Jersey residents subsidize out-of-state drivers for the use of our roads and bridges.  And we're talking billions here -- billions of dollars in taxes that we could be collecting from out-of-state drivers to maintain and repair our roads and bridges but that instead we will make New Jersey residents pay. 

See, here's the FACT that you just can't get around:  The ONLY way to make out-of-state drivers pay their fair share is through a user tax on gasoline.  That's it.

And the voters who live in Senator Beck's Monmouth County agree.  Here's what they told that polling company last week: 

T12. Approximately one third of gas tax revenues in New Jersey is paid by out-of-state travelers, while 100% of property taxes are paid by New Jersey residents. Knowing this information, which of the following do you think is the best option to pay for improvements to roads and bridges, an increase in the state gas tax or an increase in property taxes? 

Gas tax .................................................................... 81%

Property tax ............................................................... 3%

Unsure or No Opinion ............................................ 16%

That is a pretty darn unambiguous finding.

We've been looking at the whole of Senator Beck's plan to address the TTF and how to fund road and bridge maintenance and repair.  There are lots of very optimistic assumptions and unanswered questions.  Here are just a few of the things Senator Beck could maybe help us understand better:

(1) New Jersey is a chronically low-growth state and its current tax structure makes it just about the worst place in America to start a business.  Senator Beck's plan does nothing to address the current tax structure, the damage done by the tax on retirement income and the estate tax.  There are no tax cuts in her plan, no attempt is made to address the out-migration of income and capital.

(2) And yet the Senator's plan is entirely reliant on economic growth and it will fail if there is an economic downturn.  Her estimate of 3.15 percent growth is more than double the current year revenue growth of 1.5 percent.

(3) Senator Beck's plan relies on timely savings from the mergers of departments and agencies (remember that the TTF is broke NOW) but fails to mention possible contractual hurdles and bond covenant issues.

(4) Her plan assumes $1.4 billion in health plan savings that have been recommended but not acted upon by the Legislature.

(5) And then there are the freezes:  K to 12 school aid is frozen, municipal aid is frozen, property tax relief is frozen, tuition aid grants are frozen, NJ Stars is frozen, student financial assistance is frozen, higher education funding is frozen, hospital funding is frozen, the State Police is frozen, and the Clean Energy Fund is raided.

Does anyone believe that this is the basis for a bi-partisan plan?  And it will have to be bi-partisan in order to get through the Democrat-controlled Legislature.  So what that leaves is politics and pre-campaign posturing.  That has merit for its own sake. . . but it won't maintain any roads or repair any bridges.

Of Rat Finks and Know-Nothings

In Sunday's Bergen Record, columnist Charles Stile wrote touchingly about how the patricians of an earlier incarnation of the GOP used to put down internal dissent.  Yes indeed, that class of folks well described in Tad Friend's memoir, Friendly Money, who in politics are epitomized by former Governor Christie Todd Whitman, certainly did dominate the Republican Party before the likes of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich came along.  They also lost pretty consistently and were responsible for that long dry spell without power in Congress. 

The decline of the GOP's dominance by its patrician class tracks what Friend, a staff writer at the New Yorker, calls "the last days of WASP splendor."  And while we can understand how Stile may long for those days of certainty -- for there is a kind of comfort in knowing who is who and where you stand in relation  -- we think that such a class system, one where the leadership is based on inherited status and wealth, ultimately fails.  In fact, one of the great concerns about this presidential cycle is that the role of unlimited money has led to a new order based on such a system -- where family name (Bush, Clinton) is half the battle.

It's an old debate here in America:  Should a Republic have an aristocracy and, if so, what is the selection process?

Writing in the Spring edition of the Hedgehog Review, the University of Virginia's quarterly on culture, Johann Neem makes a few points about presidential candidate Donald Trump, the voters he has energized, and the 19th century political party they are sometimes compared with.  Neem is Professor of History at Western Washington University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture of the University of Virginia. 

In contrast to Stile, Neem makes the case for some serious soul-searching to understand how the GOP -- and the country -- got to where the Trump candidacy "dismissed initially as a joke" became the phenomenon it is.  Neem makes some points worth considering:

"To many Americans facing a changing world and fearing that globalization is depriving them of a fair shot at the good life, not to mention basic security, Trump's promise to do something makes him stand apart from a political establishment, right and left, that seems clueless and adrift."

"The (anti-immigration) Know-Nothings displaced the Whigs as the Democrats' primary opposition in parts of the nation, and elected seventy-five representatives to Congress."

"As the historian Tyler Anbinder makes clear in his book, Nativisim and Slavery (1992), many supporters of the upstart party voted out of frustration and disgust with the political system.  As Trump would do 175 years later, the Know-Nothings promised to do something.  They appealed in particular to antislavery voters who felt that neither the Whigs or Democrats were willing to address what they considered America's most pressing problem."

"But if Know-Nothings focused on immigrants as the main cause of America's ills, they gained a broad following because they tackled problems and concerns that went well beyond the immigrant question.  In Massachusetts, Know-Nothing legislators who sought to encourage unity among Americans mandated racial integration in the same schools in which they had imposed Protestant Bibles.  They passed laws to protect people from creditors and, in Massachusetts, abolished imprisonment for debt and passed child labor legislation.  In Connecticut, they passed a law stating that ten hours was the de facto workday."

"Know-Nothings also pushed for greater regulation of banks, railroads, and other corporations.  Whether successfully or not,  Know-Nothings brought working people's concerns to the legislative floor.  They also sought to render government more accountable to voters by making more offices elective, increasing punishment for corruption, and promising to curb patronage."

"Know-Nothing legislators came through with their promise to back U.S. Senators who opposed slavery's expansion. . . In Massachusetts, Know-Nothing legislators passed resolutions calling for the restoration of the Missouri Compromise (to prevent slavery's expansion) and repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act."

In the presidential election of 1856, "most Know-Nothings sided with the new Republican party's candidate John C. Fremont because they considered the issue of slavery more pressing" than the issue of immigration.  Essentially, the Know-Nothings helped destroy the old Whig Party, so that a new Republican Party could emerge.

Neem ends with this salutary warning:

"To the extent that Trump's supporters represent a new Know-Nothing movement, the lesson is clear.  Globalization has resulted in significant cultural and economic changes that many Americans feel have been hurtful not only to themselves but also to the nation as a whole.  Those same voters feel betrayed by a political elite that seems, in their view, more committed to cosmopolitanism and the international order than to national self-interest. "

"The loss of jobs and even of whole industries, drug use, violent crime, the spread of terrorism, and the challenges of an increasingly diverse society -- all of these can be connected with some of the disruptive and dislocating effects of globalization.   Trump's brand of nativism shifts all the blame for these and other problems to people and nations beyond our borders.  But it would be wrong to see his supporters' attraction to such nativism as simple xenophobia, though of course it can easily become that.  Above all, Trump's supporters want someone who will do something, almost anything, about problems they think are growing worse."