A satisfying read

One of the most puzzling questions about modern-day America for me is why the lower classes—those just barely scraping by—have come to identify themselves as Republicans, voting time and again against their own interests. Why are they convinced it’s noble to send their children off to a war to defend oil companies, do without access to healthcare, give tax breaks to billionaires and watch their meager jobs be outsourced by big corporations? It’s self-destruction, plain and simple, but why?

Yesterday while at my local Barnes & Noble, a book practically jumped off the shelf into my hands. Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War is so good I started reading it the minute I got home, and finished it up by this morning. (Most books I don’t even finish.)

This book offers some of the clearest insights into the way these people think and behave I’ve ever come across. (What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America was a good start, but this book is eminently more readable and insightful.)

Most importantly, the book shows how the Democratic party has alienated its natural constituency, and offers some ideas for how the party might reclaim it. If I didn’t think the Democratic party had already thrown in with the corporate interests, I’d be doing my part to reach out to my Scotch-Irish bretheren to educate them. I’d put on a plaid shirt and go to a fundamentalist church next Sunday and ask some uncomfortable questions.

But it’s probably too late anyway; America is too far down the drain.

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