Bowling Alone and White Identity

To expand on the last paragraph of my post yesterday, which read: "Another note--it seems to me in the 1950's older people had firmer identities--they were Catholics or Methodists, union or management, Italian or Slovak.  Those identities have faded now, leaving only whiteness and politics."

Putnam's "Bowling Alone" and other books have noted the decline of organizations.  When I was growing up, one's identity was Methodist, Catholic, Orthodox, etc., which was reinforced by organizations associated with the church--Knights of Columbus.  For many whose parents or grandparents had immigrated to the US in the last of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, their identity was hyphenated: Italian-American, Irish-American etc. (I was German-American but the two world wars essentially suppressed the German-American identity.) For others unions provided an identity--coal miner, steel worker, autoworker, longshoreman, etc.  If you weren't in a union, likely your employer was an identity, as IBM and EJ were identities in my area. And still others had an identity based on military service and participation in American Legion or VFW. 

Compare that with today: unions are in decline, as are the mainline churches. Veterans organizations are diffused and losing membership.  Ethnicity has declined as the passage of time means people never knew their immigrant ancestors.

What we have now is the general "white identity", education, class, and the general "(white) evangelical" religion.

The Past and White Identity

Here's an Atlantic article discussing "white identity".  Graham is interviewing a social scientist who says:

I think the term white identity politics often conjures up this image of a working-class white man who maybe lost his manufacturing job and feels he’s being left behind. There’s not a lot of evidence that such a person is the typical white identifier. People high on white identity tend to be older [emphasis added] and without college degrees. Women are actually slightly more likely to identify as white than men. And white identifiers are not exclusively found among those in the working class. White identifiers have similar incomes, are no less likely to be unemployed, and are just as likely to own their own home as whites who do not have a strong sense of racial identity.

She goes on to distinguish between having a positive attitude towards one's racial identity and a negative attitude towards other racial/ethnic groups (i.e. prejudice).  By attacking immigrants, Trump attracts both the prejudiced and the white identity groups, the latter which dislikes the idea of being in the minority.

Why would white identity people tend to be older?  One theory would be they learned the attitude at their mother's knee, and carried it forward through life, in contrast to younger people who didn't learn such feelings in youth.  Might be something to that, but I prefer another theory.

My guess is that as people get older they tend to try to understand their life.  When you're young, you're too busy living to have much time for navel grazing,but when you're in your 60's and beyond you've got the time, and at least in my case the motivation to make sense of things.  That's one basis for my theory.  The other basis is the truism that old people view the past through rose-colored glasses.  The way things were when we were young seems still the natural order of things. Changes since one's youth seem "newfangled", unnatural, wrong, or at least grating.  (The last popular music I really liked and listened to was the Beatles.)

Combine the two: the force of nostalgia and the drive to understand and you have a formula for white identity.

I'd note I don't remember much "white identity" back in the 1950's, at least not identity that was separate from prejudice. 

Another note--it seems to me in the 1950's older people had firmer identities--they were Catholics or Methodists, union or management, Italian or Slovak.  Those identities have faded now, leaving only whiteness and politics.

The Role of Power in Society

The older I get the more attention I give to the role of power in society. It seems to me to play a role throughout society, a role not usually analyzed as such.  What's important when one entity has power is that there is some countervailing force in society.  Lacking that, you have injustice.

That's why unions were so important as counter balances to the big industrial powers in the 1950's and 60's.  Today we have the big tech firms, the Microsofts, Amazons, Netflixes, Googles, etc., and we're still struggling to develop institutions of some sort to check their power.

A Gripe About Dell

The 1 year warranty on my Dell desktop is expiring, so I was looking into an extension.  That caused me to become very unhappy with Dell:

• when I went to their website, I was able to find an extension for about $42 a year.  The page promised a 15 percent discount for ordering on line, although there was a phone number to extend by phone.
• the page did not offer any obvious link to a description of what was or was not included in the warranty.
• when I added it to my shopping cart and tried to check out I couldn't.  On separate days I got the message that the page was no longer available.  One day I got a message saying the code was wrong--something about the length of the HTTPS header exceeding 8140 bytes.
• there was no apparent way to contact Dell about the website problem.
• when I called the support line, I explained my problem to four separate people (each one very nice, and the first three transferring me to someone they thought could help)
• the last person got me so mad that I forget what his explanation was--IIRC he seemed to be saying the problem was known. Although the web page said my warranty expired on the 12th, he claimed it was actually the 11th.  
• after a day to cool off, I called the number on the web page.  The woman attempted to explain the elements of the warranty and gave me a price of $350+ for 3 years extension.  I asked for something in writing, which she promptly sent to me.
• the Dell explanation of its warranty service was long and legalistic.  I understand why--trying to cover all legalities in all the states, but what I really wanted was something more sales-oriented, a chart showing the different options (the guy from yesterday seemed to say there were different levels of support) and their cost.

Bottom line:  while the people were polite and did their best, I conclude Dell makes them work within a flawed system, which will cause me to think seriously about a different vendor for my next desktop.  Meanwhile, I'll take my chances with no warranty--if I need help, which I usually don't, I'll pay for support for that episode.

What Dems Are Stupid About

Politico has this:

THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF IDEAS in this Democratic primary. But there is almost no discussion by the two dozen candidates running for president about how they would get a Republican Senate to pass their policies. (Saying you’d end the filibuster doesn’t count, since presidents don’t control Senate rules.)

What I Learned Today: New Sport

Apparently this is a new sport, was on channel 4 when I turned on the TV, now advertised on Twitter.

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for 🏁🔥
Watch extended coverage of the 2019 DRL @Allianz World Championship season premiere right here on Twitter LIVE.
Join the conversation by tweeting the hashtag #DroneRacingLive https://t.co/Mbq5nVZvGR

— Drone Racing League (@DroneRaceLeague) August 9, 2019

Public Service Announcement

Check your surge protectors.  I didn't and lost a TV and receiver.

The Size of "Small Farms"

NFU comments on the Family Farmer Relief Act.

And a new Congressman tweets about it:

Read more here about the bipartisan Family Farmer Relief Act which passed the Senate last week. I join @NFUDC in urging the President to sign this legislation as soon as possible to bring relief to small farms and allow more farmers to stay in business. ⬇️ https://t.co/In7iAzGu3X

— Congressman Antonio Delgado (@repdelgado) August 5, 2019

What does it do?

Raise the debt limit for Chapter 12 filing from $4 million to $10 million.

When big farms have thousands of cows and thousands of acres, I guess $10 million is "small", but it's hard for an old man to get his arms around.

Ex-Politician Speaks Truth? Mulvaney on Moves

Mulvaney is Trump's acting everything, currently chief of staff.  This Govexec article reports on his recent speech in his native South Carolina, discussing USDA's move of ERS and NIFA offices from DC to Kansas City.

“Now, it’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker,” he said. “I know that because a lot of them work for me. And I’ve tried. And you can’t do it. But simply saying to the people, you know what, we’re going to take you outside the bubble, outside the Beltway, outside this liberal haven and move you out into the real part of the country, and they quit. What a wonderful way to streamline government and do what we haven’t been able to do for a long time.” 

Meanwhile OIG says provisions in the appropriations law prevents USDA from spending money on the move.  USDA says the provisions are unconstitutional:

In an OGC opinion prepared to respond to the IG’s draft conclusions, USDA says the “committee approval” provisions in the omnibus act are unconstitutional.
“The department states that Supreme Court, Office of Legal Counsel, and Government Accountability Office (GAO) precedents support their position,” the IG said. “The department provided advance notification to the committees before obligating funds for office reorganizations and relocations to the extent they involve a reprogramming or the use of the identified interagency agreement or transfer authorities. The department states that it is not required to obtain committee approval of such actions.”


But the inspector general said that position conflicts with previous positions taken in litigation by USDA. “The department needs to communicate, in writing, this change of interpretation to USDA leaders at the sub-cabinet and agency levels.”

Post on Dairy Farm

The WaPost has an article on the death of a dairy farm. It's more than an article:

One more year on the farm

A visual narrative of one family’s fight to save their land

Photos and video by Ricky Carioti | Text by Annie Gowen Aug. 3, 2019

After seeing a number of stories on the plight of dairy farms I'm frankly becoming numb to the plight of the families.   So my reaction to this is: flat flat land.