Fat, dumb hicks

1967 Elcona Mobile Home by M. Thivierge. CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported.
Via Wikimedia Commons.

Word to the wise and not so wise: You should avoid pissing me off online.

[Not me]

"In both states [Alabama and Mississippi], the primary product is fat, dumb hicks, with substance abuse problems, who live in rusty single wides, and who hate everything and everyone."

[Me]

"Why is it bad to be fat? Why is it bad to live in a trailer? Why do you think people in these states have substance abuse problem[s]? And even if they [do], shouldn't we as a society be more compassionate toward those with addictions, especially since those addictions are often facilitated by poor or nonexistent medical care?

"Statistics might lend credence to your general observations about weight and substance abuse, but they can't explain away the need to insult people who may not have had your advantages (I'm assuming) in education, income, and technology.

"I also wonder, is it helpful to disparage great swaths of the population whom you might like to agree with you on social issues or political matters at some point? Or is there room for collaboration--or even just coexistence?

"I feel rage and spew vitriol toward the willfully ignorant as much as any liberal, but I don't think 'fat, dumb hicks' are the problem. I think it's more down to the willfully ignorant upper classes either not caring about the challenges faced by those 'fat, dumb hicks' or eagerly manipulating those 'fat, dumb hicks' into doing what keeps the upper classes happy.

"While 'fat, dumb hicks' have agency, let's not pretend the deck isn't [heavily] stacked against them [as it is, all poor people]. Let's not pretend that sitting back in our liberal cocoons and insulting people does either them or us any good."

***

Lordy.

The thing is, I get the sentiment, I feel the frustration, and I'm sure I've been as uncharitable as this poster to an article in The Washington Post that I read earlier today. Seeing people repeatedly vote against their own interests, watching people react to cheap patriotism, witnessing people toast and adore a treasonous Soviet asset, a mean-spirited jerk, a willfully ignorant, screw-the-little-guy president is maddening and enraging.

But it's not just the "fat, dumb hicks" who do these things, even though they're trotted out at every rally President Slimeball conducts (and then quickly leaves town without paying his bills, much as he's done his entire trash-strewn life). There are plenty of middle and upper class people who have done the same--and they influence or control the flow of money in my home country more than the "fat, dumb hicks."

How are we ever gonna fight the good fight if we turn against one another? How are we going to lift every one up by pushing down further the people we think are already beneath us, lower than the low, and deserve it for being born economically or culturally poor or poorly connected? How are we going to get people on our side--or, more appropriately, how are we going to get on their side--by constantly signaling through word and deed that they are not worthy or worthwhile? Why would anyone want to side with a liberal if you can only be a liberal on someone else's terms, not your own? I think we have to ask ourselves, is the point of all this to give the "fat, dumb hicks" agency--or is it just to make them bend to our will, just as conservatives have tried to do to the rest of us?

I think I know the answer to this last question, and it's not good. Maybe we should study hard and take the test again.